Imagine this world is a child, and God its indulgent father. Child Earth is bored with his human toys, so God opens up a soul-fueled portal called the Walm that leads to different universes to give his child new toys.

So now our world is overrun by different species: tiny cockroach people, gorgeous hermaphroditic blue women, incredibly wealthy Hogs, poisonous giant scorpion flies that are terrified of female baboons, and a myriad of other creatures that live in Carlton Mellick’s grotesque imagination.

In the midst of this chaos, God decides to stop letting people die, to keep Heaven from overpopulating. So on one hand, we’ve got the soul-ful dead rotting away while still very conscious about it and the soulless living staring at walls and shrugging, without a care in the world.

Our narrator is an ex-junkie named Leaf who sees himself in a third-person perspective. He and his friends are the few people in this world who have managed to hang on to their souls, and still have a passion to live.

Enter Satan.

Satan, who is in the soul business, is worried he might not have any more souls to reap. And if there are no more souls to reap, Hell will cease to exist. So Satan opens up a burger joint called “Satan Burger”, which sells deep-fried burgers “so good, you’d gladly sell your soul for one of ‘em”.

Unfortunately, every un-living thing Satan touches comes to life, so he offers Leaf and his friends to work for him because nobody wants to buy demon burgers that eat and shit and scream when you try to eat them. *rofl* Leaf and his friends agree to form an alliance with the devil to keep hanging on to their souls, and to find a niche in a world that doesn’t have a place for them anymore.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Satan Burger is at times hilarious, at times angry, at times depressingly desperate. The story is very much alive not only because it is jam-packed with emotions, but also because it is richly detailed. Each place gives off its own atmosphere. Each species has its own culture, its own unique anatomical features and functions.

Satan Burger is long, roughly about 230 pages, single-spaced, size 8 TNR font. While the in-depth descriptions is something to rave about, there are parts that I felt should’ve been omitted out because they were just nonsensical ramblings that doesn’t have anything to do with the story at all.

Although I couldn’t relate 100% with the characters because I’m not into the punk scene, I admire Mellick’s character creation. It’s something he’s really good at. Each character has its own backstory, its own idiosyncrasies. For example, Leaf and his addiction to drugs, leading to his third-person perspective of himself. Or the brothers Gin and Vodka, the vampire-wannabe (guess what their father was drinking during the time of their births? :P). Or even Mortician, the Japanese guy who dresses and talks like a pirate.

However, my favorite character would be the Devil himself. I applaud Mellick’s version of Satan. He’s powerful, fearsome, and gayer than a goose. The scene where Nan screams bloody hell at Satan for keeping on touching her dead boyfriend Gin and bringing different body parts alive (Gin’s hand, pinkie, dreadlocks, and right butt cheek now has their own lives *rofl*) is hilarious:

Nan: “What the hell did you touch his penis for??”
Satan (shaking his head childishly): “I didn’t touch it.”
(Nan unzips Gin’s pants to reveal a dancing worm. The worm wriggles excitedly. Its mouth has developed from Gin’s pisshole and Gin’s bladder is now its stomach sack, two small eyes on the sides of its head, quite like a snake’s.)
Satan: “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. You know, it’s not easy being the only gay person left. I have urges that are hard to resist."
Nan: “What the hell am I supposed to do with a living penis??

On a deeper level, Satan Burger is a reminder for each of us to keep on being children – to have a zest for living, to hold on to our ideals and to fight for them. As Mellick puts it, “The world becomes clearer and clearer the older we become, much less mysterious/exciting and all its appeal we experienced during childhood turns logical, and logic is a dirty and boring word.”

Four stars.

Misty Marie Kleinmann, who’s lived all her life in a trailer, likes beautiful pictures and shiny things. She attends art school, where she meets Peter Wilmot, the son of a wealthy family in wealthy Waytansea Island. The promising young artist gets married to her beloved, and she is whisked off to a fairytale ending in Waytansea Island.

Or at least, that’s what she thought.

Twelve years after happily ever after, Misty Wilmot is working as a waitress in the island’s only hotel. The Wilmots are broke, her husband is in a coma, she barely knows her teenage daughter, and her mother-in-law’s a pain in the ass. And if that isn’t enough, threats of lawsuits are posed to leap from every corner of the tourist-ridden island.

Before the accident that turned him into a vegetable, Peter (a contractor for vacation houses) has taken to redecorating the houses without their owners’ permissions: he has built secret rooms and written cryptic (and rather vulgar, hehe) messages all over the walls.

A confused Misty starts on a mission to find out the truth about her husband’s actions (like if he really did stick people’s toothbrushes up his ass, for example :P). She starts to find other cryptic messages hidden all over the island, written by two women from previous centuries.

And in the midst of it all, Misty (who hasn’t picked up a paintbrush since art school) starts to paint again. Rather obsessively, too, as if being driven by some unknown force.

When she finally pieces everything together, she finds herself in the middle of a secret that puts her family and the entire island in danger.

“Diary” is a hauntingly strange book. The plot is odd, the events unfold in a series of inconsecutive flashbacks, and the story told in second-person where you, the reader, are Peter.

I think "Diary" deserves a five for three reasons: 1) The mystery got me so hooked, I wasn’t able to put the book down. (I finished this one in one sitting); 2) A "whoa" ending that has a way of etching itself into your mind; 3) It's a strange and totally unbelievable story that's packed up so neat and pretty in the end that it’s convincing enough to make you think “What if it’s real?” with series of chills running down your spine.

An experiment gone awry, a mall-ful of zombies, psychopathic survivors, the DHS and the military. An overused plot? Yep. Crummy game? Dead wrong.

Dead Rising is one of the most addictive games I've come across in a long time. You play Frank West, photojournalist, and you have 72 hours to survive in a mall full of zombies and save as many survivors as you can. Sounds simple, right? Au contraire, this game is one of the hardest games I've ever played, especially when you're as OC as I am in saving NPCs. Not only do you get to deal with escorting unbelievably idiotic (running-against-the-wall idiotic), scared-to-death survivors to safety, you've got a time limit as well. So that means making a schedule on how to finish all quests in the shortest time possible- if you don't go psycho and murder the blubbering morons yourself, that is.

The plot may be simple enough, but Dead Rising is one of the more non-linear games I've played. Sure, you get linear gameplay with the hours involving main quests (which you can choose not to do, of course), but for the rest of the time, it's really up to you to explore the mall and do whatever you want to do.

This game was especially designed to be played on HDTV - and for good reason too. For people who can appreciate blood and gore games like yours truly, it's quite a treat to watch a blood-and-gut splattered Frank West tearing off zombies apart with his bare hands, sending heads and limbs and god-knows-what flying everywhere.

Blood and gore aside, the thing that I liked most about this game is that you virtually get to use whatever item you can find at the mall to kill zombies. Aside from the usual guns, knives and chainsaws, you get to use HDTVs, potted plants, CDs, and even Light Sabers and teddy bears. Or, since your character gains skills while levelling up, you could eventually tear zombies apart like they were made of paper. It's loads of fun thinking up creative ways to kill both living and undead enemies. Boosts replay value too.

It's just really too bad this game doesn't have multiplayer feature. Now THAT would have been insanely fun. *big grin*

This game's got me eyeing the chainsaws in Ace Hardware last time I was in SM. Full marks! I'm definitely never going to look at a mall the same way again! :P

A man wakes up in Hell after committing suicide. He is sent to Avernus University to learn the ways of the Damned before being set free to roam around Hell. Our hero is given a flesh covered notebook with a blinking eye in school, but he decides to keep this notebook after his graduation to record his journey, and also as a silent traveling companion.

Our hero travels through different landscapes such as forests, deserts, arctic areas, all of which features different inhabitants, different punishments, all richly detailed. The main city is an urbanized version of Dante's Inferno with elements of Amsterdam and New York thrown into it.

Of course, Hell could not exist without a Heaven, now could it? As if the Damned don’t have enough on their hands dealing with the Demons, all hell – or heaven, rather- breaks loose in Hell when the Angels descend and make mayhem (with God’s consent, of course) by turning Hell into their own, perverted playground.

On one hand, Letters from Hades is a guidebook/travelogue to Jeffrey Thomas' version of Hell- which is definitely something to marvel about. He's created a lavishly detailed world that breathes, cries, and bleeds. On the other hand, Letters from Hades is a discourse on concepts of good and evil, right and wrong, and on grabbing life by the reins and actually living it.

An epic power struggle. Unlikely alliances. Throw in a female Demon and forbidden love into the mix, and you get one hell of a good yarn which I give full marks. Whimsical, yet tightly knitted it's almost believable. Stands out. An enjoyable read.

Razor Wire Pubic Hair. Baby Jesus Butt Plug. Bleeding malls, Satanic burgers. Welcome to the world of Carlton Mellick III, to the Bizarro genre, where stereotypes are shunned and freakish is the order of the day.

Ironically, Bizarro itself is becoming a stereotype nowadays.

But I digress... or perhaps not.

Anyway, I found Carlton Mellick III’s “The Menstruating Mall” to be… quite refreshing. Call it the bread in a wine-tasting session, or the coffee beans before sniffing another perfume. It is certainly something new, although definitely an acquired taste.

Our narrator is the typical yuppie guy who buys everything that makes it into the magazines he reads, watches blockbusters, and likes everything that’s “mass culture”. He goes to the mall one day, and finds that he can’t leave. The mall is suddenly vacated, starts bleeding, and our guy finds himself trapped inside the mall with nine other ridiculously stereotypical characters: the blond cheerleader, the white gangsta boy, the redneck cowboy, the too-male jock, a Goth girl, a bible thumper, a Stepford wife, a senile retiree and the gamer geek. There’s nothing stopping them from leaving – they just can’t leave.

Someone begins killing off our little motley crew one by one, Agatha Christie style. In a race against time, our heroes try to find out what the killer wants, and who the killer is.

In the meantime, things in the mall just keep getting weirder and weirder.

One thing that kept me turning the pages was because I wanted to find out who did it, and why. However, the ending was just simply anticlimactic. I was like “What the hell has that got to do with the rest of the story?” when I reached the end of what seemed like roughly 150 pages in size 14 font. (Yep, it’s an uber-short read.) While you will find out who the killer was and what the motive was, the last few chapters just went totally *shwing* off the top.

Oh, and no matter what I do, I COULD NOT appreciate the much praised illustrations (which looks more like high-school male toilet humor graffiti) in the book.

However, the book is not without merits. I did enjoy this book. Well, three-fourths of it anyway. There are scenes that had me laughing out loud, simply because they were just so ridiculous. There are also scenes that were so repulsive, I could not help but be fascinated.

On another level, the author tries to tackle issues about society and conformity, and how consumerism (a.k.a. the horrifying taste of the general public) plays a big part in it. This book is Carlton Mellick III’s effort in promoting the elusive, multi-faceted concept of unique individuality. In other words, stop taking yourself too seriously before you begin, as Spyder puts it, “…[to] seem like [a] badly written B-movie character.” At the end of the day, do whatever you want to do, and to hell with everybody else.

Three stars because I enjoy sarcasm, wit, and a good satire.

"Turkish Gambit" is set on the Russo-Turkish war of 1877 (Food for Thought: this is the one some 20 years after the Crimean War and 36 years before WWI; apparently, Russia and Turkey has been at odds since the late 15th century. The war of 1877 provided Romania to gain full independence from the Ottoman Empire). Our heroine, Varya Surovova, is one of the progressive daughters of the motherland. Her fiancé has rushed off to the Balkan front as a volunteer cryptographer (my, how heroic), and headstrong Varya dresses up as a peasant boy (although her disguise fools no one) and follows suit.

A spoiled, naive young lady traveling alone and running into trouble is no surprise at all, and we find Varya stranded in a peasant country (one of those that ends with "-ovia") with no money. Enter Erast Fandorin to the rescue. Because of Fandorin, Varya was able to reach the front in one piece and reunite with her fiancé.

As the sole attractive, educated and unescorted female (the fiancé was busy) in the whole camp, Varya almost immediately finds herself surrounded by suitors left and right. (Much more attractive prospects than the said fiancé, in my opinion! :D) Shortly afterwards, the fiancé was accused of being a spy and was arrested. Fandorin, our reluctant hero, suspects something more sinister is afoot, and begins to investigate.

Boris Akunin is a superb writer. His narrative takes on different styles. For example, his previous Erast Fandorin mystery “Murder on the Leviathan” reads like an Agatha Christie novel. “Turkish Gambit” is more of Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Brigadier Gerard” told in a woman’s voice.

Although Fandorin is the hero, he does not appear much in the story. I think this is a nice touch to make Fandorin seem more… superhuman. Fandorin’s character is like Sherlock Holmes with a touch of Droopy and talks like Porky Pig. I suppose if the story were centered on him, he’d look like… well, for lack of a better term, very un-hero-like. The result is quite interesting.

The story is told in Varya’s point of view. While I enjoyed the scenes where an extremely flattered Varya was flirting and being courted left and right by seriously dashing suitors, the story dragged somewhat in the middle. There was a point when nothing related to the case seemed to be happening, and all Varya was doing was feeling guilty that she was enjoying herself while her fiancé was in prison, and reprimanding herself of flirting with other men.

However, the story goes out with a bang. I shan’t divulge any details here, but I will say that the ending was “Whoa!” Totally unexpected but satisfyingly executed.

“Turkish Gambit” is well-researched and very informative without the qualities of a textbook. Reading it was a delightful way to pass the time.

The theme of this story revolves around faith, death, and the unknown or, as Pratchett puts it, “…the imponderables of life, in the face of which people either start to pray…” or, in the case of Terry Pratchett’s 27th Discworld Novel, “…become really, really angry.”

Genghiz Cohen, or better known as Cohen the Barbarian, is the emperor of the Agatean Empire. He has fame and fortune, and has done everything at least once in his life. However, he is not happy.

After losing Old Vincent, one of his faithful Silver Hordes, to a cucumber, Cohen is struck with the realization that: 1) There are “no more worlds left to conquer” so to speak; and 2) He is getting old.

Angry at the gods for letting people get old and die, Cohen and the rest of his Silver Hordes (Boy Willie, Truckle the Uncivil, Caleb the Ripper, and the cranky but lovable Mad Hamish) set out to give what the first hero stole back to the gods. With interest, even.

However, this will cause the end of the world.

From Ankh-Morpork comes three heroes to stop these legendary heroes. Genius Leonard of Quirm (a spoof of Leonardo da Vinci), Captain Carrot the six-foot dwarf, and cowardly wizard Rincewind. Will they be able to save the world in time?

Terry Pratchett is an author with a great sense of humor. I totally worship this guy. Nobody but Pratchett could manage to turn anything into something so - well, for lack of a better term - "tastefully hilarious". While this one's shorter than other Discworld novels, I find it to be one of the funniest. Humor is satirical and tongue-in-cheek at its best. The story is further enlivened by Paul Kidby's comical art. Pratchett and Kidby complement each other like Flotsam and Jetsam. I've read this book several times already, but it never fails to make me laugh.

I love this book. No ranting whatsoever. Very, very strongly recommended. Full stars, and then some!

The first time I read this book, I couldn't get into it at all. After two chapters, I called it a copycat of Emma Bull's "War for the Oaks", and chucked it into a random box, where it disappeared for two years until it made its way back into my hands last night. It wasn't so bad after all.

Quite frankly, I am bothered that this book is being recommended to 12-13 year olds. Those who know me know that I am no prude, but I’d think twice before letting an adolescent read something where the protagonist is a high-school dropout, chain-smokes and gulps down alcohol like water at sixteen.

Or maybe I'm just getting too old. Gah.

Anyway, Tithe is a coming of age/self-discovery story made into an urban fantasy. Kaye Fierch is sixteen, and her mother fronts a struggling rock band. Kaye and her mother Ellen move back in with Grandma when her mother’s boyfriend tries to kill Ellen for no particular reason at all. Kaye later finds out that this incident was set off by the Fey in an attempt to bring Kaye back to Jersey.

Back in her childhood home, Kaye is reunited with both her human and Faerie childhood friends, and finds out that she is really a pixie made to look human. Now green-skinned with wings sprouting out from her back, Kaye is drawn into a twisted plot involving the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, where she falls for a dangerous knight who may be just using her to his own advantage, and finds out that her main purpose in life is to be the blood sacrifice, the Tithe.

I found “Tithe” to be an entertaining light read. The book is a no-brainer and is easy to gobble up. The plot is charmingly simple, and the pacing quick. The characters are all ridden with teenage angst, which adds to the "angas" factor of the book. I'd have to say the enjoyment I got from reading this book is akin to watching a low-budget, B-movie with bad effects and an interesting storyline. It may not be very visually stimulating, but you love it anyway because of the story.

Tithe gets down and dirty. It doesn’t have any illusions of grandeur in it. The backdrop is rough and rugged, and the narrative and dialogue unpolished, making the story exude a certain ragged, blue-collar charm.

I particularly enjoyed Kaye's morbid-poetic introspectiveness. For example, she describes sunset at the beach as “[slitted] wrists in a bathtub and the blood is all over the water”.

I probably would've given this five stars if I'd read it in my "jaded-angst" stage eight to nine years ago. Now, I'm giving it a 3.5 stars for being a simple, rather nostalgic and - once I got over my prudeness - enjoyable read.

The first Stephen King book I’ve ever read was “Christine” in sixth grade. I was instantly hooked, and I’ve been reading King’s works for more than ten years now. Call me morbid, but I absolutely love what’s going on inside the guy’s head!

It’s popular misconception that Stephen King is just a horror writer. Au contraire; most of King’s work spans across genres. Rose Madder is one such example – while it has signature Stephen King gory scenes in it, I wouldn’t exactly classify this as a horror novel. Psychological suspense? Could be. A story of love and hope? Oprah, you missed this one for your book club.

Rose McClendon-Daniels has endured fourteen years of abuse from her cop husband Norman. She’s been through a miscarriage (prompted by Normie, of course), and endless beatings, but it takes one drop of blood on the bed sheets to make her realize that she has had enough. She takes a little of her husband’s money and runs off to start a new life of her own.

However, being shut up in Norman’s world for fourteen years has made our Ramblin’ Rosie as innocent as a newborn babe. With very little money and nobody to run to, Rose is lucky enough to meet a string of kind strangers who helps her on her way to a new life. In just a few months, she has landed a decent-paying job, got a place of her own, lost weight, healed both physically and emotionally, and has started to fall in love again.

However, she can’t stop looking over her shoulder, expecting to see him there. And right she is, for Norman, who can’t get over the fact that Rose got away from him, is obsessively bent on hunting her down. And this is a cop that's very good at finding people.

One day, Rose finds a painting in a pawn shop. It depicts a woman in a rose-colored chiton, looking towards the horizon. It actually isn’t even a very good painting, but Rose finds herself strangely drawn to it. She is inspired by the woman in the painting, and is empowered by this mysterious figure. Rosie finds strength she doesn’t even know she possessed.

Meanwhile, Norman is closing in on her. His insane rage leaves a string of violent deaths- of people who has helped Rosie- in its wake. Rose McClendon, determined that nothing would destroy her life again, must stand against what terrifies her most: her husband.

Nobody tells a story like Stephen King does, and nobody creates living, breathing characters better than he does. Each character not only has a unique voice, but different accents as well. And this book screams women empowerment as well, which would definitely appeal to a feminist like yours truly.

The only thing that didn’t sit right with me were the EXTREMELY long exchanges between the woman in the painting (whom I have baptized as Foxy) and Rose. Foxy plays a bigger role in eliminating Rose’s problems than you might expect. Paranormality is a classic King touch, but in this case, I just couldn’t help feeling that all this painting stuff went a little *shwing!* off the storyline.

Kudos to King on using mythology - the reference to the Minotaur and the Labyrinth played off what Rosie was going through quite nicely. And Normie as a minotaur? Hah! Perfect :D

King's narrative is so well-written, it sucked me into Rosie's world and made me go haywire with a rollercoaster of emotions. I wanted to strangle Rose for being such a pathetic idiot, but I couldn’t help cheering her on as well. I practically melted in the scenes with gentleman biker Bill, and I felt suffocated by Norman’s presence in the story. I am disgusted yet fascinated with Psycho Norman who is the main character in the gory scenes. *chomp chomp chomp* I particularly loved the scene where Gert, the big momma self-defense teacher of Daughters and Sisters leaves a lasting mark on our Normie dearest. *grin*

Rose Madder is a beautiful story. It is a story of desperation, madness and death, but also of hope, kindness and the celebration of life. And that is what I loved most about the book – the striking contrast between the elements of the story. After all, the deepest, darkest desperation only serves to tremendously emphasize the tiniest ray of hope.

This is the book that saved my life. *grin*

I took this book with me to the hospital last year when I was sick with dengue and pneumonia, then further complicated by hemorrhage due to a certain "monthly" reason. The doctor proclaimed a 20% chance of survival. A friend of mine, knowing how much of a bookworm I am, later joked that it was because I held on until I could finish this book. This novel is a long one, and by the time I finished it, I had already made a complete recovery.

The story begins with our heroine finding a bunch of old letters, all addressed, quite melodramatically, to “My Dear and Unfortunate Successor”. Shortly afterwards, her father goes missing and she uses the letters to try and track him down. Her quest takes her to monasteries and libraries all over Europe, and she finds herself being hunted down by a sinister figure – the same being that has haunted both her grandfather and father’s letters, and who may be the cause of her mother’s mysterious death. As she delves deeper, she finds out more about her family history and begins to understand just how truly powerful her adversary is.

The Historian is a lovely piece of work. It blends history and fiction flawlessly, with the theory that the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula is Prince Vlad Tepes. The result is a truly striking, most memorable character. It is bursting with details on 16th century history and brings alive the conquests of Prince Vlad, of the Ottoman Empire and Byzantine Constantinople. Saves you from cracking open that rather boring encyclopedia, in my opinion.

The characters, even the most minor ones, are multidimensional and wholly believable, each with his/her own distinct voice, and this contributes a lot to the beauty of the book. I cannot help but go "Awww" on the relationship Professor Bora shares with his wife, and the evil librarian never fails to give me the creeps whenever he appears..

Elizabeth Kostova is a gifted writer. (Well, either that or she has a really, really good editor *grin*) The Historian takes you on a guided tour of Eastern Europe, and unlike Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, The Historian does not read like a guide book written by an exceptionally descriptive but rather monotonous grade school kid. Rather, it feels like hearing a first-hand account from a talented storyteller who has actually been there, so vivid that you feel like you’ve been there yourself.

Paying tribute once again to Kostova’s writing skills (and/or her editor’s), the narrative weaves back and forth through three generations of different characters, but it doesn’t muddle up the story flow. I admire that, really I do. The book is over 600 pages long, and I never once had to flip back and check on previous chapters because I missed something or some point got me confused or something like that. The time-traveling narrative rather enhances the story, making it more interesting to read. The Historian is somewhat of a mystery, after all, and I imagine it would be very, very dull if it were told in a linear sequence.

However, the best part about reading The Historian is it made me feel as if I were listening to a grandmother telling her stories while stuck indoors on a rainy day. Yeah, it made me feel cozy, and all warm and fuzzy inside, and only a handful of books have been able to do that.

My only complaint would be I found the first half of the epilogue to be somewhat unnecessary. (Yes, I am a sucker for perfect happy endings.) However, I DID find the latter part of the epilogue (Prince Vlad gazing out, looking as if he has all the world before him) perfect in wrapping the story up.

Overall, I found The Historian to be a well-researched, delightful read. I give it a 4.5-star rating.

This is one of my all-time favorite graphic novels. Found this title in a bargain bin in near perfect condition, and it is the sweetest find ever!

Menz Insana tells of a wacky love story set in the realm of the insane, the Mental Plane, where things poof in and out of existence, float in the middle of nothingness, cause random implosions and explosions, and- well, you get the idea. Skinny, balding, ex-pharmacist Menz is contented to be living in the realm of insanity, and has never felt happier in his entire life. However, his girlfriend, the lovely Jaz (who is Playboy Playmate material), wants to go back to the realm of sanity to find out who she was before insanity.

The plot takes an unexpected twist when she DOES find out who she was, how she got to the Mental Plane in the first place, and her relationship to Menz in the sane world. Will their love survive after the truth is revealed?

I absolutely loved Fowler's creation of the Mental Plane. It is Alice's Wonderland with an R-rating, ridiculously literal and extremely makulit. Fowler also makes a humorous analogy of the Mental Plane to Dante's "Inferno", where there are different levels of insanity which can be visited via an elevator.

And of course, who can forget the other inhabitants of the Mental Plane such as the adorable Squid Baby, or our couple's arrogant, hormone-raging, thick-skulled, suit-wearing neighbor ("Neighbor?? We don't even have walls!") Cowhead, or Drips the Inside-Out Man (*drip* *drip* eeew...) and tons of others. The characters are all ridiculously hillarious, and the conversations full of razor-sharp wit. And, ironically, given the theme of the story, Fowler manages to leave no loose screws (pun intended) in the end.

Menz Insana is brimming with intelligence: light, quirky and funny on the surface, but it leaves the reader reflecting on the line between what's sane and insane, what's good and bad, the shackles and restraints society imposes on people, and the pressure of today's social system on people's minds. An excellent read.

Idlewild isn't something I'd normally read. Techie-sci-fi stuff doesn't really appeal to me, and I don't usually go for first-person narratives. However, I picked up a copy from a bargain bin partly because I was looking for something to bring with me to a country where books written in English are a rarity, and, to be honest, because I loved the artwork on the cover :)

Reading a bit like Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None", the story opens in a world that is obviously VR, where Lovecraftian monsters, hobgoblins and Smileys serve as foot soldiers for a group of warring teenagers. Our hero, Gabriel a.k.a. Halloween, has just awoken from an electric shock - he can't remember anything except that somebody is trying to kill him. He also thinks that his virtual teacher, Maestro, a computer program, is harboring a grudge towards him. Paranoia? Perhaps. The story slowly unfolds through his re-exploring this world, and his gradual recollection of memories. He eventually finds out that he is one of 10 students studying through VR, and that one of them, Lazarus, is missing. He also thinks that he may have killed Lazarus, whose girlfriend Simone is coincidentally the love of Hal's life.

In a world ruled by an omnipotent computer program, Hal uses this device called a jammer (which hacks the virtual world and returns him to reality) to conduct some private investigating on Lazarus' disappearance and the attempt on his life. One question leads to another until Hal begins to doubt his and everyone's existence, and reality itself.

I can find no fault with Idlewild, theme or prose, but there is something missing from it which keeps me from giving it full marks. Also, there are some parts in the story where it just gets so dragging - probably because it's so predictable - that you just want to skip the damn chapters and get on to the next plot.

Sagan creates a myriad of very interesting characters - delusional and schizophrenic Fantasia, morbid and paranoid Hal, wild and angry Mercutio - every character is bursting with personality. I absolutely love Fantasia - she's so much fun and her childlike insanity balances Hal's dark, morbid broodings. Another thing I thoroughly enjoyed was Hal's philosophical musings about life and death and his incredibly sarcastic remarks. For example: "Every idiot goes through life thinking that he's special. That whole solipsistic conceit where you suspect that everything revolves around you and only you. Are you born with it? Probably. When you discover empathy, you're supposed to grow out of it, but I doubt anyone ever really does. Zen monks spend their lives trying. But it's hard. There's always that possibility, remote as it might be, that nothing exists outside your head. That you're the star of the show. That everyone else is a supporting character. And after you die, it all ceases to exist."

Idlewild is a smart book, dripping with information ranging from biogenetics to history to philosophy and literature. Not an excellent read, but interesting enough for me to keep on going until the very end.