A to Z Reading Challenge

Ok, so I entered this last year and did really badly.  (As I did with all my reading challenges.) I hope to do better this year.  If you want to try along with me you can go to Escape With Dollycas Into a Good Book and sign up.  

A- Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

B- Breath of Earth by Beth Cato

C- The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny

D-

E- The Emissary by Yoko Tawada

F-

G-

H- Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny

I- Immortal Bones by Trinidad Giachino

J-

K-

L- The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar by Steven Sora

M-

N-

O- Oedipus the king by Sophocles

P-

Q-

R-

S-

T-

U- Utopia by Thomas More

V-

W- Wild Things, Wild Places by Jane Alexander

X-

Y-

Z-

Lizard Music Review

Lizard Music by D. Manus Pinkwater

(from the book jacket)

When Victor’s parents go away for two weeks, leaving his older sister in charge, he is glad when she takes off on a vacation of her own.  Home alone, Victor can do anything he wants.  He stays up late, eats his pizza with anchovies, visits the zoo, and enjoys his favorite TV news program without interruption.

It is while staying up late watching television that he discovers evidence of a secret community of intelligent lizards, and that there seems to have been an invasion from outer space that went almost unnoticed.  In the course of some detective work, he meets Chicken Man, an eccentric with a hen in his hat who knows about these things.  Together, they visit the lizards in Thunderbolt City.

Victor is left all alone at home.  And what he does with his freedom is watch Walter Cronkite.  There is something endearing about this boy who is a little different from the other children he knows.  And as things that he cannot understand start to happen around him and he is all alone to figure it out he learns about what he is capable of.  Chicken Man, who helps him with his quest, is a quirky fun character.  (As is his chicken.)  Actually the whole story is quirky and fun.  It has a surreal feel to it because Victor and Chicken Man seem to see and know things the rest of the world doesn’t.  The world goes on around them as truly spectacular things happen and they are the only ones who notice.  I found it a fun read but it is dated and I think some things children today might not get.  But it is a light read, which I found nice.  It’s not that there is no thinking involved but there is no fighting for your life, or war or other horrible stuff going on.  It is a fun fantasy story.

A Guidebook to Learning Review

A Guidebook to Learning by Mortimer J. Adler

A map of sorts for people who want to plan out a lifetime of learning to help them to navigate the plethora of information.

I do not know what I thought this book would be, but it wasn’t what I got.  Even the author admits that if you get through most of the book and make it to the final chapters you might wonder what everything you have read so far has to do with the proposed goal of the book.  I was in that position myself.  Which is not to say that there was nothing I found interesting there.  Adler goes through a historical survey of how information has been organized and collected.  He also outlines the reasons why alphabetical order is not the best way to organize information and the reasons it is so hard to organize it any other way.  Some of which was interesting for its own sake.  But it isn’t for everyone.  I can see how some people would be bored to tears.  I have never read anything else by Adler but he talked about his other work a lot.  So much that it started to feel self-promoting at times.  He explains that he thinks everyone should have a general education and gives you some tips on how to go about giving yourself one along with an outline of information to give you some place to start and something to aim for.

Man Plus Review

Man Plus by Frederik Pohl

(from the book jacket)

Roger Torraway watched in horror as the monster lurched, toppled over and died.  Project Man Plus had gone suddenly and drastically wrong.

The race to colonize Mars was too important, too costly, and America was already too committed, for plans to be scrapped.  They would have to make a new Martian.  And Roger Torraway was it, candidate for the endless surgery, operation after painful operation, that would enable him to survive on that faraway planet.

Man Plus is a thrilling race against time – to land on Mars on schedule, to insure that Roger’s system will withstand the stress that killed the previous candidate.  And, meanwhile, somewhere, somehow, there has been a breakdown in the computer network…

Man Plus is about Roger who, after the previous candidate dies, is entered into a program to change his biology enough that he can survive on Mars.  It is more about the way Roger reacts to the things that are happening to him and the way people react to him than it is about the trip to Mars.  Roger knows that it is an honor to be chosen for the mission but he is going in knowing the process killed the man before him and had made him into something other than human.  And as his appearance changes the people around him start to treat him less and less like a person.  And the loss of his humanity piece by piece puts mental and emotional stress on him on top of the physical stresses of the process.  It was interesting to see how he had to learn to use all of his senses again and to understand the new way his brain processes the new information coming in.  His frustration and anger starts to show when he can’t even do something simple, like close his eyes.  I liked the internal struggle Roger was faced with, and I liked watching the change in him as the process moved along, but there were other parts that were not so interesting.  I wish some of the other characters were developed more or left out completely because they sometimes seemed to be in the way of the story and were more distracting than anything else.  Especially his love interests.  The whole book is told by a narrator who is not identified until the very end.  But it felt less like a twist and more like the start of an unrelated storyline.  I liked the main plot and storyline and it kept me reading to see where it was going.  But I’m not in any hurry to track down the sequel.  In the end I am not sorry I read it, it was enjoyable, and if you come across it I would say you should give it a try but I wouldn’t say it was worth making a big effort to look for it.  

Roots Review

Roots by Alex Haley

Roots follows a family through several generations from Kunta Kinte, who was taken from his home in Gambia and sold into slavery, to his descendants who lived to see a time when they were no longer slaves.

This is a very powerful story.  No matter how much is true.  The controversy did take away from the book somewhat for me, especially at the end when the author is speaking to me as the reader and talking about his personal journey to write this book.  Which is unfortunate.  Because this is a good story and the feelings and sentiments here are true.  And I kind of got mad at Haley for putting the unfavorable impression into my head that I couldn’t quite get rid of as I read.  But I was easily able to become very involved with the characters.  I got a feeling for how life was for Kunta in his village.  I felt I knew him and his family.  I cared about them.  Which made the story of what happened to him a very emotional one for me.  It was interesting to see how Kunta was so different from the slaves who had been born slaves, how attitudes toward how the system worked could be so different among people who were all in the same position.  And I liked that it crossed several generations so you could see how time changed those attitudes in Kunta and the generations to come.  I do think Kunta Kinte was the best part and the book lost a little something when he left the story.  I understood why the story moved on but I wished we could go back and see what had happen to him.  The dialogue is written in dialect and that took me a while to get used to and there were some parts that I had to go back and read again out loud to figure out what was being said but I don’t think there was any other way this story could be told.  Despite the controversy surrounding Alex Haley and the writing of this book it is still very much a story worth telling and reading.

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang Review

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm

The human race is dying out and a small group tries to save it by experiments in cloning.

The story starts when it is already too late to save the world as we know it.  A small group who realized the danger before the rest of the world was willing to accept the truth had started to prepare and plan for the future.  They decide the only way to save the human race is to create clones.  As the clones start to take over from the originals the story starts to explore the importance of individuality, imagination, original thought, and having differences.  It was a quick start and you were soon in the middle of the main issues as the original humans were starting to find themselves obsolete.  And it makes you think about what humanity is as the clones take over and it becomes apparent that they think differently, and do things differently.  The question comes up of whether they have saved the human race or created something completely new.  But even though I found the concept interesting it took me a while to get into this story.  Due to the very nature of the characters there is a lack of emotion at times that I found hard to connect to.  It took longer to get to know these characters and care for them.  In time I did, but it took a while.  I would say that if you are at all interested in post-apocalyptic stories (or clones) you should definitely give this one a try.

(As a side note, in the copy I borrowed from my library some of the pages were in the wrong order.  So if you are reading and the next page doesn’t seem to make sense look at the page numbers.  All the pages were there and never further than one page away from where it should have been so you can read everything in the right order if you realize what in going on at the time.)

The Marshall and the Madwoman Review

The Marshal and the Madwoman by Magdalen Nabb

(from the back of the book)

Why would anyone want to murder Clementina, the crazed, destitute old woman who swore a lot and tidies by night the narrow streets of Florence’s San Frediano district?

Starting with no clues, for nothing is known about Clementina, the Marshal sets out in the city’s wilting August heat to reconstruct her past.  His quest takes him into the homes and lives of the people of San Frediano, to a run-down State mental hospital, a fashion export agency, and back twenty-five years to the cataclysmic events that wrecked the old woman’s life.

This is the first book in this series that I have read and I felt I was starting a little behind.  It seemed it was assumed the reader would already know who the Marshal was and what his position was.  Only I didn’t and I had a little trouble figuring out how he fit into the Florence law enforcement structure.  The beginning felt a little slow but that helped set the stage for the slow pace of all of Florence in August.  There are a lot of interesting characters here and they are all written so they feel real and believable.  And the Marshall becomes involved with all of them, as every witness and suspect seems to have a problem that the Marshall tries to fix even though he has a murder to solve.  And as he tries to figure out who this old madwoman was he learns about the floods that devastated lives in years past, delves into the plight of the mentally ill and tries to work within the tight knit community that has its own rules.  So the book has a lot of parts.  But they are all woven in seamlessly so nothing feel extraneous or out of place and the book is about the community and the people and not just this one case.  I liked the writing and the story but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had read the others in the series so I would know the history of the characters that I feel like I was missing.

The Omen Review

The Omen by David Seltzer

(from the back of the book)

A young nursemaid dies for the sake of little Damien…

A priest is speared to death for revealing the horrifying truth about the birth of Damien…

In a peaceful zoo, animals rend themselves to bits in a death frenzy caused by the sight of Damien…

For a world-renowned diplomat and his wife, “accident” follows “accident,” from Rome to London to Jerusalem, as they stalked by a terror they cannot understand, a terror that centers on their son Damien… and his ominous hidden birthmark.

Is ultimate evil to be released upon an unsuspecting and unprepared world because of Damien?

Right from the beginning the book has an ominous feel.  Seltzer manages to make characters creepy even before they do anything creepy.  So the whole book has a horrible dark feeling even between the big, blatantly scary events.  It was interesting watching Damien’s parents try to come to grips with things that are happening but cannot possibly be real.  The tension builds as things start to go wildly out of control and comes to a head in an exciting climax where you don’t know what will happen until the very end.  It is a fast moving, fast paced story that pulls you along.  And I think it has the right balance of big shocking moments and the dark brooding menace that gives you a good story and doesn’t rely all on shock value.  

Slapstick Review

Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut

(from the back of the book)

Slapstick presents an apocalyptic vision as seen through the eyes of the current King of Manhattan (and last President of the United States), a wickedly irreverent look at the all-too-possible results of today’s follies.  But even the end of life-as-we-know-it is transformed by Kurt Vonnegut’s pen into hilarious farce – a final slapstick that may be the Almighty’s joke on us all.

Right from the start you are introduced to a world that does not make any sense.  But as the narrator tells his story you start to pick up pieces and it’s fun to try and put them all together.  It is an odd story, told by a man that tends to ramble on a bit so things sometimes seem random.  And it goes back and forth between the present and the past.  So the whole thing ended up having a loosely plotted feel to it.  Like an old man telling a story just as it comes to him.  Which is what the story is supposed to be.  But I wish things hung together a little tighter.  I enjoyed reading it.  It was interesting and a quick read.  But then it was over right when I thought it was actually heading somewhere in particular.  It was a fun way to spend a couple of hours but I’m glad this wasn’t the first Vonnegut book that I read or I probably wouldn’t have read any others.

Wild Goose Chase Reading Challenge

I'm joining the Wild Goose Chase reading challenge.  It's hosted by The Bookshelf Gargoyle.  The goal is to read one book from each of seven catagories.  To find out all the rules and to sign up yourself go to the Wild Goose Chase post.

The catagories are:

1. A book with a word of phrase relating to wildness in the title:
The Marshal and the Madwoman by Magdalen Nabb (review)

2. A book with a species of bird (or the word “bird”) in the title:
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm (review)

3. A book with an exotic or far-flung location in the title

4. A book with an object you might hunt for in the title

5. A book with a synonym for chase in the title

6. A book with a means of transport in the title

7. A book with an object you might take on a search or hunt in the title:
A Guidebook to Learning by Mortimer J. Adler (review)

Birth Year Reading Challenge

I'm joining the Birth Year Reading Challenge.  It is hosted by Hotchpot Cafe.  The point is to find books published in the year you were born and read them.  Well, probably not all of them.  But there are prizes.  And the one who reads the most books will win the grand prize.  So you should get reading right away.  To find out the particulars and to sign up yourself visit the Birth Year Reading Challenge.  You can change your list at any time.  Which is good.  Since I already know that I'm not going to stick to this list.  And maybe even manage to read a few more than this. 

As of right now this is my list:

Original Plan:

Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut - DONE

The Deep by Peter Benchley - DONE

Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater - DONE

Touch Not the Cat by Mary Stewart

Promised Land by Robert Parker - DONE

Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton

They Came Before Columbus by Ivan Van Sertima

The Boys From Brazil by Ira Levin

The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank by Emma Bombeck - DONE

Raise the Titanic by Clive Cussler - DONE

Roots by Alex Haley - DONE

Deus Irae by Philip Dick - DONE

What I actually read:

1. Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut (review)

2. Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie

3. Omen by David Seltzer (review)

4. In the Frame by Dick Francis

5. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm (review)

6. Roots by Alex Haley (review)

7. Deus Irae by Philip K. Dick

8. Man Plus by Frederik Pohl

9. The Deep by Peter Benchley

10. The Dark Side of the Sun by Terry Pratchett

11. The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank by Erma Bombeck

12. Raise the Titanic! by Clive Cussler

13.Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater

14. Mrs. Pollifax on Safari by Dorothy Gilman

15. My Name is Legion by Roger Zelazny

16. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor

17. The Lifeship by Harry Harrison and Gordon R. Dickson

18. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

19. Promised Land by Robert B. Parker

20. Dragon and the George by Gordon R. Dickson

Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge

I'm joining the 2017 Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge.  It is hosted by Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book.  If you would like to join too you can check out the post here.  The challenge is to read a book that has a title that starts with each letter of the alphabet.  (Excluding a, an, and the.)  No reviews needed.  No blog needed.  You can either make a list in advance or just add them as you go along.  For more info or to join up yourself check out the 2017 Alphabet Reading Challenge!  

A. The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen

B.
C.
D. Deus Irae by Philip K. Dick
E. Etta by Gerald Kolpan
F.
G. The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny
H. Holding My Breath by Sidura Ludwig
I. In The Frame by Dick Francis
J.
K.
L. The Lifeship by Harry Harrison and Gordon R. Dickson
M. The Marshal and the Madwoman by Magdalen Nabb (review)
N. Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny
O. Omen by David Seltzer (review)
P. Promised Land by Robert B. Parker
Q. QB VII by Leon Uris
R. Roots by Alex Haley (review)
S. Straight Man by Richard Russo
T. To Hell and Back by Audie Murphy
U. The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss
V. Vettius and His Friends by David Drake
W. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm (review)
X. X-Wing: Isard's Revenge by Michael A. Stackpole
Y. Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze by Elizabeth Foreman Lewis
Z. The Zork Chronicles by George Alec Effinger

Sink the Bismarck! Review

Sink the Bismarck! by C.S. Forester

Hitler sends out the Bismarck, the fastest battleship afloat.  Its mission is to cut the lifeline of British shipping and win the war.  When it breaks out into the Atlantic the Royal Navy must track it down and stop it before it is too late.

This is an approximation of what happened with the Bismarck.  The conversations and speeches are what the author imagines they would have been.  And the little disclaimer in the front says some of the characters never actually existed even if people very much like them did.  It’s only a short story but Forester manages to pack it full of suspense and tension.  Even though the outcome is already known.  There is a lot of people looking at maps and pointing while saying ‘THERE’.  It is probably more dramatic in the movie when you can see them slam their finger down on the map but the effect isn’t that great in the book.  It is just a little piece of history but full of heroism and action and strategy.  It won’t take you long to read and you will not want to put it down until you finish.  Forester knows how to tell a good story and how to write compelling characters and it will keep you riveted until the very end.

Island of Lost Maps Review

The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey

When Gilbert Bland was caught stealing a map from a rare library book it was discovered that he had been stealing maps for some time from a whole list of different libraries.  Miles Harvey tries to follow Bland’s path of crime to see how and why he did it.  The search took Harvey not just through Bland’s history but the history of cartography too.

The Island of Lost Maps is sort of a true crime story.  But not really.  What got the author started down this road was the theft of maps from various libraries by Gilbert Bland.  The author becomes fascinated with the story and ends up on a rather broader journey than expected.  Harvey does go into the details of Bland's crimes and the history of the man himself (he also does some supposing about why Bland did what he did) but the book is not just about Bland.  I wouldn't even say it is mostly about Bland.  It isn't even just about maps.  There is a lot of interesting (at least to me) information here about the history of mapmaking and the history of map thievery.  It goes into the politics of maps and why they were so well guarded through history.  It talks about why people today have such an interest in old maps and why people feel the need to collect them.  It goes into the issues that libraries have with making rare books available to the public without making them vulnerable to theft and vandalism and how libraries can keep the books together and whole when there are no funds.  Harvey's quest to find Bland led him all over the place and you have to be prepared to follow him there.  Even when he goes on little detours.  The book does tend to meander around a bit and follows Harvey's movements instead of having some, maybe, more cohesive style.  I didn't mind because I found all his detours and musings interesting.  Just beware that this book covers almost as much ground as the maps he's talking about

The Owl Service Review

The Owl Service by Alan Garner

(from the back of the book)

The valley of myth and power where magic made a woman out of flowers, where a doomed warrior won vengeance from beyond the grave, where the power of sorcery built and built and sought release.

Then Alison found plates with owl patterns that vanished; Roger felt screams near an ancient stone, and Gwyn touched the force of a tragic Celtic legend – unknowing, they broke the seals that bound the sorcery.

Mythic forces, of love and damnation, lived again.  The magic was loose…

This is an odd little book.  I kept waiting for the moment when things would start to fall into place.  Unfortunately they never really did.  Maybe if I was familiar with the myth the book is based on I would have had a chance of following along.  As it was I had trouble understanding what was going on most of the time.  It did have a creepy feel to it that I think it was going for and made you want to know why things were happening and how it would turn out.  But I never found out.  It never made it clear why the characters were caught in this loop, or what the owl pattern plates were about or anything.  And the ending was just confusing and didn’t explain anything.  It was interesting to read but disappointing in the end because it never came together and ended up being a series of odd, unexplained events that happened for no apparent reason.  

Black Friday Review

Black Friday by James Patterson

Terrorists have blown up Wall Street, no demands, no negotiations and no clues as to who is responsible.  Archer Carroll of the NYPD and Caitlin Dillion are tasked with stopping them before they bring about the financial collapse of the US.  The only problem is no one knows who they are or what they want.

It is a well-paced novel so it is quick reading.  There is enough character development that all the people feel real and you care about what happens to them.  It is a little dated now but not to the point that it is no longer interesting.  I wouldn’t call it heavy reading but it is entertaining.  It has action, suspense and even some romance.  There was a plot point added towards the end of the book that made the whole thing less believable to me but by then I was interested in knowing what was going to happen.  There was also some weird use of italics.  It put emphasis in some strange places and I didn’t know what the point of them was.  But even with the few not so great points it is a fun read to pass a day or two.

Electrified Sheep Review

Electrified Sheep by Alex Boese

(from the book jacket)

Benjamin Franklin was a pioneering scientist, leader of the Enlightenment, and a founding father of the United States.  But perhaps less well known is that he was also the first person to use mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on an electric-shock victim.  Odder still, it was actually mouth-to-beak resuscitation on a hen that he himself had shocked.

Welcome to some of the weirdest and most wonderful experiments ever conducted in the name of science.  Filled with stories of science gone strange, Electrified Sheep is packed with eccentric characters, irrational obsessions, and extreme experiments.  Watch as scientists attempt to nuke the moon, wince at the doctor who performs a self-appendectomy, and catch the faint whiff of singed wool from electrified sheep.

Boese collects some very interesting experiments here.  And some that are less interesting than gross.  I liked the book and I found it fascinating in places but I squirmed a little in places too.  The experiments are grouped together in chapters so the similar ones are together but there are short little stories with headings every few pages or so, so it is a good book to sit down and read for a while or if you only have a few minutes at a time.  Everything here was done in the name of science and it seemed like the scientists truly had good intentions but their methods can get kind of rough.  Animals were hurt in the process here.  And you will see some dedicated scientists operate on themselves and expose themselves to disease (including eating vomit of fever victims).  It is interesting to see the scientific process as the men try to work out the unknown.  And it is interesting to see how thin the line between dedication and crazy is.  I learned about a lot of things I had never of heard of before and had a great time doing it.  But, like I said, it can get unpleasant at times so think carefully before you read this, especially if you are an animal lover or have a weak stomach.

The Pig,The Prince and the Unicorn Review

The Pig, the Prince, and the Unicorn by Karen A. Brush

(from the back of the book)

Behind the Gate lurks chaos, carnage, horror vast and evil unimaginable. And the Gate must be locked every hundred years, or the world will be plunged into darkness.

The Key Bearer must be fearsome enough to fight Pitch Fiends, wage war against the Water Demons, defy Death Wings and master the Manslayers.

The Key Bearer is chosen by the key itself. And this century it has chosen an unlikely hero. Instead of awesome, he’s winsome. Instead of beheading his enemies, he befriends them. Instead of a war-hungry sword, he has a curly tail. He’s bigger than a bread box, but barely…



A young little piglet is chosen to save the world and along the way finds that he is stronger than he imagined and that when faced with great responsibility knowing who to believe is sometimes the hardest part. It's a cute little story. An unlikely hero who faces great danger and manages to get places simply because he is cute and loveable. He's naive and not yet jaded with the world and sees things differently than those around him. Not set in his ways like everyone else he questions what others have taken on faith all their lives. So there are some good themes and some fun stuff in here. But there are some odd things too. Half the book takes place under water and you have someone washing and drying off while in the water, or you have a pig running while holding a jar in his hooves and you are not sure how the author meant for those things to work out in this world she created. And the ending is rather too neat and easy to be quite believable. It’s a goofy, cute little story. An easy fun way to kill a few hours but there isn’t very much depth here in characters, plot or setting.

The Summer of Naked Swim Parties Review

The Summer of Naked Swim Parties by Jessica Anya Blau

(from the back of the book)

Fourteen-year-old Jamie will never forget the summer of 1976.  It’s the summer when she has her first boyfriend, cute surfer Flip Jenkins; it’s the summer when her two best friends get serious about sex, cigarettes, and tanning; it’s the summer when her parents throw, yes, naked swim parties, leaving Jamie flushed with embarrassment.  And it’s the summer that forever changes the way Jamie sees the things that matter: family, friendship, love, and herself.

This book is okay. Just okay. And those are always books I find hardest to review. There was nothing very good or very bad about it. It had its moments. There was some humor and some serious parts. I liked the complicated relationship between the sisters, it felt very real. It did a good job of making you feel the awkward, embarrassing moments. And it made it okay to be different from your friends and everyone else you know and it let you know that you are not the only one who feels apart from everyone else. But was there a lot of sex, drugs and drinking for a bunch of 14 year olds? I think so. And if I had a daughter I don't think I would want her to read this. There was something lacking in the characters here too. I couldn't care as much about them as I think I was supposed to. There was nothing here that I can point at and say 'that is what is wrong with this book'. Nor can I pick anything out that I loved. It turns out I just don't want to read about 14 year olds having sex with boys 3 and 4 years older than them or about what happens to various naked body parts when people are swimming and jumping on diving boards.

The Passage Review

The Passage by Justin Cronin

(from the book jacket)

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment.  Then, the unspeakable:  a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered.  All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear – of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary.  FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty.  Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse.  Wolgast is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors, but for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey – spanning miles and decades – toward the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

I like vampire books and had heard good things about this one so I had high hopes. Maybe that was the problem. I should have gone in blind. But I still don't think I would have loved this one. If you are going to have a book this long and expect people to come back for more it better be really good. And I just don't think it was good enough to carry all that length. There were some characters that I really liked (most of who died on me) and then some I really didn't even find interesting. There were parts of the plot that were great and then some odd little things that were thrown in there that didn't make sense and just seemed to muddle things and then were never cleared up. There were parts that made me want to keep reading when I should be sleeping and others that put me to sleep. On the whole the book was just okay. But it was slow and long and if I am going to invest this much of my time in a book I want it to be better than okay.