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Does anyone have recommendations for happy books?

Sincerely,
abiona

I have permission from Firelight Press to distribute an excerpt from the new book, Erec Rex: The Monsters of Otherness, by fantasy fiction sensation Kaza Kingsley.

Kingsley won over young readers with the inventive gadgets, relentless action, and gross-out humor in her first book, Erec Rex: The Dragon's Eye. The book became a bestseller and collected numerous children's book awards, including the Benjamin Franklin Award for best new voice in juvenile fiction and for the outstanding cover art of renowned British fantasy artist, Melvyn Grant.

The second book in the series, Erec Rex: The Monsters of Otherness, deals with themes of adoption and acceptance under the mythological framework of the Hercules legend. As Erec fights to save the lives of 50 dragon hatchlings, his real quest is to uncover the truth about his own identity.

The excerpt I am distributing is called "Erec Buys His Memory Back." It's a short scene where 12-year-old Erec Rex visits the Memory Mogul to find out what happened to his childhood memories. The excerpt is located at the following URL -- or I can send it to you as a text file upon request:

http://www.authorviews.com/authors…

this was one of the most entertaining books i've ever read.

i highly recommend this to anyone who is working in a corporate job. anyone who appreciated office space on several relating levels might appreciate this book in the same fashions.

it's 330-ish pages, but it flew by, and i finished the book in less than a week.

basically, it's a spin off of a corporate company, and the secret behind the scenes. petty bickering, and typical office nonsense.

y'all still reading? so am i.

although with the baseball season in full swing, and my own more recent travels, reading has slowed down a little bit, and what i have read lately hasn't been all that great. until now, that is.

hell's half acre, by will christopher baer - this is the third and supposed final chapter of the "phineas poe" trilogy, and i've thus far read all three just this year alone now. i am fascinated with stories that can really only be described best as "trainwrecks," and this one does not fail to disappoint me.

unfortunately, i can't say much unless there are others who have read the prior two novels, kiss me judas, and penny dreadful. there are several references in hell's half acre that would require the reader to have at least met the characters from prior books.

but regardless, this book is a total trainwreck, very much for the older reader as it does contain plenty of violence, some gore, and sexual situations. baer does a very good job, about as good as palahniuk when it comes to description of a human being sinking further and further into pain and desperation. even more surprising was the ending to it all, and the overall satisfaction i felt when reading this book.

355 pages that didn't really feel like 355 pages, as i finished it in three sittings. i give it four severed politician limbs out of five.

it took me a little while, but the latest book i've completed was clown girl, by monica drake.

the synopsis is a little bit of a self-contained train wreck.  nita is a clown living the life of a starving artist.  she is working to make money for her boyfriend abroad, who hopes to make it into clown school for a chance at the big stardom.  emotionally vulnerable, and seemingly a magnet for disaster, she and her so-called partners take attempts to do less chintzy clown gigs, and move towards corporate parties, and private affairs.  the line between clowning and prostitution seems to get blurred in this interesting and first-person perspective story.

an interesting feature is the foreword by chuck palahniuk, who is probably my favorite author.  he compares himself to drake, and briefly mentions their friendly rivalry when both were aspiring story writers in workshops and classes.  personally, i think palahniuk's style is more appealing to me, and he seems to provoke more thought. drake does indeed to do an excellent job of getting to really know a character throughout a story, though.

i would give clown girl a solid 3.5 orange plastic jugs filled with urine with yuck faces drawn on them out of five.  the book made me laugh a few times, so i can say it accomplished that much.

palahniuk's new book comes out in like a week - i can't wait to get it.

for those who are not aware, joe hill is the son of stephen king.  obviously, he is not using the king name, in order to build a reputation of his own, without having to leech off his father's fame.

heart shaped box is the first book of hill's that i've read, and for the most part, i can say that i've enjoyed it.  like his father, the story starts off a little slow, but after a little while, it's easy to forget that you've just read 150 pages.  hill's style is a little less no-nonsense than king's, and has a tendency to get to the point and jump into the plot a lot faster.

the basic synopsis is pretty simple: judas coyne is an over-the-hill rockstar who has a hobby of collecting things of the occult.  it comes to his attention that a real ghost is available on a popular internet auction site, he doesn't hesitate to purchase it.  little does he realize that it was an elaborate set-up in order to torture and inevitably end him for a past mistake.

the book is also only 374 pages, which is miniscule compared to the monstrosities that king has written (needful things, 1140 pages)

i give it a 3.5 severed fingers from a hypnotized vietcong general out of five.

I've only recently gotten back into my reading kick, but I'm glad that I did. One book that I happened to pick up during my trip to B&N, is Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. I was completely turned off from it last year when one of my friends were reading it, only because I opened to the first page and read the first line which related the sky to cat vomit. It never really hit me to pick it up until I saw it as I mosied through the teen section. So, I grabbed it and bought it, and began to read it right away. It hooked me RIGHT away.

The book's about the future, and based around one main character, Tally Youngblood. I don't want to ruin this for anybody who is planning on reading this, but WOW. I could literally visualize myself seeing through Tally's eyes, and I have a whole lay out for what Uglyville and New Pretty Town look like, and the way they live just amazes me. Plus, the way that Scott Westefeld has named us the 'Rusties' and had us eliminating our very existance in the end is astounding, seeing as that's probably what's actually going to happen in the future. Heh.

I'm ecstatic about this book and author. Not only because it was so good, but because it's a trilogy and I'm already deep into the next book, Pretties. I'm head over heels for that, also. The beginning was kind of a bummer to me for some reason, but as I journey deeper into the futuristic world that Scott has set up, it's only hooking me again. I can't wait to get on and read Specials. I really hope that's as good as the first two! :)

being the jock-ish type of male that i am, i like to rate my books like baseball pitching performances. wins, losses and no-decisions. really, there is a logical (at least to me) basis behind it - a book would be considered a win, if when i finish it, i can find at least several redeeming qualities about it. there are often certain degrees of wins too, like if a book is so good, that it qualifies as a no-hitter. some start off slow, but manage to pull through within the alloted amount of time, and hold on for the win ratings.

a no-decision is when i read a book, finish it, but when the day is over, i really don't have anything to say about it. it's not bad, but it's not good enough for me to give it any real decision.

a loss, would be what i gave up on today. citizen girl, by emma mclaughlin and nicola kraus. jock or not, i still try to be open-minded about what i read, even if it means blatantly diving into some chick-lit. i actually read a chick-lit novel last year that i enjoyed, (can you keep a secret, by sophie kinsella) unfortunately, this was not the case. i was originally interested in the book because of 1.) cover art - interesting enough for my visual appeal, and 2.) there were characters in the book legitimately named "girl" and "guy". the synopsis seemed interesting enough to me, a 24-year old unsatisfied with their stance in life searching for something better - sounds like something i could relate to.

perhaps its because the story is written by two authors, but it felt like the story was taking twice the time to actually get to the point of anything. out of 306 pages, i read 125, hoping for something remotely interesting to happen, and not be so predictable. girl blows up at her current job and gets fired. struggles and acts like her life will end if she doesn't get a new job, but somehow manages to find what she thinks is her dream job working for a feminist-supportive company. loves it at first but the story is obviously steering towards a "twist" of the male CEOs and upper-crust going to be typical chauvinistic men while she juggles self-belief, employment, and the quirky romance between her and a video game developer.

the book has been utter crap, really. i can't even imagine how women would enjoy this book. it's like "whine-whine-whine, i'm moving, but i have a kickass job, WHOA potential sex out of nowhere with a guy character the protagonist hated 20 pages ago" not to dis on the chick-lit genre, being a guy and all, but this book sucked. it gets a big fat loss on my big manly scale of book ratings, and despite the fact that i paid like $4.99 at barnes and noble, i want my money back.

i've not made any point in hiding it, but i have some rather interesting (read: disturbing) tastes in literature. my favorite authors are guys like chuck palahniuk and bret easton ellis. very scattered reading, with usually involving one or more elements: killing, sex, drug abuse, or violence. protagonist is usually a very f-ed up individual, and stands a good chance of dying.

anyway i don't know where i'm going with this, because it's late, but the latest book that i completed was penny dreadful by will christopher baer. the author comes recommended from chuck palahniuk's website itself, and earlier this year i read the first novel of the "phineas poe" trilogy, which was a trainwreck of a delightful book.

penny dreadful is especially interesting for anyone who is into or has participated in some sort of live role-playing or, try not to laugh, LARPing. the second in the "poe" trilogy has the main character, phineas poe returning to denver where the everyone who he had been associated with has seemingly caught up in an extreme LARP gone wrong - whether they know they are a part of it or not. everyone seems to have an alter-ego to counteract their "daytime" selves, and the lines begin to blur to which one is real.

like most books i tend to enjoy, this one is also a complete train wreck, and involves lots of violence and adult situations. being a super nerd that i am, i also felt like i was able to relate with certain parts of the book better and seem to understand them more comprehensibly than others might.

anyway, if strange and weird is your cup of tea, i would recommend this book. i give it a solid five out of five Freds who are hunted by Mariners who are really video store clerks during the daytime. it really was able to suck me in without trying that hard, before i had even realize that it had done so. now that's good literature.

I meant to post this ages ago, but it kept slipping my mind.

Quick rundown: Small town girl (Andy) and her bf move to the big city. She gets a job as the assistant to Miranda at Runway Magazine (a job millions of girls would die for). Add in angst, a massive (free) top fashion make-over, and relationship stress. Shake vigorously until Andy realizes that friends are more important then being untrue to yourself. The End.

I read the novel after it had been out for a few months. I liked the character design, and the appearance that the author knew something about the fashion industry. However, I honestly felt that Andy (the main chara) really wasn't suffering enough. Miranda wasn't THAT bad. I mean, yes she asked for weird things and had odd demands, but everyone in the book pretty much knew what she wanted and when. She was no different from any high-powered boss. They equated 'confident' with 'bitchy'. I guess it was supposed to be a psychological thing that didn't really appear when I read it. Perhaps other people got it. It wasn't worth a re-read for me.

Fast forward to last month. I finally broke down and rented the movie. It was a relatively decent copy of the book. Most of the elements I wanted to see were there. They did an excellent job of casting, and everyone looked as they should if they were working in fashion.

Overall I liked the movie better than the book. Sacrilege I know, but it's true. I suppose that since it dealt with a very visual field it worked better as a movie. However, I preferred the ending of the novel. Instead of just walking away Andy tells Miranda 'F*#$ you!' and THEN leaves. She goes off and write up-beat articles for magazines that promote women of all shapes and sizes. There's a specific bit where she meets an editor for Teen Self (I think) and she's heavy set, easy going, and very cheerful. It's a much better ending.