Only one more day of July left! I’d been meaning to get these mini reviews out in the first week of July; ah well, better late than never. I’ve only read 12 books so far this year; that’s way below the amount of books I normally read. At this rate I’ll have read only 24 books in 2012. To compare, in 2011 I read 39, in 2010 I read 34 and in 2009 I read 41… I’ve got some serious catching up to do!

Naamah’s Blessing by Jacqueline Carey

This is the final book in Carey’s third trilogy set in her alternate fantasy Europe. This trilogy takes place a couple of centuries after the first two trilogies and features Moirin, a half-D’Angeline and half Maghuin Donn. In this final book Moirin and Bao sail to Terra Nova (which is basically the Aztec regions) to recover the lost crown prince of Terre d’Ange. I love the world Carey has created; she manages to blend “real” mythology/religion with her own concepts, creating some intriguing new stories.

A Soldier’s Duty by Jean Johnson

I really enjoyed this book. It opens with Ia, a 15 year old girl, getting a terrible vision of 200 years in the future where the human race dies. However, she also sees all paths leading up to that terrible event and the one path she can take to prevent it all. The book then jumps a couple of years to an 18 year old Ia, when she joins the Terran army; certain events have to happen exactly the right way and Ia uses her precognition abilities to make sure that it all happens according to her plan, even though it costs her. What I liked here is that even though our main character knows exactly what is going to happen, you as a reader don’t. We only know something terrible is going to happen, but we don’t even know what that terrible thing is. And even during battle scenes although Ia can “see” what will happen to her, the writer manages to keep it exciting and unpredictable. It’s an interesting reversal of the typical case where the reader knows way more than the protagonist.

Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire

I love Seanan McGuire’s books. Her other series is the October Daye books, which has a Fae world living alongside ours (and then there is also her Newsflesh trilogy where she writes as Mira Grant; read on for my reviews below). This new book is the first part in the Incryptid series. It’s quite similar to the October Daye ones, only here instead of having the Fae living alongside us you have Cryptids. The Cryptids are creatures of which the human world isn’t completely certain whether it exists or not: think Loch Ness monster, Big Foot, vampires, etc. Our protagonist is Verity Price, a cryptozoologist: part Cryptid caretaker, part Cryptid slayer. She’s responsible for keeping New York’s Cryptid population in check, even if that might mean hunting them down. McGuire creates a fascinating world with a great heroine and I can’t wait to see her next adventures!

The Reluctant Vampire/Under a Vampire Moon by Lynsay Sands

The Argeneau vampire books from Lynsay Sands are always fun to read. They’re your typical vampire romance book, but with a bit of a twist: here the “vampires” are actually nano-infected descendants of Atlantis (the nanos fix everything damaged in a body, including sun damage, and of course requires blood to work). These were book 16 and 17 and I’m still amazed how interesting Sands manages to keep this series!

The Ambassador’s Mission/The Rogue by Trudi Canavan

This is the second trilogy from Canavan that is set in the world of Kyralia and takes place 20/30 years after the first one, focusing on our main character’s son Lorkin. I didn’t like the first trilogy when I read it the first time, but loved it when I revisited it a couple of years later (strange how a couple of years can change your perspective). These first two books expand the world even more and contains a couple of twists that I didn’t exactly see coming. Very curious to see how it all ends!

Darker After Midnight by Lara Adrian

This is the final book of the Midnight Breed series. And wow, what a final! I like how it finishes up all the existing story lines, yet also hints to another new potential series. Early on in the series I quite liked Chase, but as the series went on and the darker he went I began to loose interest in him. By the end of this book though I was so rooting for him again!

Deadline/Blackout by Mira Grant

I loved loved loved the first book (Feed) from this series. I didn’t think the sequels could live up to that, but, wow, I was wrong. The second book Deadline is again an awesome read and I think I might love it more than the first one. The third one is a bit of a letdown after that second book, but it still a satisfying conclusion to the entire trilogy.

Wolf Captured by Jane Lindskold

I struggled with this book. Actually I struggle with all of Lindskold’s books. I always like her stories, but there’s just written in a way that doesn’t click with my mind; I constantly have to go back and reread bits and it just generally goes slooooooow. The story is great though! This is the fourth of the six books in the Firekeeper series, and this one sees our main characters get kidnapped to another far away country. It’s great moving the plot to another place; we get different rules, different customs, different characters.

The Broken Kingdoms by NK Jemisin

I didn’t love this book as much as Jemisin’s first book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. It still was a book though that I couldn’t put down and pretty much finished within two sittings. It’s set a couple of years after the first one, and our heroine is Oree, a blind girl, who during the aftermath of the first book gains the ability to see through magic. In the previous book we were introduced to the three main gods (Nahadoth, Enefa and Itempas) and three of their children. Here we see how much more vast the world is that Jemisin has created and we get introduced to a ton of other godlings. I like Jemisin’s take on the gods: they’re powerful, immortal beings, but each of them is inherently bound to a specific “nature”, which strengthen and restricts them. It’s an interesting read and the mythology is quite unlike any I’ve read before.

I got invited to a screening of this short movie BOY a couple of months ago and then somehow completely forgot to write about it. It’s such a moving short movie though, and now with the Olympics it seems like the right moment to revisit it.

It was written and directed by Prasanna Puwanarajah, one of the winners of British Airways’ Great Britons programme, which offered a once in a lifetime opportunity for three talented individuals in film, food and art.

I’m really enjoying the Olympics so far. I wasn’t expecting to be this excited for it, but I’ve gotten quite in the Olympic spirit, rooting for both Australia and the Netherlands (and maybe even a little for Team GB). I’ve mainly watched the swimming events from the past two days (the Women’s Freestyle Relay was awesome), and I’ll need to catch up with some of the other sports. I’m now also regretting now trying harder to get tickets; it would have been so good to see some of these events in real life!

For me the Olympic atmosphere properly started a couple days ago on Wednesday. A friend saw on the National Theatre’s site that they were doing a “Fire Garden” exhibition and thought it would be a good plan to meetup with some friends, have dinner and watch whatever the “Fire Garden” was. It was gorgeous weather that day, so of course the Southbank was completely packed with people and of course all the restaurants had large queues. Instead of queueing and waiting to be seated in a overly hot restaurant, we had the brilliant plan of picnicking in Jubilee Park and ordering Wagamama’s takeaway. I’m amazed I’ve never done that before! It was so much more fun and relaxed than actually sitting in a Wagamamas.

After a great dinner, we all realized we were still hungry and had at least an hour to kill till the Fire Garden. So we ended up crossing the river and getting ice cream at Gino’s. I still prefer Lick for the more unique flavours, but Gino’s do really nice traditional Italian ice cream (the website says they even have Bacio flavour which I didn’t notice that night).
With our ice creams in hand we walked to Trafalgar Square to sit on the stairs and enjoy the atmosphere. You could really feel London buzzing that day; everyone was excited for the Olympics and you could sense that excitement in the air. Cristiano made a couple of great pictures:

After sitting there for a while, we slowly made our way back to the Southbank to see what the Fire Garden was. Turns out it the name was exactly right: it was a “garden” of fire to celebrate the Olympic flame coming to London. It looked awesome! I didn’t manage to walk through it though; the moment I got close to the path my eyes teared up completely.

Pretty, right? So fellow Londoners and non-Londonders, are you feeling the “Olympism”? What Olympic events have you seen so far?

The Olympics officially start tonight! I’m loving the vibe in London at the moment; I was on the Southbank a couple of days ago and the atmosphere was amazing.

So instead of doing a regular Dress of The Day post, I thought I’d do an Olympic inspired one! Five gorgeous dresses, each with the colour of one of the Olympic rings. The black one is my favourite; I can so see myself wearing that one.

Dream Come True

Stay Bold

Rose Bubbly

Windy City

Kettle Corn

Forget everything you thought you knew about strength
Forget everything you thought you knew about humans
It’s time to do battle
Meet the Superhumans

It’s been two weeks since my last Trailerrific post, so high time for a new one with all the latest trailers! Which trailers have you seen recently that you liked?

Cloud Atlas

Wow. This. Looks. Awesome. And weird. And very confusing. My type of movie from the sounds of that. I still haven’t read the book, but I’ve heard how good it is. I really should read it before the movie comes out. Release Date: October 2012 (UK, US)

Life of Pi

Based on the book of the same name, Life of Pi is about a young man who gets shipwrecked together with a Bengal tiger. I again haven’t read the book, but this trailer makes me want to read it! It looks like it could be an awesome story, but I’m not sure it will translate well to the big screen. Release Date: 21 November 2012 (US), 21 December 2012 (UK)

Man of Steel

This looks like it could be good! It feels a lot like Nolan’s take on Batman but then for Superman… very curious to see how this turns out. I’m still not sure about Henry Cavill as Superman/Clark Kent or Amy Adams as Lois Lane (as much as I love her, she’s not who I’d imagine for that role), but I love the rest of the casting (Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent, Diana Lane as Martha Kent, Russell Crowe as Jor-El, Laurence Fishburn as Perry White). Release Date: 14 June 2013 (UK, US)

Oz: The Great and Powerful

It’s again a “from the producer of Alice In Wonderland” production, so that’s not filling me with much hope. However, that’s semi-counteracted by the fact that Sam Raimi is directing; I most of the time love what he does (although I have to admit there have been some misses too). I’m not the hugest fan of James Franco; he always seems to play the same character and somehow just gets on my nerves. Still, the rest of this movie looks beautiful and Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams and Mila Kunis as the three witches look great. I also love though how the trailer starts off in black-and-white! Release Date: 8 March 2013 (UK, US)

Branded

This trailer for the Russian sci-fi movie Branded came out last month, but I somehow missed it. It looks super weird though and I think it could be quite interesting. If I understand the trailer correctly, the idea behind it is that the world is full of invisible aliens or monsters that feed off someones brand devotion. Interesting concept and very curious to see how far they take it. Release Date: 7 September 2012 (US)

The Master

The idea behind this movie sounds interesting: following World War II a charismatic intellectual (Hoffman) launches a religious organization (described as being similar to Scientology). The trailer though just doesn’t do anything for me; it looks like it could be an amazing story, but it also feels like it could be quite tiring and slow. Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman both look great and I’m predicting at least one of them will get nominated for an Oscar. Release Date: 9 November 2012 (UK)

About Cherry

A drama about a troubled high school girl who moves to San Francisco, where she gets involved in pornography and aligns herself with a cocaine-addicted lawyer. Release Date: September 2012 (US)

Bachelorette

Yet another “The Hangover but with woman” movie. It also doesn’t look that funny at all. Release Date: September 2012 (US)

The Oranges

The Walling’s and the Ostroff’s have been friends forever. This all changes though when David Walling (Hugh Laurie) starts an affair with his friend’s daughter Nina (Leighton Meester), much to the dismay of his wife (Catherine Keener), daughter (Alia Shawkat), son (Adam Brody) and best friends (Oliver Plat and Allison Janney). Release Date: October 2012 (US)

It’s been a couple of days now since I saw The Dark Knight Rises and I have to say I loved it. I’ll try to do a proper review later this week, but overall I really enjoyed it and think it’s a great conclusion to this Batman trilogy.

I was most looking forward to see how Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle/Catwoman (although no one actually ever calls her Catwoman in the movie) turned out and I wasn’t disappointed. Her Selina is awesome, switching from sweet and vulnerable to sarcastic and devious in an eye blink. I loved almost all of her scenes in The Dark Knight Rises; I’d so like to see a stand-alone Catwoman movie with her, but I don’t think it’s likely we’ll be seeing one.

Of course I was also very curious to see her Catwoman outfit. I like that it’s quite grounded in reality; the suit doesn’t look too costumey and something I’d imagine a cat burglar would wear. I also really like how her flipped up goggles become her “ears”. That’s not something that was in the comics (I think) and I’ve seen some more devout fans online not liking the concept at all, but I like the fact that she’s not obviously trying to dress as a cat.

The most awesome part of her outfit though has to be her boots. Initially you think they’re just a straightforward pair of thigh-high boots, but then you notice the heels resembles knives! Here’s a poster featuring her (very photoshopped) heels:

Awesome, right? I’d love a pair of boots like those… well, maybe not with the knives as heels, but the rest of the boot looks pretty slick. So I started googling for a pair like those and I discovered that one of the shoemakers that worked on the boots for the movie wrote a blog post about the boots they created. She works for a company called Theatrical Shoemakers (obviously) and they do tons of shoes and boots for movies, including Prometheus, Snow White and the Huntsman and X-Men: First Class.

Here’s what she had to say about the heels (see the photo below):

They were made especially for these boots (though not by us), and they resemble knives – they have a sharp edge running along the back of the heel and a serrated section on the inside curve of the heel. These ones were cast in clear plastic (you can see the strengthening metal rod running through it) which made it easier for us to see exactly what we were doing when attaching screws through the insole and into the heels (without poking through the heel). They were later painted silver by the film’s costume department.

Next to that one pair with the crazy high heels, they also created a range of other heels in different heights that could be worn during stunts and whenever the shoes weren’t in a camera shot: a low heel, a wedge and mid-height heel which was covered with silver leather. All the boots looks awesome and I so want a pair for myself! I’ve very tempted to email the company and see how much a custom pair would actually cost; I’ve always had problems with finding shoes/boots that fit right (cause my feet are two different sizes), so it might be worth finally getting a custom pair made.

The Catwoman suit isn’t the only outfit Anne Hathaway wears during the movie; she has at least 5 different outfits throughout the movie, and I’m pretty envious of all of them. I so want her wardrobe! I especially love the dress she’s wearing when she does the finger print exchange, but I haven’t been able to find a good photo of it online yet. If I remember correctly, it’s a quite fitted black dress with capped sleeves and a modern corset-like detail around the waist. The other outfit I love is her airport one:

Everything just works so well together and the accessories really make it: the hat, the gloves, the bag and the ear rings. I love the cut of the blazer; it has quite sharp lines, but then has that awesome wide round collar. I’ve tried to find out who designed it: was it done by the costume designer or is it from an actual fashion brand? I think it could be Armani, which also makes sense as all of Bruce Wayne’s suits are Armani already, but I haven’t found it among any of their recent collections. Anybody have an idea?

The final outfit I found a photo for is her masquerade ball dress. The top looks great and accentuates her pearls and other assets, but I don’t remember much of the rest of the dress (how long was it even? Was this a full length ballroom one?):

So do you agree with me? What did you think of her Catwoman suit? Are you also envious of all her other outfits? Which one was your favourite?

I first blogged about the Twisted Princesses by deviantArt artist Jeffrey Thomas back in 2009, when I discovered his awesome and dark depictions of Disney princesses. And again in early 2011 when he added 3 more princesses to the series. Well, now I’m back a third time, cause he’s again created 3 new “Princesses”. None of them are “proper” princesses, but they’re all great Disney heroines: Wendy from Peter Pan, Maid Marian from Robin Hood and Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Awesome pictures, right? I also love how Jeffrey has written background stories for each princess, giving them each a dark origin story. I definitely recommend having a look at the entire Deviant gallery with all the Twisted Princesses; there’s just so many details in all of them!

Brilliant:

It’s time for some book coveting! We’re getting a bit swamped with zombie-themed books, but this one I love the sound of and seems to have its own unique perspective. The twist: the protagonists are the zombies.

Here’s the description from Amazon:

From a tropical resort where visitors can become temporary zombies, to a newly-made zombie determined to protect those he loves, to a cheerleader who won’t let death kick her off the team, to a zombie seeking revenge for the ancestors who died on an African slave ship– Zombiesque invites readers to take a walk on the undead side in these tales from a zombie’s point of view.

There are 15 stories in total and it looks like they’ve gotten a great bunch of authors: Nancy A. Collins, Charles Pinion, Tim Waggoner, Richard Lee Byers, Robert Sommers, Seanan McQuire, G.K. Hayes, Jim C. Hines, Sean Taylor, Jean Rabe, Del Stone Jr., S. Boyd Taylor, Loaszlo Xalieri, Nancy Holder and Donald J. Bingle. I’m mainly looking forward to Seanan McGuire’s story, but there are a couple of other ones that look great. I haven’t read most of the other authors, but a lot of them are still on my To Read/Want list.

Zombiesque is £6.29 on Amazon.co.uk and $7.99 on Amazon.com.