Book review

Considering I don't have a lot of fun stuff to say about what's going on, except that I spent several hours on tie dying clothes this afternoon, we're going to do a long expected review today.

I’ve Been Deader, by Adam Sifre



I love this cover, but apparently there is a new one, lemme just...there you go:



On the review system of 1 to 7 (7 being awesome) I rate this a solid 5 with a potential half.

I've been deader: I liked it, but was left…wanting…a bit.
First off, Sifre’s writing style was excellent, very few typos, good sentence structure and the pacing was well done. No boring moments, plenty of action that swept me along. Lots of humor, which, if one does not agree with what appears to be the author’s nicely cynical political views there could be cause for some annoyance, but regardless there was good “take that” writing involved that made this a worthwhile read. Lots of one-liners, posturing and profound thoughts that came out as…well…”Braaaaainsss”. Definitely one of the funniest aspects there, in particular when you start expecting it.

To recap the premise, this story is about zombie Fred, who discovers he can still think, and possesses another rather unique ability you’ll have to discover yourself when you read it.
Though Fred tries to maintain his humanity, his body does not really listen to him anymore, which definitely created a variety of hilarious moments. Excellent comedy in that regard, showing Sifre’s skill as an author.

I am sorry to say that the general plot was a bit vague to me until much later on in the story. A few hints in the beginning would have been nice, but as it was, in the beginning I was left wandering in a post-apocalyptic world without much purpose. It was entertaining, but wandering nonetheless. I like plots to be straight cut and obvious, but that’s just me.

Main characters. I would think that was Fred the thinking zombie. But then there was Jon, average at first, and psycho extraordinaire (to me anyway) later on. Personally I would have liked to see some “hero material” in this story. I am old fashioned that way, and prefer one or two characters that I really like, rather than a whole bunch of characters that each have a few likeable aspects, but aren’t, like, WOW! Which was the case in this particular story. Regretfully, except for Timmy, who wasn’t really a lead until further on in the book, most characters had traits that made me unable to root for any of them. If that was the author’s intention (a possibility, considering his wonderfully whacky sense of humor) he was highly successful.

For a quick, funny zombie read, with good quality writing this is definitely the book for you. If you’re more traditional in your tastes when it concerns a good zombie book, you might want to give this one a pass. I am curious how the rest of the story will go, so the open ending certainly served its purpose

In case you're curious, here's the link : Link

I'm going to see if maybe I can get Mr. Sifre to agree to a blog interview, which should be fun, but I'm just going to have to wait to find out if I can squeeze a good Q & A in somewhere.

That's it. My excuse for not writing a proper blog to boot, is that it's after midnight and I've just spent the majority of the evening putting together packages to send out to publishers. It's a pain. Hah

Healthy as heck

Song of the day: “Perfect 10” by The Beautiful South. Such a funny song, inspired as well.

Yesterday first for a change. I know I’ve been slacking keeping the blog nicely organized, but things have been a little insane, as you undoubtedly noticed. Hah. But anyway, it was another busy day yesterday. First off it started with big brother and I getting up early to take Sally to the Centro Salud in the village. It turned out to be all for nothing. The hospital claimed that she had to go there a week prior to her test (next week) and have her blood checked, but when we got there it turned out to be impossible. So it was for nothing, and by the time we got back the lack of sleep was catching up on me, so rather than crash later in the day I went back to bed for an hour and a half and woke up feeling remotely human, at least. *sigh* Had the weirdest post apocalyptic dreams, sci-fi mixed with fantasy, with somewhat dangerous pursuits going on. I’m thinking of writing it all down for a book, otherwise I would elaborate. Hah.

Did feed the dogs before the nap, and did some laundry, so once I woke up and ate something, it was editing...if only a little because big brother is way behind on proof reading the printed manuscript. So instead grandpa and I worked on putting together mom’s side table. The dratted thing broke down during the course of the last two years, so the paws had to be fortified and even some supports replaced. Since I didn’t want grandpa doing that sort of thing on his own at the moment, I figured that fixing it myself would be the smart thing. That way, he only had to assist. Of course, it isn’t as if he can’t do it himself, but that is the way feelings work, right. We worry.

Had to do a rush pick-up, only to head on back straight away because grandpa had an appointment at the GP in the village. What with all the medical terms we figured that it was a good idea to have a chat with a doctor who spoke grandpa’s language. It was very enlightening, really. Basically the hospital report declared that grandpa is ridiculously healthy for his age, and that his only problem is a slightly faulty heart-valve. That a small blood clod caused all this hassle was something coincidental at most, and according to the GP the best thing grandpa can do is take his medication (to prevent it from happening again) and live on as if nothing ever happened, because he is doing so well. Gawd, I don’t want to know what would have happened if he hadn’t been in this good a condition. *sigh*

Went past the vegetable center to get some veggies for the dog food, which took some time. Arrived home near dusk, cooked supper and then got some serious editing done. Didn’t get to bed until after one, but since there were no pressing matters waiting in the morning I could sleep in ‘til NINE! Yay.

Of course today there was our Spanish lesson, and a pick up in town right after, but what the hey. Time aplenty to get the laundry done, feed the dogs and stuff some breakfast down our throats.
Luckily, what with the good night’s sleep, lessons went a lot better for me this time round. I actually managed some sentences without being corrected all the time, so, phew.

Didn’t get home ‘till after five and by then it was time to start cooking. Since we were early, we decided to get in a nice jog. Seriously, I needed that, even though I didn’t manage all that well after all this time. Ran about half the distance with me falling back to a sturdy pace, but I don’t care, that’ll come again. New sneakers worked well during the run. It didn’t hurt, despite the fact that I’m sore as heck now.

A bit of disconcerting news is that at the moment we are facing a somewhat unusual problem with one of our dogs. Bambi. It would seem that something went wrong in his head, because from being just a bit frightful he shot straight into being aggressive. Today he actually almost attacked big brother when he tried to put an anti-tick collar on him. He’s been getting worse lately, but he’s never done this. We have come to the point that we’re not even allowed to touch him or else he’ll bite. It’s a grave problem for sure. We’ll have to figure something out because at the moment ticks are literally eating him alive. *sigh*

But anyway, after the jog I finished cooking supper (I don’t like eating before running, so I put it all to simmer) and then settled in for the night’s edit. Did a solid batch of pages at least, getting close to the end of the paper edit, meaning that soon we’ll be starting on the last edit. Yay.

In between we’re going to give ourselves a break of a couple of days to start sending out query letters for Saving Nina again. It’ll be a nice breather for sure, in particular since we need a fresh eye to look through the story to make sure that we didn’t make any glaring errors.

Spent some time with tenant to help her practice walking, but she got frightened after the first few steps and wanted to lie down again. Then, later, when we tried again by doing some exercises while she sat in her chair, I noticed a distinct disinterest in her, so then it really didn’t have any use. We’ll try again, see if it works better.

Well, I’m starting to draw blanks, so I’m going to leave it at this and see if I can get to bed before two in the morning…unlikely, but what the hey.