Sometimes I have no idea where, when or why I got a certain book. The Briar King was that type of book. I honestly have no freaking idea what led me to buying it. I’m glad I did though, cause it turned out to be a great read.

The Briar King is the first installment (from four) in The Kingdom of Thorn and Bone by Greg Keyes. The book opens with a prelude when the Born Queen and her followers used the sedos power to defeat the Skasloi, a powerful race, who had enslaved mankind. It was then foretold that by using that power they had cursed and doomed their future generations. Skip forward to 2000 years later to the kingdom of Crotheny and a couple of characters:

Aspar White is the holter of the King’s Forest, sworn to protect the forest from those who don’t belong there. But something is stirring within the forest and there are rumours that the Briar King, a legend from folklore, is waking.

Princess Anne is the youngest daughter of the king of Crotheny and not willing to accept her responsibilities. She doesn’t want to sit around all day, doing embroidery and looking dainty; she much rather prefers racing her horse and visiting the crypts of her ancestors. Little does she know though, that  the future of mankind might depend on her.

Neil MeqVren is a squire for a highly respected knight and is hoping to be knighted himself soon. But that is only an honour those of noble blood can obtain and Neil has no birth claim to knighthood.

Stephen Darige is the third son of a Virgenyan noble and has been promised to the church from childhood. He doesn’t mind though; he loves studying and decrypting ancient texts. But what if that what he’s deciphering wasn’t meant to be seen by human eyes?

There are a couple of other minor characters, like the king of Crotheny, whose viewpoint we also sometimes get to see. All together they form a great bunch of likable characters. At first they seem a bit stereotypish (the headstrong princess, the loyal knight), but the plot around it is intriguing enough and it doesn’t fall in too many obvious cliches. While the story isn’t exactly fresh (something evil waking up, will bring the end of mankind, etc etc) The Briar King doesn’t feel ‘been there, done that, got the T-shirt’. You get the idea that it’s not as straightforward as it seems and that the Briar King isn’t the evil it appears to be. The magic in particular felt quite unique even though we didn’t get to see much of it yet (I’m hoping this will be expanded in the next books though).

I’ve seen some other reviews complaining about the dialogue (uninspired and stilted) and the pacing, but I didn’t have any problems with those. To me, it was a quick and easy read, and with no lengthy descriptions about the scenery or surroundings (which can annoy me quite quickly). It’s not as political and complex as I would have liked it to be, but for a quick read it doesn’t demand for that.  

I did have a couple of minor problems with this book though. For starters, some of the weird words Keyes used. Now I’m not one to complain about ‘fantasy’ lingo; especially in fantasy books, authors create their own unique non English words to spice up the world a bit more and most of the time I actually quite like learning this new language. Here though it seemed a bit haphazard and not always clear what the word actually meant; it just didn’t feel as if it added anything. Another problem I had was with the chapter endings: almost every chapter (maybe even EVERY chapter) ended with a cliffhanger. Of course, the next time you got to that character it would be 2 or even 3 chapters later and the cliffhanger would be easily resolved. It’s a simple and often used plot device and normally I wouldn’t mind it that much, but here it just seemed overused (the Da Vinci Code gimmick).

I’m curious to the next books (I’ve ordered them already on Amazon and they should be here within the week), especially cause I know this is a series that won’t be dragged out. The fourth book has just been published and that will be the concluding one of this series.

If you want something easy to read and get stuck into, definitely try The Briar King. It’s not as sophisticated and complex as other series out there, but (depending on how the next books are) this is a series I could come to love.

The Briar King by Greg Keyes is available on Amazon.com for $7.99 and on Amazon.co.uk for £5.49.

These photos are from an amazing photo shoot. The editorial is a collection of 6 photos, each of the same model at ages 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60. All the effects are done through make-up and lighting, no photoshop at all.

Check out all the photos at Miss at la Playa; here’s a sneak peak of ages 10 and 60:

As I said in my New Year’s resolutions blog post, I want to do more book reviews. I’m going to try to review every book I’ve read this year in it’s own blog post, but here a couple of books still from last year. These aren’t all the books I read in those months, but there are a couple that deserve their own longer posts.

Sorceress of Faith (Robin D. Owens)

This is a much better book than the first of its series, Guardian of Honor. The mythology and world of these books are starting to feel more substantial and these characters are slightly more likable than the previous two. Plus the talking hamster helps a lot! It’s about Marian, who gets summoned to the world of Lladrana, where she’s destined to become a powerful sorceress. I’ve already ordered the next two parts of this series and its conclusion will be released in February.  

To Serve and To Submit (Susan Wright)

This book wasn’t completely what I expected; I thought it would be a bit like the Kushiel series or anything from Anne Bishop. The difference with those books was the setting. Unlike the other books I mentioned, this one doesn’t take place in a sort of Middle Ages or Renaissance type of era, but is much earlier than that. Think Roman or Viking. Everything just felt less sophisticated and more harsh, and for a story about a pleasure slave… it initially didn’t work for me. I will pick up the next in this series though, cause the story is intriguing enough.

Flesh and Stone (Vickie Taylor)

Grumble, grumble, grumble. Loved the book; this is the second in the Gargoyles series, where there is a race of shapeshifters who can turn into mythological animals. Problem is though that this book was from 2006 and checking the author’s website, she hasn’t done anything since 2006. Grumble! Where’s the next part of this series?

Cast in Shadow (Michelle Sagara)

Slightly difficult to get into at the start. It’s one of those fantasy books that drops you in the middle of a strange world and starts throwing around names which you’re supposed to know but of course don’t know. It’s not too bad (I’ve had waaay worse), but it did annoy me. For the rest though, this book was pretty interesting and I’m curious to see what happens in the next one.

Reap The Wind (Iris Johansen)

Sometimes you come across a book where you just can’t seem to get through; Reap The Wind was one of those books for me. It had an interesting enough plot, but I couldn’t get into the book and keep on reading. It also didn’t help that I thought this was the first in a series, while it turned out it was the last of the series, but the previous ones all happened in previous centuries.

I’m still a bit behind with uploading photos, cause of the move to the new apartment, but we now have a proper internet connection. Yay!

This photo was taken at night; I had forgotten to take a photo for this week and on the last day I sneaked outside to make some late-minute shots. It’s not really one of my favourites, but it does fit with the theme.

But this photo below I took one day before the 52 Themes “Natural World” week began. I was meaning to go back to the spot and take the photo again, so that it would be valid for 52 Themes, but I’ve been so busy I just couldn’t find the time. Still I love how it turned out: the detail of the green moss and the colours!

Regular readers around here should know how much I love (attempting) to solve puzzles. Alternate reality games and other stuff like that I mainly love to do, because of the fun of solving those type of puzzles. I still have to blog about a puzzle quest my brother set up for me as a Christmas present (the photos I made of the “puzzle” didn’t come out right, so that’s why there’s a delay in this post), but suffice to say I’m completely addicted to them.

Anyhow, another fun game (not sure if I should call it a ‘game’, but I can’t think of a better word) that fits with my addiction is MacHeist. The main idea behind MacHeist is the sale of the MacHeist bundle, a collection of Mac shareware applications (for only $49). What I love about it though is in the weeks leading up to that sale, there are the MacHeist missions, filled with puzzles, a great storyline and free Mac apps. 

The real missions haven’t started yet, but there’s a nanoMission available already. The first part of this has a link to a lockbox and has the following description:

All you need to solve this puzzle is in the picture. The puzzles after this one are pretty easy too, but trust when the real MacHeist starts it will get more complicated.

Check it out at MacHeist.com and solve the next puzzle!

Week 2: Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.

I’m running way behind with these 52 Movies blog posts. I have been keeping up with watching a movie every week, I just haven’t found the time to blog about them too (plus the internet connection here is still sucky; fingers crossed it’ll be solved tomorrow). Hopefully I’ll manage to write the reviews for Week 2, 3 and 4 this week, and then next week I’ll do Week 5 and Week 6.

The movie for week 2 was The Shawshank Redemption, currently ranked as the number 1 film on IMDB. I’ve been meaning to watch it for at least the past 10 years, but every time it appeared on TV something managed to get in the way of watching it. Exams, delayed trains, or just plain forgetting what time it was on. It was a movie I knew I had to watch from start to finish, so I really didn’t want to jump in after missing half an hour. Frankly, I have been quite successful in avoiding seeing or hearing anything about this movie and not being spoiled at all (a rare feat considering the amount of movie blogs I read; I think I know at least the endings to half of the 52 Movies we’ve chosen).

The Shawshank Redemption tells the tale of Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a man who is convicted and sentenced to life in jail for the murder of his wife and her lover. He’s sent to Shawshank Prison, where he learns how to deal with prison life.

So what did I think of The Shawshank Redemption? To be honest, I wasn’t that impressed by it. I mean, I can see and understand why it would be ranked so high; it’s a movie with not a lot of faults, and the type of movie almost no one can not like. That being said though, I don’t see it as “THE best movie ever” and that’s what this list of 250 Movies should represent, right? Especially the number one.  

It is a good movie though and for those of you who haven’t seen, it definitely is a movie you should see. It’s full of hope and the lengths that we can go to when we have hope in ourselves, in our futures, and in others. The acting is superb; both TIm Robbins and Morgan Freeman are great in their roles. Personally though I just didn’t find it deserving of that number one spot. 

Next week: Psycho

Sorry for the quietness around here. Last Saturday, after waiting for a long 5 days of a reference check that in the end wasn’t even completely used, we got to move to our new apartment. Yay!

This new place is much larger than our previous flat. We’ve got our own kitchen and bathroom, and a nice big sitting room with two long leather couches. Finally no more annoying housemates and ugly furniture; we can do anything what we want with this place. For the past three days we’ve been cleaning, organizing and re-arranging everything here. It’s almost done, it still needs a couple of finishing touches, like bookshelves (very important!) and a new mattress for the bed (the one that came with the house is horrible).

The thing though we’re missing the most? Internet.

It’s going to take at least two weeks until we got a proper connection, and I was dreading those upcoming two weeks. Yesterday though we got a pay-as-you-go mobile broadband USB stick from 3, and it’s working great. It was about £97 for a “free” stick plus 12GB data allowance (which has to be used within a year). Once you’ve finished the 12GB, you get the normal pay-as-you-go tariffs: £10 for 1GB, £15 for 3GB and £25 for 7GB (which then has to be used within a month). Pretty good deal, right?

Yesterday the stick was working terribly; almost no speed and a very flaky line. I almost was considering bringing it back to the store and demanding my money back. Today it’s been working great though, so I’m guessing the snow must have interfered a lot with it yesterday. Even if we hadn’t moved house I would have been tempted to get this. Now I can get some work done from a cafe or when I’m on the road.

Anyhow, I’m going to try and blog some more the next couple of days, but I’m not sure how much I’ll be online even with this broadband stick. I haven’t tried uploading any photos so far, so I’ll have to see how it all goes.

So how about a house warming party in two weeks time?

Interesting links for January 24th through January 27th:

• Brevity – Loving these jewelry designs; they're just so elegant and simple.
• Top 10 Most Amazing Streets In The World – Cool list of weird streets.
• In(side) the Loop: Joy Ride – Aw, this car is so cute!
• Wonderland: Cupcakes of Catan – Hmm, somehow this would have made more sense (or even less sense for the actual game play) if all the resource cards were also cupcakes. "I'll trade my wood for you sheep" "No, that can't. I just ate them in the previous round."
• Dude Laser Etches All The Levels Of Super Mario Land Onto His Eee Pc – Geekologie – Wow, this looks pretty cool. Remember the Gameboy version of Super Mario Land? This guy has all the levels etched into his Eee PC.

From Wikipedia: “The rule of thirds is a compositional rule of thumb in visual arts such as painting, photography and design. The rule states that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections. Proponents of the technique claim that aligning a subject with these points creates more tension, energy and interest in the composition than simply centering the subject would.”

So does my photo contain tension, energy and interest?

I haven’t been posting here much lately, but that’s mainly because I’ve been trying to find a new flat. We’ve been fed up with this place for some time now; annoying house mates, not enough space, while there most probably is something way better out there. So for the past week (actually longer than that already) I’ve been phoning estate agents, scouting out new areas and seeing available flats. It’s all time-consuming, energy-draining and stress-invoking, but I know in the end it will be worth it. 

Lately we’ve been looking around Canada Water. It’s a quiet, almost suburban area, but the transport links are great for us (from there we’d be quicker in Central London, then from where we’re living now) and there’s a big shopping (plus cinema) right next to the tube station. And as a bonus it’s near the water. So we’ve been trying to find something around there.

And last Monday we found something. A spacious yet cheap 1 bedroom flat, only 5 minutes walk from the tube. We straight away made an offer on it, and were already celebrating that evening that we found something great. Only to find out the next morning that the landlady decided to take it off the market. Grumble, grumble, don’t put it on the market then in the first place!

Anyhoo, for the past week all the viewings and appointments all went without any problems. Until yesterday. Yesterday I had 3 viewings and I ended up seeing none of the places. Now I’m not one to rant. I don’t get angry that often, barely never in fact. Something really has to go wrong for me to get angry. But yesterday? Yesterday was one of those days where you end up dealing with the mess of incompetent people and not achieving anything at all.

I had appointments that day with three different agencies. The first one was at 11.00 with Oliver Jaques and I had arranged to meet the agent at the property. Because of problems with the tube I was running a couple of minutes late, but with a lot of running and hurrying I managed to be there on time. And no one was there. It took me a while to figure out what the telephone number was, but once I phoned the agency I was told that “He had tried phoning me half an hour earlier to confirm our appointment, and when I didn’t pick up they assumed I wouldn’t be there and cancelled our appointment”. Ehm, I was in the tube? And I wasn’t told the day before (I had only made the appointment less than 24 hours ago) that they would call to confirm it. What kind of idiocy is this that they just don’t show up? 

Now this same agent was supposed to phone me back later that day to reschedule the viewing to later that afternoon. He never did. I phoned again and was told he’d phone back in half an hour. He never did. So now I still haven’t seen that property, but by now I’m not even sure I want to. This isn’t the way to deal with clients!

Next up was my second appointment. This wasn’t too bad, and not even the fault of the agency, but I still couldn’t see this property either. Apparently the locks of the communal entrance were replaced earlier that week and the agency hadn’t received the new keys for it yet. So there I was standing in front of the building with the agent and we couldn’t get in. What ticked me off though? The person on the 1st floor who was home (we saw him behind the curtain) and refused to open the downstairs door for us. Refused to even listen to what we had to say. Hopefully we’re going to see that property tomorrow, even though the agent still doesn’t have the keys…

Finally we had the third property. This agent was taking over from some other agent who I had phoned the day earlier; the tenant and the property was usually dealt with by this other agent. We arrived at the property, only to hear someone in the shower. After a while, we found out the tenant was still home, angry as hell that for the third time the agency hadn’t cleared it with him when they’d bring viewers by. And he refused to let us in. I completely understand his point of view, I wouldn’t have done it either. But that meant 3 appointments for me all resulting in nil, nada, nothing.

Fingers crossed that tomorrow all goes fine, cause yesterday felt a complete waste of time.