Symplebyte - Reading List

The Relic - Preston/Child - Review

DavidC — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:33:47 +0000

Are you ready for a really frightening book? I mean, really, really frightening, the kind you don't want to be reading when you're home alone at night? Not just weird or creepy, like some of the Stephen King stuff, but honest -to -God -I've -got -goosebumps -and -I -think -I -just -heard -something -in -the -basement kind of scary. If so, then Relic (Preston-Childs) is for you.

Say hello to Detective Pendergast from the FBI, in New York investigating several gruesome murders in the New York Museum of Natural History that are similar to some he investigated in New Orleans years earlier. Helped along by incompetent blundering from the type of people you would expect if from, the monster is lose and ripping folks to shreds inside the museum. With never a dull moment, this fast-paced story steadily grows in intensity up until the final moments. There are even a few twists at the end, which will set you up for the next book in the series.

The Fifth Vial - Michael Palmer - Review

DavidC — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:25:22 +0000

Well, my wife E told me I should read this book. She's a reasonably intelligent woman, and I'm scared to not do what she says, so I read it.

The book takes 3 seemingly disparate individuals, each with their own story, and (eventually) weaves them into a single tale. The primary theme is the illegal organ trade, and how power, money and ego ultimately corrupts people and organizations that probably started with good intentions.

Dracula - Bram Stoker - Review

DavidC — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:53:07 +0000

What better time of year to dive into a classic like Bram Stoker's Dracula than in October? What better Halloween treat
could be there be?

Actually, there's probably not many out there over the age of 15 that haven't seen and heard this story so many times, in so many different variations that there is little in the original story that will surprise, much less scare.

Perelandra - C.S. Lewis (A Space Trilogy, Book 2) - Review

DavidC — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:54:35 +0000

Second of three books in the series A Space Trilogy:

Out of Silent Planet
Perelandra
That Hideous Strength - review coming soon...

Hmm...

What do you think would have happened had Eve not eaten the fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge? What if an advocate had dropped from the sky to help her resist temptation, an unlikely champion willing (however reluctantly) to do battle with the serpent?

Out Of Silent Planet - C.S. Lewis (A Space Trilogy, Book 1) - Review

DavidC — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:07:36 +0000

One of three books in the series A Space Trilogy:

Out of Silent Planet
Perelandra
That Hideous Strength - review coming soon...

In Out of Silent Planet, the first book in the Space Trilogy series, the stage is set with an unassuming (albiet perhaps slightly pretentious) intellectual on a vacation 'walk' through the countryside in 1930's England. A kidnapping and a scientifically unlikely journey to another planet later, the story manages to show you the worst (and maybe not the best, but at least the forgivable) about ourselves.