Zom-B Underground, Darren Shan – Yes I realise it’s another Shan review, but there’s a change from the others…

The cover promises action, the pages reveal anything but.

Part two of Shan’s new Zom-B series, titled Zom-B Underground, was published in January, setting a pattern of a book every three months, no mean feat. But it looks like the writing is taking a hit from the strict deadlines. I really wouldn’t be surprised if future books were delayed, if not cancelled altogether.

The series should stretch across three years, if they stick to deadlines that is, quite a significant gap. The target audience is teenagers, around fourteen years-old. So in three years they’ll be seventeen, an age where the reading material is made up of textbooks or thrillers, not an age for hearing about whether a zombie could still have a period. Come to think of it, I don’t think anyone wants to read about that, and yet I have.

Darren Shan has always taken a typical myth and flipped it or manipulated it in some way, and there’s no change with Zom-B Underground. However, unlike The Cirque du Freak series or The Demonata series, it is not done well. Things are just not believable anymore. I think it’s ’cause I’m growing up or becoming even more cynical (if that’s possible). But no, that is not the reason this book has less life than the zombies themselves.

The entire book is set in some kind of laboratory or prison, depending on your moral standing, where zombies are being tested on or observed. Personally, I was hoping for some kind of gore-fest where you can just read about cool ways that zombies get killed, but there is literally fuck all action. Okay not literally, but it’s less than 1%. Halfway through I was getting sick and tired of listening to the main character whinge and moan about the fact that she’s too strong to whinge and moan. I wanted her to die, as cruel as that sounds, but at least something interesting would happen.

Not even the books biggest twist, which was miniscule compared to the others that Shan produces, brought a flicker of life to this boring and repetitive story that brought similar feelings to the ones I feel towards a desperate slags facebook status’. I just wanted it to go away and never come back.

A sad realisation as I grow out of Shan’s books for teenagers. I will not be spending the remaining £100 or so on the next books. Sorry, Mr. Shan.

My 2012 in Review! – The world’s 2012 will be reviewed swiftly at the beginning for those who couldn’t give a shit about my life :)

2012 was one of the better years for the world. Obama was elected once again, we proved to the world we’re not a bunch of incompetence twats (Thank you Danny Boyle!) and, of course, Gangnam Style was born. However, the world’s 2012 was not all good. For example, America was brutalised by Hurricane Sandy, The Stone Roses reformed, and everyone turned out to be a paedophile. You can’t say you like anyone anymore because you just know that the next day they’re name is going to be on some sort of list, it’s like fucking Russian Roulette. I’d say 2012, for us as a sporting nation was hugely successful. The Olympics rocked everyone’s socks, the European Football Championships provided us with some brilliant moments and of course, Bradley Wiggins. The last reason does not need to be explained. British sport is thriving at the moment and, for me, this is one of the best things that could happen to our lazy, couch-potato-filled country. Overall, 2012 was a good year for the world. It learnt a lot, like you really CAN tell who is a paedophile just by looking at them. Looking at you Jimmy Saville.

So, to what this article/review is really about. My 2012. Just to say, there will be absolutely no order to the highlights, they’ll just be dotted about. It started as most years do…drunk. A lot of the year was spent drunk, so what better way to start it? Finishing college was one of the best things to happen in 2012. To finally wave goodbye to that fucking hellhole they call Winstanley. Seriously, do not go to Winstanley College, they harvest your souls, to feed Anne Grist. Although I was once blessed by overhearing someone say “Anne Grist is the angriest.” Somewhat made up for it. After College came the Summer which, despite being about four months, passed by all too quickly. A lovely holiday with the girlfriend in Portsmouth around late July was, well, lovely. The sun, the sea and the truly awful butterfly house that contained more dead ones than live ones. Everything was a little bit dodgy in Portsmouth, encapsulated by the weird pirate who pierced my ear. He had about 60 piercings in each ear which I imagine would make him a nightmare at airport security, a purple feathered hat and a massaging lesson going on in a curtained off room. I will never know why I decided to have it done there. Never ever. But I’m glad I did, because it summed up Portsmouth for me. He was a lovely person, and it was a place of lovely people. Then, not two weeks later came my second Leeds Festival.

This year’s Leeds Fest was, musically, disappointing to say the least. To say the most I’d say it was fucking atrocious. But me and the girlfriend, who will feature in practically every highlight, found some hidden gems amongst the pile of shit. Of Monsters And Men who we were very excited to see were brillimazcellent, L.A eased us into the festival feeling with a lovely relaxed set on the first day and The Cure blew us both away with their almost 3 hour long set of classics and album tracks. I was surprised how entertained I was by the music. On the other hand, The Gaslight Anthem, who I was possibly most excited to see were a HUGE disappointment. Their sound got lost in the fangirls waiting for All Time Low. Fucking All Time Low. Considering their fanbase is young teenage girls, they swear a lot. It was better than their playing however which just sounded like meaningless drivel to me. But, the prize for shittest band of the weekend goes to King Charles. Oh my God he was terrible. He couldn’t sing, every song sounded the same and he looked like a Peregrine Falcon. If you’re reading this King Charles…go away. Or at least hand yourself in to the RSPB so they can find you a nice little on the nest…on the edge of a rather high cliff. The friends did make up for the general lack of decent music. Banterous, joyful and just plain festivally, they turned a potential terrible 5 days into a hilarious weekend that I would love to relive. Thank you to you guys!

Another time made awesome by friends was my birthday. All my past birthdays have been pretty standard. Stay in with family, get a tiny bit drunk and retire for sleep. Not this year, ohhhhhhhhh no. This year me and my girlfriend, there she is again, rounded up some homeys and headed to the beautiful, luxurious nirvana that is Wigan. An excellent night of laughter and alcohol was topped off by my friend, Danny Cobley (it is now public, sorry Danny) casually strolling onto the dancefloor unannounced, completely bladdered, and dancing to James Brown. This happened three times. We were all having a nice little chat and next minute we’d see him throwing shapes! I must say in his defence, he was excellent. I don’t know how he did it. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, it did. Danny proceeded to throw up and excuse himself to the bathroom to “wash up”. When I arrived, he exited a cubicle with all the sick washed off his top. The only explanation I have is he used toilet water to clean himself…he remembers nothing. He also then insisted he had no fucking clue who James Brown was, despite dancing in time to his music. He baffles and entertains. He is. Danny Cobley.

2012, compared to 2011, was a very quiet year for gigs. In fact, I only went to one gig, excluding Leeds, which is quite shocking, especially seeing as I already have 3 planned in the next 3 months. This gig I have already reviewed, and it is the Royal Republic gig. The thing that made it so special was meeting them. I’ve been a big, and sometimes obsessive, fan for about two years now, since their debut album, and meeting them was truly brilliant. I met another of my heroes this year too, the one and only, Mr. Darren Shan. I’ve already been picked up by my college tutor for being a fanboy of his, and I am not ashamed of this. He is my role model, an idol and the person I aspire to be. Shaking his hand and getting strangled by him was a real treat. Something I will never forget for as long as I live.

Speaking of living, we’re all alive! Sounds pretty stupid of me to say, right? Wrong! We were all supposed to die a couple of weeks ago, but we didn’t. So yeah, fuck you Mayans.

Christmas! I am going to talk about Christmas now if you hadn’t figured. 2012 Christmas was fantastic. I got amazing presents, especially off my girlfriend, Pebbles (Seeing as she will appear in many a article/review after today, including this one, we might as well use her name) such as a mini-fridge, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (personal favourite) and a cute little hedgehog Christmas tree decoration. The food, the presents, the food, the cheesy jokes, the food, the smile on a young boy’s face as you hand him Pokemon Sapphire; these are what make Christmas special, and it was really was this time around.

I’m going to end this article/review on my favourite moment of 2012 so maybe there is some kind of order to it. And yes, you guessed it, maybe, it involved Pebbles. It’s two things but I’m going to smash them together like some kind of chemist., or tetris player.

The two things are:
– Trip to London for Pebbles’ birthday.
– Trip to Chester for mine and Pebbles’ anniversary.

I’ll do London first. London is a special place for me and Pebbles, a school trip there 8 years ago (fucking hell that’s a long time) brought us to be the best of friends and, I’m sure I can speak for her as well as me, some of the best memories. Going back there, just the two of us, was amazing. The train being delayed straight from the off due to someone jumping in front of a train was not the start I was hoping for, but that didn’t crush our spirit. Eventually we made it to the hotel (Premier Inn – one day I will review their breakfast…OH MY GOD THEIR BREAKFAST<3) at around 2am and jumped into bed. The next two days were spent waltzing round London doing all the touristy stuff like: Open top bus tour, Hamleys, Harrods, Hyde Park, Riverboat, Buckingham Palace, Science Museum, Pizza Hut, Sainsbury’s – you know, the usual stuff you do when you’re in London. I will take a sentence of this rather long article/review to praise the London tube system; it is fantastic. There we go. London was amazing. Just walking around in such a vast and brilliant city was a great escape from the mundane sights of Wigan we were so used to.

Now it’s Chester’s turn. Oh Chester. Our home from home. It really is one of the prettiest cities I’ve ever visited. Everywhere you look there is personality. From the Roman wall surrounding the entire city to the loudest man I have ever heard shouting “BIG ISSUE!” I also witnessed the most sudden bout of torrential rain ever. Thank God we were in the Disney Store at the time and not Laura pissing Ashley. Again we stayed in a Premier Inn, just because of the breakfast…………………sorry, was thinking about the breakfast. That breakfast is worthy of the Gods. In fact no, the Gods are worthy of the breakfast…just. A nice stroll down the river which changed the direction of its current and blagged both our heads was followed by a fun walk around Chester park where Pebbles acquired a squirrel army. I’d just like to ask, do rivers just decide which way to flow? We would have races between sticks we saw floating downstream only for them to stop halfway and come back. Truly baffling.

On that insane rant, I will end my review of 2012. I will definitely have missed something from the year out, In fact I’ll list a few things now without going into any detail:
– Chester Zoo
– Getting into University
– University in general
– Proving my fucking College English teacher wrong by getting into University
– Every party I attended
– Watching Drive for the first time
-Borderlands 2
– Getting a job
– Putting red clothes in my wardrobe

And pretty much every minute. It’s been an amazing year thanks to some amazing people and some amazing moments. I thank everyone who helped make these moments what they were. Let’s hope 2013 can come up with something even better!

Zom-B, Darren Shan – What with the world ending this Friday, this seemed fitting.

Seeing as my previous review was a Darren Shan book, I do not need to describe my feelings towards him, I’ll merely summarise them: They are of a loving nature…but manly love, obviously. So when I heard that he was writing a new series for children, I was excited. When he said the series would be about zombies, I became less excited because, and I’m not afraid to admit it, zombies scare the living, and undead, shit out of me. See what I did there? I made a pun. Go me.

But don’t be fooled by him saying his books are for children. Shan’s books for children are like the equivalent of Saw for, well, children. They’re gruesome. However, the first 140 pages, were rather gore-free, except the first paragraph, as is Shan’s style. Like Lady of the Shades, we have an incredibly high tempo at the beginning which is then slowed right down for the next twenty-or-so chapters. The problem is, Zom-B has twenty-seven chapters. The amount of zombie action is a relatively small in relation the book itself, with most of the story being taken up by the main character’s conflict with their racist dad. Another reason why this book is not as suitable for children as first thought. The racism expressed by the father gets rather intense, and violent; epitomised by the sacrificing of a boy to the zombie’s because he is black.

The zombies did eventually appear, and it is very sudden, there are hundreds of zombies rampaging around your school. It is literally in a split second that hell becomes apparent. Which I liked. I was growing tired of waiting for zombies, I wanted someone to get eaten, and when they finally did, it didn’t stop. There is probably more action in the latter half of the book than there is in the whole of X-Men 3, which is saying something. That film just doesn’t know when to stop.

Anyway, what was I talking about… ah yes the book, some of the illustrations (something I originally loved) gave away something that hadn’t actually happened yet, ruining a bit of the story. You’d turn the page and on one side would be a picture of a zombie killing a character. JUST BECAUSE IT’S ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE DOES NOT MEAN I WILL READ THE WORDS ON THE LEFT BEFORE LOOKING AT THE PICTURE! COMMONSENSE! Although they did look cool. Pretty awesomely cool actually.

Zom-B is a slow starter, there’s no denying that. But you can’t look at it as one book, it is the beginning of a rather large series. So when we put it into context, it is an introduction to the series, and therefore the amount of action involved is actually rather high, in context.

Oh, and it has the best twist ever. It is the simplest of twists, and I found myself shocked that I had been so stupidly played by a masterful writer. On this twist alone, I recommend it…highly.

Lady of the Shades, by Darren Shan – Shantastic!

I’ve always been a fan of Mr. Shan; I say fan, more like obsessive hoarder of his works. In fact, Lord Loss was the first book I ever bought for myself, so he is close to my heart. I also got to meet him in May of this year, so I suppose I am biased in some ways, but unbiased in others. For example, the last book I read written by him, I disliked. Birth of a Killer lacked the grit and brutality of his writing and was, dare I say it, boring.

However, I kept my faith in the Shanster- and by God was I right to. I have only read one of his books for adults, which was beyond excellent, so was excited to read another. That excitement just grew and grew whilst reading it. Lady of the Shades follows the story of American writer Ed Sieveking in London, a man tormented by spectres who thrive on his fear and anger. As the story progresses, we learn of his past and how he copes with it, surrounding himself with research and stories. His life then begins to spiral out of control when he falls for a woman with an air of mystery, becoming involved with gangsters, assassinations and conspiracy.

It wasn’t a slow-starter, especially seeing as we’re thrust into an assassination straight from the off, but, as Shan seems to do a lot, it slowed dramatically in the second chapter. From then on, the drama and pace of the book increased very slowly but surely, until by the final chapter you’re practically being knocked off your feet due to the amount of twists and turns.  There comes a point when a book has too many twists and turns. Like a rollercoaster you want at least one straight to gather your bearings to prepare yourself to be thrashed about again not seconds later, but Lady of the Shades manages to fit it in lots of little twists that all build up to the one big, story-changing twist, a technique that I can only dream of replicating.

Lady of the Shades is farfetched yet believable, it is sad but uplifting, it is everything I hoped it would be. Each twist added something to story, whether it was drama, suspense or emotional impact – and combining these, you have just about the most incredible story.

Special thanks to my girlfriend for buying me the book for my birthday, and I know she’ll read this so – Alo dear. Thank you for buying me such a wonderful book…not that I asked you to…