The Return of Captain Conquer Review

The Return of Captain Conquer by Mel Gilden

From the book jacket

In the house with two front doors, Watson Congruent’s father runs the “Captain Conquer PX,” selling souvenirs of that famous old TV show – posters, comic books, and small pink plastic brains like those the Captain and his sidekick, Chuckles, found in the “Micro-Brains from the Penguin Star” episode.

In the back room, Watson’s father is building a motivator like the one that powered the Captain’s stratoship, the Great Auk.

And out front, a mysterious excavation grows larger every day, under the direction of the sinister Charlieville Planning Commissioners.

Then one day Watson comes home to find both house and father vanished. As the Captain would say, “It’s time to throw out the interlocks!” With the help of a troop of eccentric Captain Conquer fans, Watson sets out to solve the mystery of his father’s disappearance – and not so incidentally to save the world from alien creatures who want to turn Earth’s atmosphere into something that is almost exactly like something that is not quite the same as cold cherry Jell-O…



It is a fun, simple story. There is a little danger, a little mystery, aliens, decoder rings and hero worship that may just turn out to be misplaced. It isn’t that nothing is going on but the story is not what you would call deep. There is no convoluted plot, no angst ridden teens, no heart rending turmoil or heart stopping terror. And you sort of meander through the plot. None of those things are bad however. It isn’t slow, just laid back. You get to follow Watson as he tries to save the world and finds out that his father might not be as crazy as he always thought. It is filled with quirky characters that sometimes go a little over the top but that just gives the book a fun comic booky feel. It is simply fun to read. It is, of course, silly, the phrase ‘something that is almost exactly like something that is not quite the same as cold cherry Jell-O' gets repeated over and over, furnaces are run by chocolate cereal, there are gopher armies and secret messages in mail order catalogues. But it all just adds to the campy, Saturday afternoon fun of the story. It is very light reading that is good for kids but I think anyone who enjoys the old serials or old TV superheroes will like it.

The Friday 56, Poison

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of Storytime With Tonya and Friends.
*Post a link along with your post back to Storytime With Tonya and Friends.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

The book this week is Poison by Chris Wooding. Witches, changlings and wicked stepmothers, oh my. Fun so far. Poison isn’t as annoying as I feared she might be.

The sentence:

At home, there was the lapping of water, the creek of the hut supports, the soft breathing of Azalea in the crib.

Nothing like being out in the big scary world for the first time to make you appreciate the small comforts of home.

BookHounds is giving away Ah-Choo!: The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold by Jennifer Ackerman. Up to 3 copies will be given away, depending on the number of entries.

It's all you ever wanted to know about the common cold and probably some things you didn't.

To enter:

+1 Leave a comment with an email address (you can do this daily for extra entries)
+1 Follow BookHounds
+2 Be a GFC Follower
+1 Be friends with BookHounds on GoodReads
+1 LIKE the new SWAMPED Facebook Page
+1 Post about this giveaway on your social networking site and leave a link. You can do this daily and receive an entry for each link you leave. One per day per site.
+3 Blog about this giveaway and leave a link
+1 Visit the author's website and leave BookHounds an interesting fact

Make sure to leave a new and separate comment for each entry.

Winners will be chosen on September 10th.
Open to the US and Canada, no PO boxes.

WWW Wednesdays (August 25th)

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

* What are you currently reading?
* What did you recently finish reading?
* What do you think you’ll read next?

Leave a link to your post (or the answers themselves if you do not have a blog) in the comments of Should Be Reading.

What are you currently reading?

Poison by Chris Wooding

And

Roma by Steven Saylor
It’s kind of long and I haven’t been reading as much lately as I usually do so this will probably be my answer next week too.

What did you recently finish reading?

Appaloosa by Robert B. Parker
I really liked it and will probably be reading the others in this series. The movie which inspired me to read the book stayed very close to the novel.

And

Passing of the Third Floor Back by Jerome Jerome
I liked it but there were a lot of stage directions and I sometimes had trouble picturing how everyone was supposed to be moving around. Probably because I don’t read many plays.

What do you think you'll read next?

You mean in two month when I finish Roma? Well, let’s face it, I never really know what I’m going to read next until I actually start reading it. But if I had to take a guess…

Either Fragment by Warren Fahy or Let the Right One in by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Both are checked out of the library and sitting at home, quickly approaching their due dates.

Carol’s Prints is giving away ARCs Galore!

On offer are:
Signed hardcover of Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Signed ARC of Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
ARC of Paranormalcy by Kiersten White
ARC of Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan
ARC of Dark Water by Laura McNeal
2 ARCs of Radiance by Alison Noel
ARC of Jane by April Lindner
ARC of Dark Song by Gail Giles
ARC of The House of Dead Maids by Clare B. Dunkle
ARC of Keepers School: Fear Itself by Andrew Clements
ARC of The Diary of Piper Davis: The Fences Between Us by Kirby Larson
ARC of If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now by Claire LaZebnik

The giveaway is international and ends September 6th.

Fill out the form to be entered.

There is a boatload of ways to get extra entries. Check out the form to see how.

Back to School Giveaway

Reading Teen is having a Back To School Giveaway.

The winner will choose from this list:

The Duff by Kody Keplinger
The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller
Nightshade by Andrea Cremer
Pegasus by Robin McKinley
You by Charles Benoit
Halo by Alexandra Adornetto
Other by Karen Kincy
Grace by Elizabeth Scott
Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl
Ascendant by Diana Peterfreund
The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney
Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler
Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan
Dark Song by Gail Giles
Kiss Me Deadly Anthology multiple authors

If there is enough interest a second winner will be added to encourage all your friends to enter too!

Giveaway is International and ends September 24th.

Fill out the form to be entered.

Extra entries for being a follower, putting it in your sidebar, blogging, tweeting and adding the Reading Teen button to your blogroll. And don’t worry, if you enter and then complete more entries you can fill out the form again.

You can tweet once a day so make sure you fill out the second form for each tweet to get all of your entries.

Books for the Troops

Over at The Daily Monocle J.P. is looking to get books to USA troops who are overseas.

Until September 11th J.P. will be hosting a book drive for Operation Paperback.

There are several ways that you can help. You can, of course, go to Operation Paperback and sign up to send a box of books yourself but if you do not think you can get enough books to fill a box or afford to send them all yourself you can send a few books to The Daily Monocle and J.P. will send them over with the other books that are collected. If you want to send books you should contact J.P. You can find the email address on The Daily Monocle site.

Or if you do not have books to donate you can also make a monetary donation to Operation Paperback.

For more details you should visit Operation Paperback and read J.P.'s post on The Daily Monocle.

The Friday 56, Roma

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of Storytime With Tonya and Friends.
*Post a link along with your post back to Storytime With Tonya and Friends.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

The book this week is Roma by Steven Saylor. I just started it on the train into work this morning. Not the best book to try to read on the train because it is big and heavy and not fun to carry around but I wanted to read it so…

I have no idea yet if it is good or not. I’ll have to let you know later.

The sentence:

“Tell me what?”
Remus looked at him slyly. “We’re hatching a plot, my brother and I.”

I’m only, like, 8 pages in so I have no idea what the plot may be but I’m looking forward to finding out.

Go on a Crusade

The Book Butterfly is giving away 5 copies of Crusade by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie.

You can enter by filling in the simple form. And you can get an extra entry for every place you link or post about the giveaway.

The contest ends August 31st and is open to US addresses only.

The Thief Lord Review

The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

(from the back of the book)

Welcome to the magical underworld of Venice, Italy. Here, hidden canals and crumbling rooftops shelter runaways and children with incredible secrets…

After escaping from their cruel aunt and uncle, orphans Prosper and Bo meet a mysterious boy who calls himself the “Thief Lord.” Clever and charming, the Thief Lord leads a band of street children who enjoy making mischief. But the Thief Lord also has a dark secret. And suddenly Prosper and Bo find themselves on a fantastical journey to a forgotten place. What they discover there will change the course of their destiny.



When their aunt threatens to separate them Bo and Prosper run away. You know that they should not be on their own but the love between the brothers and their desire to stay together makes you want to root for them even when their flight takes them to the streets of Venice where they join the Thief Lord and his small band. The Thief Lord’s gang is a likeable bunch and they stick together like family. You worry that someone will find out about them and take them away from each other. The Thief Lord takes care of them even though he is just a kid himself. He’s arrogant but you like him anyway because you know he is just a kid looking for approval and acceptance. The detective sent to find Bo and Prosper is a nice, funny guy who has a touching affection for his pet turtles and you want him to succeed too even though his objectives are the opposite of the children’s. You want all of them to find a happy ending and it kind of leave you torn because you don’t know if that is possible. There are some Italian words and a glossary to explain them but most of the time you don’t need it because the context is enough to figure out what they mean. I liked the story of the children trying to make their way and the detective trying to decide what is the right thing to do. I liked trying to figure out how it could possibly turn out well for everyone. There were good themes of being careful what you wish for and that the grass is not always greener and learning to understand the problems of others. The children and the detective were people you wanted to know and spend time with. But I thought the first part of the book was better than the end when the magic merry-go-round came into the story. It seemed strange to me. Not because it was fantastical but because it did not quite seem to fit into the first part of the book. It took us someplace I did not expect to go. But I do like the slightly ambiguous ending. Not that you don’t know what happened, but you don’t know if you are quite happy about it.

WWW Wednesdays (August 18th)

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

* What are you currently reading?
* What did you recently finish reading?
* What do you think you’ll read next?

Leave a link to your post (or the answers themselves if you do not have a blog) in the comments of Should Be Reading.

What are you currently reading?

Generation Dead by Daniel Waters
That’s right. I finally actually started the book. So far so good.

What did you recently finish reading?

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

What do you think you'll read next?

Well, it should be Roma by Steven Saylor because I got it from the Librarything’s early reviewers program so I have to write a review for it. And there is a lot of book to read. But…

It might be Appaloosa by Robert B. Parker because I just saw the movie and liked it and was inspired to go get the book out of the library. Which was crazy because I ordered a bunch of books from the library and they are all coming in and I have no idea how I’m going to read them all.

Book on Over to Bingo's

As always Bookin’ With Bingo has a whole list of wonderful giveaways going on.


For The Writing Circle by Corinne Demas go here. Ends 6:00 PM, EST, August 23. Open to the US only, no PO boxes.

For Maid Of Murder by Amanda Flower go here. Ends 6:00 PM, EST, August 23. Open to the US only, no PO boxes.

For Captured By Desire by Kira Morgan go here. Ends 6:00 PM, EST, August 24. Open to the US and Canada, no PO boxes.

For No Way Down by Graham Bowley go here. Ends 6:00 PM, EST, August 28. Open to the US only, no PO boxes.

For the White Heat by Brenda Novak Prize Pack Giveaway go here. Ends 6:00 PM, EST, August 28. Open to the US only, no PO boxes.

For Hangman by Faye Kellerman go here. Ends 6:00 PM, EST, August 29. Open to the US only, no PO boxes.

For More Church Folk by Michele Andrea Bowen go here. Ends 6:00 PM, EST, August 30. Open to the US and Canada, no PO boxes.

For Amish Proverbs by Suzanne Woods Fisher go here. Ends 6:00 PM, EST, August 30. Open to the US only, no PO boxes.

For The Capitol Game by Brian Haig go here. Ends 6:00 PM, EST, September 2. Open to the US and Canada, no PO boxes.


Check out the giveaway page where you will find the complete list. Giveaways are always being added so go back often.

Under the Dome

At Home With Books is giving away a copy of Under the Dome by Stephen King.

To enter, do any of the following:

1. Leave a comment at At Home With Books including an email address. (1 entry)

2. Subscribe to Alyce’s rss feed, follow her on Google Friend Connect or subscribe via email (current subscribers are eligible too)

3. Tweet the giveaway post on Twitter

4. Stumble the giveaway, digg it, or post about it on Facebook.

5. Blog about the giveaway. (Posting the giveaway on your sidebar is also acceptable.)

You get an extra entry for each one you do but make sure that you leave each entry in a new comment.

This is for the US only and you have until midnight (Pacific Time) on August 29th to enter.

The Friday 56, Frenchman's Creek

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of Storytime With Tonya and Friends.
*Post a link along with your post back to Storytime With Tonya and Friends.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

The book this week is Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne Du Maurier. It’s a little more of a romance than I usually go for but I've liked the Du Maurier that I’ve read before and though this is not on a par with Rebecca I still like it.

The sentence:

“Why do you ride horses that are too spirited?” he answered.
“Because of the danger, because of the speed, because I might fall,” she said.

Win The Pack

P.S. I Love Books is giving away a copy of The Pack by LM Preston plus the winner will also get The Pack poster & magnet and a copy of the next book released by Phenomenal One Press, BANDITS, which will be released in the Spring.

Sound good? Of course it does. And all you need to do to enter is leave Mishel a comment that includes your email address.

But if you are willing to do a little more work than there are a bunch of extra entries to be had.


+3 for following P.S. I Love Books with Google Friend Connect
+2 for subscribing to P.S. I Love Books through email
+2 for following P.S. I Love Books on Facebook
+2 for following P.S. I Love Books on twitter. (provide your twitter @name)
+1 for commenting on the review
+1 for commenting on L.M.'s guest post
+1 share the giveaway! -sidebar, blog post, twitter, facebook (links required, each link = +1)

The giveaway ends August 25th and is international so everyone can play!

The Pencil Review

The Pencil by Henry Petroski


(from the book jacket)
We use it every day of our lives. It is virtually invisible – yet universal and indispensable – part of our world culture. Its function is beyond comment and directions for its use are unwritten. It deserves a celebration, and now it has one.

In this fascinating and charmingly illustrated book, Henry Petroski looks at the pencil and sharpens our appreciation of it. He traces its origins back to ancient Greece and Rome and its present incarnation to the sixteenth century and the discovery of graphite in England. He shows us how it is made (how do they get the lead inside the pencil?). He tells the stories of the pencil’s most famous makers – the great nineteenth-century manufacturers, among them Faber and Dixon – and of a more modest family pencil business, among whose principals was Henry David Thoreau. Petroski seeks out the secret behind the miracle of the pencil’s survival against such formidable competitors as the pen, the typewriter, and the computer. And finally, he looks at the pencil as a prime – perhaps ultimate – example of the elegance of engineering, an object with much to say about the world of modern technology.



This is a book about the engineering and evolution of the pencil. And it is more interesting than it sounds. There are times when it does become a rather dry account, telling you that this company moved here, or this company bought that one. And there are a lot of things explained that you have to really care about to want to read here, like how they get the lead in the pencil and all the different shapes and the reason behind them and things like that. I found a lot of it interesting but many people, I’m sure, won’t. There are also some interesting pencil facts, about the first pencils, why you had to look out for counterfeit pencils (I never knew that making pencils was such big business), why some pencils had mouthpieces and why we call it lead even though it isn’t and lots more. Once again, interesting stuff but only to a select audience. Petroski also makes this account about more than just pencils but uses the pencil to make you think about the engineering all around you. You get a feel, by looking at the pencil and all the parts and all the things you have to think about to make it work, for how much engineering and design go into even the simple things that you might take for granted. Petroski wants to remind people that although it is often the case that the engineering behind something is forgotten because it is not recorded in a lasting medium, but mostly in sketches or technology that becomes obsolete, and maybe an old design may seem unimportant when a new, better design comes along, nothing sprang into being fully formed and the thought and time that went into it are interesting and important and should not be dismissed.

WWW Wednesdays (August 11th)

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

* What are you currently reading?
* What did you recently finish reading?
* What do you think you’ll read next?

Leave a link to your post (or the answers themselves if you do not have a blog) in the comments of Should Be Reading.

What are you currently reading?

Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne Du Maurier

and

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

What did you recently finish reading?

Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart
Interesting stuff. Some of which I not sure I’m happy I now know.

and

Murder Mirage by Kenneth Robeson
Doc Savage, pulpy, fun, but not my favorite one.

What do you think you'll read next?

Well…
How many weeks in a row can you use the same answer to this question?
If you’re me I guess it can be a lot because I’m going to say Generation Dead by Daniel Waters again. Maybe this time it will actually be true.

August Giveaway

Over at Library Girl Reads you can enter to win a book. What book? Well, that is up to you. Sort of. You see, there's a list. So you should go to Library Girl's Prize Page and see if there is anything that interests you. If there is a book there that you can't live without, or that you want to read at least, then go to her August Giveaway post and leave a comment saying which book you would like.

If you would like extra entries (and who doesn't) you should follow Library Girl Reads and/or link to the giveaway on your blog, Twitter, or another social media. Make sure you tell her if you follow and leave links to your links.

Deadline for entries is August 25 at 11:59 PM EST.
This is for US addresses only.

The Friday 56, The Dead-Tossed Waves

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of Storytime With Tonya and Friends.
*Post a link along with your post back to Storytime With Tonya and Friends.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

The book this week is The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan. I finished this book a while ago but it is sitting here because I have not gotten around to returning it to the library yet.

The sentence:

This means every day, every twelve hours and twenty-five minutes, my mother patrols the beach, ready to decapitate any Mudo that wash in on the high tide.

Nice. I mean, who wouldn't want that job? Even without knowing that Mudo are zombies that does not sound like a fun time.

WWW Wednesdays (August 4th)

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

* What are you currently reading?
* What did you recently finish reading?
* What do you think you’ll read next?

Leave a link to your post (or the answers themselves if you do not have a blog) in the comments of Should Be Reading.

What are you currently reading?

Walking Through Walls by Philip Smith
A memoir. This kid had an interesting childhood.

Murder Mirage by Kenneth Robeson
Doc Savage. So pretty much like most Doc Savage. Fun if you like that sort of thing.


What did you recently finish reading?

99 Coffins by David Wellington
I liked the historical aspects of this vampire story.


Vampyre: The Terrifying Lost Journal of Dr. Cornelius Van Helsing
Goofy little book with flaps to lift and tabs to pull. Also about vampires.


What do you think you'll read next?

Generation Dead by Daniel Waters
From the library so it needs to go back eventually but I might need a bigger break from the zombie/vampire type books and go a different route.

Maybe...
Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier

Stieg Larsson Trilogy

Bookin' With Bingo is giving away the Stieg Larsson trilogy.

One winner will get all three books, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

To enter to win the trilogy make sure you go to both giveaway posts. You must enter the giveaway for The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest here first. Then go to the giveaway post for the trilogy here and say which number your entry is in the first post.

All entries on both post will be combined into one contest.

There are lots of ways to get extra entries so make sure you read carefully to enter as many times as you can. But make sure that you put each entry in a new comment.

You have until 6 PM EST on August 15th to get all your entries in.

This is open to the US only, no PO boxes.

Books I Finished in July

Got to 11 in July. A couple of short books and the fact that I really don’t do anything else helps keeps my numbers up.


The Woman Who Wouldn't by Gene Wilder
It was cute and kind of sweet. I liked it but not as much as I liked My French Whore by Wilder.

Dog Days by John Levitt
Good urban fantasy. Maybe not my favorite but I definitely enjoyed it. I think I might need a break from the genre though because some of the characters are starting to feel familiar from other books.

The White Mary by Kira Salak
Read my review here.

Another Faust by Daniel Nayeri
Disappointing. I wanted to like this and I think it had potential but there was a huge lull in the middle that I had trouble paying attention through.

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
More of a zombie book than I had anticipated. I like zombie books so I didn’t mind but unfortunately the main character did not really grab my attention and I had trouble caring what happened to her.

The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry
This was disappointing too. I had read another Cotton Malone book and really liked it so bought this one but didn’t care for it. I didn’t like the characters as much and was a little put off by the anti Christian/Catholic/religion angle.

Skin Deep by Mark Del Franco
It takes place in the same world as his Connor Grey series so the setting was familiar to me but I like the Grey series better. And I got a little tired of hearing how Laura was wearing clothes that were tight in all the right places and how that distracted the men around her.

The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
I wanted answers to the questions the first book left me with and I got some of those so I’m happy about that. But somewhere along the line this book started to read like the first one, same plot different cast. Choosing between two guys, out beyond the safety of the fence and all that. I’m ambivalent.

One Of Us Is Wrong by Donald Westlake
Filled with Westlake’s quirky characters and his humor.

Epic: The Story God is Telling and the Role That is Yours to Play by John Eldredge
Eldredge has some good ideas but I was surprised and a little annoyed by the end at how often he quoted someone else or compared something to a movie or book. At about 100 pages it seemed like a lot of the words were not his own.

The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong
Fast, fun, exciting without being predictable or storybook happy all the time. I think it was a nice conclusion to the Darkest Powers Trilogy.