Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Loughlin Sullivan

Delaney Knopp

Auriel W

Blake Molmen

Dani Shahar

Luis Javier Campos nieto

This is the story of how one angry, naked, sneezing albino managed to terrorize the English countryside. To be quite honest, I expected a bit more from the people who fended off the Nazis for years. But Wells seemed to think his fellow countrymen would be a bit too inept to toss a sheet over this shivering bastard and punch him in the throat. Instead?This:Attention:1) There may be spoilers for this 100+ year old book in the review.2) Only comment if you have a WORKING sense of humor.3) Seriously. Read # 2 again before you correct my review.When I first started reading, I assumed that The Invisible Man would be about a guy who was slowly driven mad by this unusual condition.Nope.He was a world class douchebag long before embarking on his experiment to become see-through. Although, if I had to point out one major difference between his beginning vs. his end? Well, I'm guessing his dick &amp; balls hadn't permanently retreated into his body before he became the World's Meanest Nudist. Really, dude? Really? Winter is not kind to naked folks. As every Mad Scientist will tell you, you've got to plan ahead. Mother Nature will not bend to your nefarious whims! Turn on the Weather Channel next time, moron.So, Griffin (that's the Invisible Man's name) discovers a magic not magic formula that allows his molecules to have fewer surfaces for light to refract off, and if he combines that with electrocuting not electrocuting himself with some sort of a radio wave contraption, he will become invisible.Pseudo-science, FTW! He tested it out on a cat, and it sorta worked. Except for the cat's eyes. Don't worry, though. The cat is fine! Kidding it's totally dead.One thing I found interesting was that until his body absorbed food, it remained visible. Which led me to spend quite a bit of my afternoon thinking about whether or not you could see his poop moving through his intestines. And if it did remain visible, that meant his Kryptonite could quite literally be cheese! Think about it, people. You could track him if he's constipated!Ha! I'll bet those assholes at MENSA are totally rethinking that rejection letter now.Yeah, so all they had to do was get a big cauldron (or Fry-Daddy) bubbling with oil, and then cook up a shit ton of mozzarella sticks. If placed strategically around the village, they could have had Griffin backed up and praying for prunes in no time. Between the groaning and visibly distended intestines, it would have been Problem Solved within two days. BOOM!Ok, so Wells does his dead-level best to make invisibility seem like a curse, but the reality was this was an AWESOME power. He's fucking invisible!The only reason Griffin wasn't immediately the richest man in the kingdom was due to his a-hole personality. All he had to do was tell people about his amazing discovery! Instead, he shoots himself in the dick trying to keep it a secret. Sure, the people in that first hillbilly town might not have been receptive. At least, not at first, anyway...Witchcraft! Kill it with fire, Cletus!But show up at a Science Fair (or wherever smart people hang out), and he would have been carried off on his peers' weak &amp; nerdy shoulders!I mean, his buddy Kemp was thoroughly impressed...until he started voluntarily boasting about his somewhat ill-thought-out crimes, and revealing his idiotic plans for world domination. Which, by the way, was the least well-planned villain plot...ever...in the history of badly planned villain plots! Terror? A reign of \
  terror\
? That's it?! What's the endgame, Griffin?Give me all your money! Or Terror!Make me king of the world! Or Terror!WTF, man? I think you're overestimating yourself a bit there...Sure, it's a bit spooky that you can't be seen, but, eventually, even the stupidest of villagers will band together &amp; figure out that you can be taken down by a dog with a good nose...or cheese!Which is pretty much what happens.Except for the part about cheese. If only they had consulted someone with my level of genius intellect, poor Adye would still be alive. Tsk.He stupidly tries to implement his Reign of Terror, and manages to get a few good shots in, but eventually becomes the recipient of the ass beating of a lifetime.Moral of the story: Even if you're a genius, don't be a dick.You will inevitably freeze your balls off, catch a nasty cold, and end up bludgeoned to death by people with half your intellect. Because all us stupid people know how to wield sticks, goddammit!Buddy Read  with Jeff, Delee, Evgeny, Tadiana, Stepheny, Will (be gentle it's his first time), Dan (he found a free copy!), Dan 2.0  (if he can remember his password), Alissa, Christopher, Steve, Jess, Licha, MIRIAM (because she can't quit us!), Jenna, (latecomer) Auntie J, Ginger &amp; Carmen (cutting it a little close there, Carmen!). Honorary Buddy-Reader: Karly *The Vampire Ninja &amp; Lumi...Lumin...Sparkly Monster*We gotta do this again, guys!

A gritty, heart-wrenching novel about bruised innocence on the city's feral streets—the remarkable debut of a stunning literary talentHeather O'Neill dazzles with a first novel of extraordinary prescience and power, a subtly understated yet searingly effective story of a young life on the streets—and the strength, wits, and luck necessary for survival.At thirteen, Baby vacillates between childhood comforts and adult temptation: still young enough to drag her dolls around in a vinyl suitcase yet old enough to know more than she should about urban cruelties. Motherless, she lives with her father, Jules, who takes better care of his heroin habit than he does of his daughter. Baby's gift is a genius for spinning stories and for cherishing the small crumbs of happiness that fall into her lap. But her blossoming beauty has captured the attention of a charismatic and dangerous local pimp who runs an army of sad, slavishly devoted girls—a volatile situation even the normally oblivious Jules cannot ignore. And when an escape disguised as betrayal threatens to crush Baby's spirit, she will ultimately realize that the power of salvation rests in her hands alone.

The story of a mentally disabled man whose experimental quest for intelligence mirrors that of Algernon, an extraordinary lab mouse. In diary entries, Charlie tells how a brain operation increases his IQ and changes his life. As the experimental procedure takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment seems to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance--until Algernon begins his sudden, unexpected deterioration. Will the same happen to Charlie?

I could say that I love Dick, but that would be weird. I do very much enjoy Philip K. Dick's writing and though this is not one of his best, the "Pizza and Sex Rule" applies to him; ie. just as even bad pizza and / or sex is still pretty good, bad PKD is as well. And this is not bad at all. The first mistake that a new reader would make is to watch Blade Runner and expect a novelization of that film; it was LOOSELY based upon the book. I'm a big fan of the Ridley Scott film starring Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer, but the movie diverged from Phillip K. Dick's literature early on. The book is far more bleak than the film, if you can believe that, and much more intricate and complicated. Blade Runner benefits from a simplified storyline. The author was far ahead of his time both in the complexity of his story and the perspective from which he writes. There are elements of Brave New World, I, Robot, and Dune; but the author has a unique voice and the story is an original. It is not an excellent work, as there are gaps and inconsistencies and many loose ends that are never tied in, but the concept and provocation are superb.One element of the book that was completely left out of the film was a sub-plot involving a Christ-like messiah and a faith system based upon what could have been a hoax. First published in 1968, this was one of his more theological based novels, and a trend that would continue steadily becoming more frequent and invasive until the end of his writing.A MUST read for PKD fans as well as SF/F fans period.

Charting the whole of Arthur Dent's odyssey through space are:THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.One Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this seems already to be more than he can cope with. Sadly, however, the weekend has only just begun, and the Galaxy is a very very very large and startling place.THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE.When all questions of space, time, matter and the nature of being have been resolved, only one question remains --- "Where shall we have dinner?" The Restaurant at the End of the Universe provides the ultimate gastronomic experience, and for once there is no morning after to worry about.LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING.In consequence of a number of stunning catastrophes, Arthur Dent is surprised to find himself living in a hideously miserable cave on prehistoric Earth. However, just as he thinks that things cannot possibly get any worse, they suddenly do. He discovers that the Galaxy is not only mind-boggling big and bewildering but also that most of the things that happen in it are staggeringly unfair.SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH.Just as Arthur Dent's sense of reality is in its dickiest state he suddenly finds the girl of his dreams. He finds her in the last place in the Universe in which he would expect to find anything at all, but which 3,976,000 people will find oddly familiar. They go in search of God's Final Message to His Creation and, in a dramatic break with tradition, actually find it.

Ramsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from the hell of the battle-grave at Passchendaele in World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross and destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As Ramsay tells his story, it begins to seem that from boyhood, he has exerted a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious, influence on those around him. His apparently innocent involvement in such innocuous events as the throwing of a snowball or the teaching of card tricks to a small boy in the end prove neither innocent nor innocuous. Fifth Business stands alone as a remarkable story told by a rational man who discovers that the marvelous is only another aspect of the real.

" I wonder", said Hermes, "what it would be like if animals had human intelligence."" I'll wager a year's servitude, answered Apollo, that animals – any animal you like – would be even more unhappy than humans are, if they were given human intelligence."And so it begins: a bet between the gods Hermes and Apollo leads them to grant human consciousness and language to a group of dogs overnighting at a Toronto vet­erinary clinic. Suddenly capable of more complex thought, the pack is torn between those who resist the new ways of thinking, preferring the old 'dog' ways, and those who embrace the change. The gods watch from above as the dogs venture into their newly unfamiliar world, as they become divided among themselves, as each struggles with new thoughts and feelings. Wily Benjy moves from home to home, Prince becomes a poet, and Majnoun forges a relationship with a kind couple that stops even the Fates in their tracks.André Alexis's contemporary take on the apologue offers an utterly compelling and affecting look at the beauty and perils of human consciousness. By turns meditative and devastating, charming and strange, Fifteen Dogs shows you can teach an old genre new tricks.

Imagine a world where a little deviation from the norm in physical appearance means burning and banishment because you are far from what God created. Why there are imperfections when we know perfect exists? God creates perfect humans, plants, and animals, so no deviations have the right to live in the world. They're the work of Devil. A world where people have to give away their loved ones because God has not made them perfect. These deviations or imperfections are known as offenses and blasphemies. Plants, animals fell in to first category while the humans found themselves in the latter. David is born into this world with the power of telepathy. No one is able to detect this and thus he managed to survive in this cruel world. First he was happy that his mutation did not affect his appearance but as he grew, he understood the repercussion of getting caught. Then things took a turn for worse and he along with two others embarks on journey to the distant land. It is easy to imagine how this apoplectic setting could have created controversies at the time of its release because after all only a decade earlier the world had suffered World War II, and the horrors were still fresh. But what appalled me most is that even after five decades nothing has changed and people are still trying to overpower each other, still committing heinous crime against each other in the name of religion and superiority. Definitely one of the better Dystopia that I have read. Highly recommended.

It's one of my greatest frustrations that Canadian Literature has become almost synonymous with the name "Margaret Atwood." Every reading list that I've ever seen about Canadian Lit has been dominated by Atwood: "The Handmaid's Tale", "Alias Grace", "Oryx and Crake", etc. It's not that there's anything wrong with enjoying Atwood, (although I can't name many people that do), it's just that her work offers a very limited scope on what Canadian literature is all about.  What about Aboriginal authors like Thomas King? Or Mordecai Richler, who writes about growing up Jewish in Montreal? We have best-selling authors like Michael Ondaatje, and then there's my all-time favourite, where-have-you-been-all-my-life Timothy Findley. (End Margaret Atwood rant). Not Wanted on the Voyage is a retelling of Noah's Ark. Except calling it a retelling wouldn't be fair to the author. Findley takes the story about Noah's Ark that was spoon-fed to us when we were kids and he completely reinvents it. In the beginning, we are introduced to Yaweh (a.k.a. God). However, in Findley's version, he isn't the almighty powerful God portrayed in the Bible. Instead, he is tired, lonely, and depressed about his relationship with mankind. So he asks his devoted follower, Noah Noyes, to build an ark. At the heart of the novel, we have our two protagonists: kind-hearted, compassionate, Mrs. Noah Noyes, and Mottyl, her blind cat. The name of the book refers to Mottyl, who becomes a stowaway on the ship. Most of the story is told through her perspective. The ark is boarded by Noah and his family, and the animals enter the ark in pairs. From here, the shit show begins.There's something very bizarre and beautiful about this book, even by Findley's standards. Findley takes the biblical world of Noah and mixes it in with fantasy. In this world, animals can talk, and unicorns are no bigger than dogs. In this world, a man's skin is marinated until it turns blue, and Lucifer is a cross-dressing angel. Aside from the whimsical aspects of this book, there's also a really dark, sombre side.Noah is depicted as a sadistic, power-hungry man. He is unwavering in his faith in Yaweh, but obsessed with his quest for knowledge. Usually, religion and science are pitted against each other. In this case, Noah commits atrocities in because of them. Findley writes about men's destructive tendencies in pursuit of religion, power, science, etc. Noah dehumanizes his shipmates, and you can see how later on in the novel, some of the humans digress into animalistic habits. There is also an environmentalist message that highlights men’s relationship with animals, and how humans are always exploiting their resources. Not Wanted on the Voyage  is not for the faint of heart. There are several scenes in the novel that are really disturbing. But, if you want a good thought- provoking novel, or even just a good adventure, this book makes a very good, very hard-to-put-down kind of read. 

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