Happy Veteran’s/Remembrance Day!
from ABC News–‘Under the Dome’: Stephen King’s New Blockbuster Book
Stephen King’s latest supernatural horror novel, “Under the Dome,” is set in the small town of Chester’s Mill, Maine, which is surrounded by a dangerous force field. The town’s residents cope with the impending ecological crisis in different ways. The local politician, Big Jim Rennie, hopes to lord over a remote population. The opposing camp, which includes an Iraq War veteran, a newspaper editor and a bunch of teenage skateboarders, wants to solve the mystery of the dome.
Read the excerpt below, and then head to the “GMA” Library to find more good reads.
The Airplane and the Woodchuck
From two thousand feet, where Claudette Sanders was taking a flying lesson, the town of Chester’s Mill gleamed in the morning light like something freshly made and just set down. Cars trundled along Main Street, flashing up winks of sun. The steeple of the Congo Church looked sharp enough to pierce the unblemished sky. The sun raced along the surface of Prestile Stream as the Seneca V overflew it, both plane and water cutting the town on the same diagonal course.
Read More here
via MMD News Wire: New science fiction novel explores shifts in human nature after apocalypse
Bel Atreides creates an underground human civilization trying to remember the past and fight the haunted army of children in Timeslide
In Bel Atreides’ latest novel, Timeslide, a small group of humans survive an apocalyptic incident that causes a shift in time. The survivors struggle to remember their lives before the time shift, but only have memories of their new world, a world where the fight to live is a daily struggle.
Daily, the “Replacers,” who look like children around the age of 10 and are identical in appearance, approach the survivors and try to invade the Ring where the humans reside. Though they have no physical weapons, it is their power that the survivors quickly learn to fear. All it takes is one touch for the Replacers to remove any sense of self-belonging and self-possession from the humans.
Atreides says his book is a thought experiment about self-discovery and answering the age old questions of “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of life?” The time shift has changed all facets of life from the creation of new mineral, plant and animal species to the mutation of the human species. Timeslide takes the reader through the lives of five main characters on their journey in a world void of any race, gender or national identity.
Read More here
From Pam Kruger at the Bismarck Tribune: What’s first, the movie or the book?
There are more books than ever before being turned into movies.
This always raises the question: “Is it better to read the book or see the movie first?”
Those who think that the book should be read first argue that it is better to use your own imagination to picture the story before you watch the director’s version. Reading a book first allows the reader to come to his or her own conclusions, without being influenced by the filmmaker’s ideas. In addition, often a book has much more detail than a movie could ever provide.
Those on the other side of the argument prefer to watch the movie first, perhaps to analyze the difference between the two or in order to decide whether or not to read the book. Some people say that it depends on the book.
Plans for going to a movie could spark an interest in reading the book before going. Reading the book first would allow children to create their own version of the story in their minds.
Read More here
By Joseph P. Smith at The Daily Journal: Libraries promote love of reading with graphic novels
Graphic novels can be funny, childish, romantic and scary.
And as both publishers and librarians can testify, they’re amazing at promoting reading among little kids, teenagers and even adults.
Graphic novels and similar genres like manga, a popular Japanese style of graphic novel that often involves science fiction or fantasy themes, and animé, also heavily Japanese, share a method. They tell stories within the context of cartoon drawings.
“The libraries have found they circulate like mad. It’s a rite of passage, at least for boys, as a jumping off point for reading and then either going off to other prose or sticking around and doing both. I’d be surprised if most public libraries in the state don’t have at least some in their collection,” Lisa said.Like conventional literature, Lisa said, graphic novels come with many themes and are written for different age groups.
Read More here
I’ll definitely have to read Timeslide. Apocalyptic and social issues should be really interesting. There were some interesting arguments for reading the book first or watching the movie. Usually I like reading the book first, but sometimes I see a movie without even realizing it was a book, then I really want to read it.
What did you think of the Stephen King excerpt? Do you like reading the book first or watching the movie? Do you read graphic novels? What do you like about them?
