The Sea Of Monsters ... Review

so, i finally get around to reviewing my third book after atlas shrugged and the lightning thief...what a difference in literary tastes :-)

this is an excellent book along the lines of the first one...



So, now percy is looking forward to settle in his camp and funnily enough (for him), there have been no major incidents through the year...so, he looks forward to his last match with an opposing team and then it is off to Camp Half-Blood...the day is marred by a nightmare and a shadow following him, but is nothing compared to the monsters that show up for the match...percy meets up with annabeth and finds that a cyclops has been his only friend at school for the last year....the cyclops turns out to be his brother (poseidon is a very virile ruler in this book keeping in tradition with mythology :-) ).

They reach the camp and find that the tree (which was thalia...until zeus turned his daughter into a tree just before she died) has been poisoned and so there is a danger of the camp being over-run by monsters...unless someone finds the golden fleece...so, though it is clarisse - daughter of aries who is selected for the quest, percy, his cyclops brother and annabeth set out on a quest to find the fleece, save their satyr friend grover and to ensure that clarisse - who had the original quest does not feel upset about losing out to percy...

on the way, they meet with adventures which would make both ulysses and hercules proud....and of course, the stage is set for the third book when they discover that their entire adventure was just another plot by Kronos to gain power.

The book is an excellent read and brings out growing up-pains in a very light-hearted way...i guess my favourite parts are quite easily the ones where percy first feels a sense of shame about his brother and then pride at his achievements...and then the part about the gray sisters which is remarkably remniscient of the time that perseus found out medusa's hideout by stealing their singe eye...i for one am looking forward to the third instalment...The Titan's Curse when it releases next May.

A Long Wait

hi,

time to begin keeping commitments...before i start off this blog, would recommend that you take a look at

http://thecomicproject.blogspot.com

if you like the comics there, then you can pick up the downloaded comics at

http://thecomiclinks.blogspot.com/2006/08/comic-download-links.html

to read the comics, you should be able to download CDisplay

enjoy...

Well, now on to business....


Percy Jackson and the Olympians...Very interesting name for a very interesting series (i should try and scan the cover page of every book that i review...hmm..good thought).

This series promises to be an excellent one and is great for a bit of light reading. I usually judge books by the number of times that i read it and the frequency of reading percy jackson series in the last few weeks have been fairly reasonable (which is saying quite a lot). More info on the books can be found at:

http://rickriordan.com/children.htm

The Lightning Thief:



Very briefly, Percy Jackson thinks he has a bunch of disabilities and is fairly bad at school work (he gets thrown out of every school he attends) until he discovers strange things happening around him. He finds that his best friend is a satyr, his best teacher is a centaur and he is forced to destroy a minotaur...all in a matter of a couple of days. Not bad for a start to his vacation.
Then he finds that he is bunched with a few kids who are all "half-bloods"...offspring between gods and human beings. Soon, he meets up with the Oracle (like ancient times) and finds that he has to go down to the underworld, meet up with Hades and recover Zeus thunderbolt in the next 10 days, else, the world as we know it could end up in chaos. He discovers that things are not really what they seem and that it was Kronos - Zeus Father ...the chief titan who was responsible...In the process of figuring out this plot, perseus makes a couple of friends and encounters ancient evils that hercules and other heroes have encountered.

So, what is special about this book....I guess the writing stle is one of those things that makes this book a little different. The hero has no love lost for the gods, and yet, he learns to respect, love and fear them. The writing style is a little irreverent and while it is not in the same league (of irreverence) as the Bartimaeus Trilogy, it is enough for good enjoyment. the teaser on the back cover is a perfect example of this style....



I have read this book atleast 4-5 times and there are still no parts in the book that i skip over when i read it (usually, when i read a book multiple times, i skip over some boring parts). That makes this book good.

Bottom Line : This book is an excellent read. The writing style is excellent and for people who have read greek mythology earlier, the book resonates with ancient figures oft heard of, but not enough :-)

I will try to scan the cover here...

Next Time : The Sea of Monsters...Till then, bye...

Books Again.

I have been looking at somethings that i have been wanting to do for a long time, but have not been able to do so for some time now. Some books that i am planning to review as we go forward are:

a) The Harry Potter Series
b) The Artemis Fowl Series
c) The Bartimaeus Trilogy
d) Perseus Jackson and the Olympians
e) The Inheritance Series.

let us see how soon i am able to begin working on this.

Atlas Shrugged ... Review

hi , it has been a long time...this time i just wanted to write a little bit about the book that i finished reading yesterday...the centennial edition of "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand...The concept on which the book is based is just amazing...it just reflects something that i have been feeling for a long time now, but have not been able to put my finger on it.

Anyway, to get on with the synopsis...
The book is set in the United States which has been the hub of inventions and investment...there are a few people who are brilliant and are constantly innovating and others who survive by just playing politics and using the old boy network (sounds remarkably familiar to today's corporate world, doesn't it).

so, one fine day, people wake up to discover that all the brialliant people in the world - the writers, the industrialists, the philosophers, the inventors are all disappearing one by one...and the world is becoming a difficult place to live in...

the root of all this is a person called john galt who decided that it was time for the brilliance - the intelligence - the mind to go on strike until the rest of the world realises the true worth of the innovations that the great minds bring to the world.

so the story goes on ... with more people disappearing into a secret enclave where they set up a little world of their own, being very happy, doind what they do best -- innovating, inventing, etc. while the rest of the world is continuously falling into despair.

what john galt says about this is that by going on strike and at the same time practicing their craft for their own benefit rather than that of the world, they are only accelarating what would have anyway happened...but at the same time as they are preserving their minds, things will be just fine once people get rid of the leechers/ looters who are eating up the world like parasites and that is exactly what happens towards the end of the book.

the penmanship is quite amazing...it is a must read for every individual...the plot itself does go to a few extremes at times, but this is a book that no person in his right mind must miss....

go ahead ..read and enjoy....you will soon begin asking ..."Who is John Galt" "