Books and Music

Music, something we all have on our phone, laptops, and other doo hickeys. I have yet to meet someone who hates music. Do you know why? Music can make connections through every emotion we have. A person can find any type of music that pleases their ears, whether it be depressed grunge, angry metal rock, chillin indie music, or fast-paced techno. You can find your type of music. But not all people like reading books yet there are tons of kinds of books out there. I realize maybe some people don't have the attention span or maybe even maturity to read books, but i know a lot people that just say books are bland and boring. And my friend that is cause your reading the wrong book. Music is just like music. You just need to find the type that suits you and then you won't be able to put your book down. Heck, when i found the types of books i like instead of getting yelled at for watching to much TV i got yelled at for reading to much. So I urge you to find your book and read it.

Eragon to Lord of the Rings

Eragon and Lord of the Rings are fairly similar to each other. Both are fantasy books set in a medieval land full of magic and magical things  LOTR has Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Dragons, Tree people,and lots of other magical beings. The Inheritance cycle has Elves, Urgals, Dwarves, Dragons, Humongous bears, and lots of other magical beings. They have really similar things in each, Urgals and Orcs are both very similar as well. Now I have compared The Inheritance Cycle to Star Wars and the plots are super similar and parallel to each other. It's the same between these two except the parts similar is the content not the plot.

Overly-hypped

If you haven't noticed my blogs have all been about Eragon and the Inheritance cycle lately, and not the third book of the divergent series.Yep, I stopped reading it. Overly-hyped up books are a dime a dozen lately and I think this series is in that dozen. Now i was very found of the first book and thought it was fantastic! I would talk about with classmates and read different things about it online and that was I got hit with all the hype. People said " Oh! If i died with a book in my hand it would be Divergent I absolutely adore this series!" or " Best Book Ever!!' with smiley faces, hearts, typed-out screams, and fifty thousand exclamation points. I then started to read to second one. With a lot less enthusiasm but i got through. But the the THIRD book uh man I just can't do it, nothing in it does any justice to what I have heard people say. Now I am a guy so the lack of action and lack of basically 'dauntlessnes' makes the whole thing very bland. But, not only that its just the disappointment I had because of what everyone else said. Now you can go and yell at me because saying things are good and giving them some hype makes u ant to go read, go see it, and go listen to it. I just have to that if something is really that good just tell the person to go read it, go listen to it, go watch it; nothing more. For it is better to find the the greatness of something on your own then from someone else, let that person make their own feeling for it, whether it'd be hate or love.

Final Blogging Assessment in English 1B. comparing Eragon to Star Wars

The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini is parallel to the story of the Star Wars movies. Be warned this will get nerdy. Paolini's four book series has had ridicule on it being a 'duplicate', but the series has much of its own unique characteristics that I think it is more a mere similarity in plot. The Hunger Games is an example of a duplicate and it barely gets mentioned! It is a complete copy of a book called Battle Royale, seriously read it or look it up.

Back to my topic there are abundant similarities between Star Wars and the Inheritance cycle. Here is the gist of it, in Lucas's film there is the Jedi Order they are exactly like the Dragon Riders in Paolini's series. Then both the Dragon Riders and Jedi order fall by the hands of their own that have turned evil. They both use colorful legendary weapons, by the way.There is then an evil empire that is cruel to its people. There is a resistance against that government and the main character joins it. The main character is trained in the old ways of the eradicated order by a old member who then soon dies. This is the scene where Brom dies, "'You're a Rider?' he asked incredulously. 'once upon a time that was true...in the fighting.. my young dragon was killed',"(Paolini 274). He fell just like Obi-Wan both betrayed by friends and forced into hiding. Eragon/Luke then defeat the emperor and rebuild the old order if good but fixed the problems that caused its fall. Similarities, yeah there is a crap ton and if you have read and seen both the book and movie you can really understand it. Now don't go and infer that I am saying Paolini plagiarized because he certainly didn't. While he had many similarities Paolini makes his own unique story that is fantastic in its own right. 

Diction of Christopher Paolini

Paolini the author of The Inheritance cycle has an interesting choice in diction. He was only 15 when he first started writing the series but has a very vast vocabulary. He also likes to list numbers in the old fashioned way, like two-and-forty instead of forty two. He also makes his own elfen language, dwarfen language and Urgal (kinda like giant orcs with horns and more intelligence) words. His creativity flows through the words he uses throughout  his stories. He will use a lot of elevated diction but will through in some casual depending on the scene. His choice of words can really make the battle scenes vivid and the imagery crystal clear and makes the world of Alagaesia a place you easily recognize. 

One of my favorite characters: Roran Stronghammer

I am rereading one of my favorite series The Inheritance cycle by Christopher Paolini.  This series contains one of my most favorite characters. Roran Garrowsson or Roran Stronghammer. In the first book Roran is barely mentioned just that he goes off to pay so he can marry his love Katrina. In the second book he comes back and you actually read in his perspective and it goes back between his brother Eragon and him. Now in the second book Eldest his story-line is pretty crappy but gets better at the end. His story-lines in Brisingr and Inheritance are amazing. He isn't a specially trained assassin, he doesn't have the great strength or speed of an Elf, he doesn't have magical powers, he doesn't have a magical weapon. He is just a man with a beard, a hammer, and a woman he fights for. He saves his village, gets the whole village across the nation, He trains them all to fight and fight very well i might add, he wins tons of battles with strategy and strength. In one battle he defies his commander and wins the battle by killing 193 men by himself, only to be whipped fifty times for insubordination. He did what he thought was right and didn't shed a tear for any of those fifty scars.

What I like about my book

I am reading Eragon by Christopher Paolini. The Inheritance cycle series is one of my favorite series. The first book Eragon was written by Paolini when he was 15. He started right after he graduated from high school. Yeah he graduated when he was fifteen! That makes you feel really smart. Besides that, the book I think is  fantastic. The way Paolini writes is not super duper professional, some might even criticize this but I think this prevents and overly elegant and arrogant type feel you can get from some authors. I like it when i find authors with similar ways of thinking and flow of thought. It is hard to relate when an author uses every grammatical rule, every elevated word possible, every sentenced structured perfectly. It just makes them seem pretentious to me. I want real emotions and I don't mind reading a ranting run-on sentence if it is right for the mood. If you haven't read the Eragon series/Inheritance cycle I really recommend you do.

Krista Ramsey Introduction Activity

Here is the URL to her blog post:
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/columnists/krista-ramsey/2014/02/15/krista-locking-into-the-magic-of-legos/5521245/?from=global&sessionKey=&autologin=

Ramsey talks about the greatness of LEGO'S and how they affect a child. She goes on to talk about the life skills they teach you and why every parent should fully encourage LEGOS. She says, "With Legos, kids build sturdy little creations – which, in turn, build sturdy kids. ?" at the very end of her article. It leaves of with an idea of what LEGOS do to kids. When i was a kid i couldn't sop playing with them, I had countless ships, city's, cars, and other ideas that I could build. I got better and better the more time i spent building. She gets across how little kids felt and the influenced me. Some questions I would ask the writer Krista Ramsey are how do you get a voice so apparent in your writing, How does she know what LEGO's are like for kids, and how to infuse choice of diction and syntax into writing?

Comparing Allegiant to Mockingjay

I have read Mockingjay  by Suzanne Collins and I am reading Allegiant by Veronica Roth currently. These books are very similar, heck the whole series are very similar. Both the main characters are female, both are post-apocalyptic, both are a trilogy, both have too much romance, and both are having their last movies are getting put into two parts. I mean they needed to do it for The Deathly Hallows, but not for these series as well. Even though they are similar in many ways to the naked eye but even their meanings and themes are fairly similar. At least they seem that way to me. They both are about morals, more specifically morality of a society. Now it is basically impossible to explain this without spoilers so I will just keep it at that. But I assure you these books are one in the same,  I am not saying this a bad thing. They are different in a good amount of ways, and I started reading Divergent after  good amount of time since reading Mockinjay so it didn't really bother me. If you have read one of the series and u liked it you should definitely read the other

Divergent series relation to Maze Runner series

So I am now on the third and final book in the "Divergent" series by Veronica Roth, the book "Allegiant". Now I noticed this in the first book, but the relation really came out in the second and third books. This series is very similar to "The Maze Runner" series by James Dashner. Now a movie is coming out soon for the "Maze Runner" series and a movie just came out for the "Divergent" series so I will try to leave all spoilers out, but there might be slight hints to what happens later on.

So the reasons these books are very similar are abundant. To start they are both post-apocalyptic books, but then again about every other young adult book now is. Veronica Roth's story takes place in a walled in, half burned out, grim looking Chicago(One of the best city's ever). While Dashner's is in a maze, so not much similar there. There are multiple small similarities through each series throughout their plots and themes. But the main huge similarity is the plot of each book. Now if you didn't already know "The Maze Runner" is about way more than just a maze, I mean seriously way more. It's one of those twists/enlightenments that almost make the first book irrelevant, it remains relevant though and was the bases of the themes and whole drive of the story. Now Roth's plot is very strikingly similar. Roth's series like Dashner's first takes place in a both physically and mentally cut-off world, they have no idea why they are there they just are. They solve the problem within the their own seclusion and yay everything's happy and normal now! Nope the opposite happens, they then find out about the world they live in really really sucks. Then a whole massive plot happens diminishing the old one. If you haven't read either of these books or just one I have two words for you, read them. 

Trailer for maze runner:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64-iSYVmMVY&feature=kp

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

I've decided to blog on my required book for this post. Mainly because some think it is just a stupid book about people who like to burn books and a guy named Guy (hehe) who doesn't like to anymore. It is much more than that. It is about how someone should always strive to be out of conformity, to think your own thoughts, make your own decisions, and make your own views and opinions. To embrace difference and creativity. It also is about how books can affect any person in endless amount of ways. How they give you knowledge, they give you creativity, they give you power.

Neil Gaiman one of my favorite authors explained that it is basically a love letter to books in the introduction. As it is a love letter to books showing how lucky we are now and the freedoms and how amazing our world is. It is also a warning to the world to watch where our world travels. This book was written sixty years ago and he talks about short attentions spans of people. The lack of people like Clarisse in the world, the use of books dropped and measly game apps and TV. He reminds us and warns us to never forget what books do. If you do not understand this book, if you hate books, if you can't understand why people even read books in the first dang place, if you haven't the attention span to even read this whole post which I am sure some people do. Then i fear we head towards a dark and daunting future like in that of the book Fahrenheit 451. We have been warned.

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

So i just finished Insurgent by Veronica Roth and i thought it was a fantastic book. It continued my liking of the series as it was just as good as the first. While it didn't go into the psychology of the characters like the first it had much more action and focused a lot more on the war. It did get into the relationship between Tobias and Tris more which made me lose a lot of interest and want to go and puke, but hey if your a chick you probably love it.

Although this book was definitely middle story line. There is a big "war" which is just one battle that is severely dragged out and you finally figure out what happened to civilization and whats outside the wall. I was expecting a virus or some psychological thing that causes insanity like the Maze Runner, zombie thing, heck even mutated nuclear monster thingy. But alas it is not although it is psychological which falls into the books usual focus, you will have to read it to know.It leads to a whole new concept and the "war" is really diminished compared to this in importance, almost like the whole meat of the book was kind of meaningless and some characters were needless but you got too add new things i guess. Although, to me at points it feels as though the book is comprised of filler like an anime series it still is great and would be a great series for you as it is well rounded in many areas and anyone could enjoy it. The movie did just come out as well and it was very well done, but you should of course read the book first.

Sugi's Blog Reflection

My best blog post is probably Characterization and review of Micheal Vey: Battle of Ampere. The link is here http://sugisreadingblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/characterization-and-review-of-battle.html. I'd say it is probably my best post because i actually had a voice in my writing. I wasn't just stating facts about a book but telling them and I even went on a little rant (good or bad, I don't know). A quote showing my voice is " For example "The Hunger Games" was carried till it had nothing left which took you to a civil war plot instead of "hunger games", needless characters, Katniss getting addicted to morphine and constantly hiding in a stupid closet crying the whole dang time. I could keep going but ill just say plainly it was the worst ending of a series i have ever read, saw, or even played. I literally threw the book out when i was done.". Now I realize there is kind of a run-on sentence but I just got into it. I was expressing my deep, deep, deep, hatred for Mockinjay by Suzanne Collins. I don't just rant the whole time either. I talk about the characterization in Battle of Ampere as well as the plot of the book and compare it to the two books before it. For example " The story line is quite cool in theory, but this book is very anti-climatic. It's not very deep in emotions or characters, i could sum up the main character Micheal Vey as the literal exact same as Shia Labeouf's  character Sam from Transformers.". I talk about how the plot was slow and boring. It tried to have all this rising action and build up, to literally and ending that takes 3 pages only. I also make a connection to the almost exact same characters MIcheal Vey the protagonist of Battle of Ampere and Sam WitWicky from the Transformer films.

My goals for next Trimester are to read more complicated and harder literature. Maybe even some older novels like The Odyssey by Homer, I'd also like to read the Sherlock Holmes series. The TV series and movies are great so that must mean the books are amazing. I also have an idea of a story. I am no writer and am not a great story-teller but I'd like to try to put my idea down on paper. I keep thinking about different things in my idea of a world. I would really like to improve on my writing skills. As of now I am not to good, but I love reading and have always kind of wanted to make a book of my own. I think I have a really cool idea too. All that's left is to try. Christopher Paolini wrote Eragon when he was 15, its not impossible for me to write either.

Ideas and themes in Divergent

I got Divergent for Christmas and I finally got around to reading it. I bet most people have either read the series or heard of it, it is a bigger series than I originally thought. When I started reading it I kind of thought it as another series trying to get big money on a post-apocalyptic plot. I changed my idea of it after the first couple of chapters. It is an idea of its own, and to my joy only had one thing in common with "Hunger Games" the main character is female. The idea of people being categorized in factions is a very interesting topic. You see how people cling to the faction system and loose the emotions that aren't recognized in their own faction. Well they at least try too. There is Dauntless, Abnegation, Erudite, Amity, and Candor. The trials for Dauntless Faction are very interesting to me. Veronica Roth goes into psychology with fears. People face there fears and realize their fears. They spend time with their fears to lose their fears, staving to be fearless. A theme i think is present through this book is people aren't always one type of person or just generic and singular. People and their Emotions can not be controlled that is the beauty of being human. If i had to choose a faction hands down it would be Dauntless. What is your faction? http://www.divergentfans.com/page/faction-quiz Try this quiz and find out!

Characterization and review of "Battle of Ampere"

So overall the plot and story of The Micheal Very series i think is alright but in the third book it starts to lose that and gets anti-climatic and lots of other things. This third book "Battle of Ampere" is not the ending of the series. There is at least one more book left, but i presume they will ring this series dry of all its worth as many series do. For example "The Hunger Games" was carried till it had nothing left which took you to a civil war plot instead of "hunger games", needless characters, Katniss getting addicted to morphine and constantly hiding in a stupid closet crying the whole dang time. I could keep going but ill just say plainly it was the worst ending of a series i have ever read, saw, or even played. I literally threw the book out when i was done. I just hope to avoid an ending like that for this series. The series isn't quite as good though so i won't be as angry if the ending isn't great. The characters are abundant in Micheal Vey series, as there are seventeen electric children (some good,some bad). The Author Richard Paul Evans tries to make each one unique and personal and understandable but he doesn't quite get there. One character dies in the book and everyone in the "Electroclan" is in complete shock and misery. At that moment my thoughts were  "meh, didn't give a crap about him anyway. He was only cannon fodder from the beginning.". After this there was about ten pages on them just moping the whole time and some characters moped the whole rest of the book. Who cared about him! You literally had no emotions or  strong connections to him in either of the two books before or at least that i could remember. The story line is quite cool in theory, but this book is very anti-climatic. It's not very deep in emotions or characters, i could sum up the main character Micheal Vey as the literal exact same as Shia Labeouf's  character Sam from Transformers. Like they are the exact same! Who is a nobody, has lady problems, and is weak as a twig but is somehow super-duper special by some miraculous crap and gets a ridiculously hot girl and saves the world. What? Yeah i mean the idea is great and like i said the story line isn't that bad. But has a great loss of depth in both characters and plot, you can predict everything that happened in this book from the first couple chapters. Overall this book was very disappointing.

The Ordeal

I'm going back to Neverwhere for this one scene near the end of the book. It's "The ordeal" that the main character Richard has to go through to get the key. When he steps into the room or that's the London below's Black-Friar station. He sees pictures and drawings of thousands of people that went through the ordeal and no one has succeeded. The ordeal starts and so does the ridiculous confusion. Richard enters this trance where his own mind drives him crazy. All the signs in the station say to end his life, people that walk by say he is pitiful and should just end it and in all this his sanity withers away like a dead rose. His remaining sanity talks to him and tells him he needs to listen. Richard wakes up from being blacked out. He is lying in his own vomit and has a ragged beard, his eyes are solid red bloodshot. He crawls to the tracks while being battered trampled kicked and stomped on. He stands up and is about to jump but then he listens. He steps onto the train filled with body's that had all killed themselves. The past people who had tried to pass the ordeal. Richard takes the train back to new world he had passed, even so he doesn't even know he is Richard anymore. Dang this chapter was like any other chapter i have ever read.

Michael Vey 3: Battle of the Ampere

    

I got the third book in the Micheal Vey series for Christmas. Since I was reading Neverwhere I haven't had a chance to start it and I have been very anxious. The two books before this in my opinion have been great. The plot is about a test was conducted on baby's. This test went wrong and killed a huge amount of children. Although there were survivors, just a few. These kids that survived have a very powerful side effect. They all have powers of electricity called a "glow". Like one character "Zeus" shoots lighting bolts, The main character Micheal can make surges, electrocute on contact or conductivity, and he even can make lighting balls and throws them like grenades. There are many different types of powers as well. Since the human body uses electrical current there are powers relating to human senses and nervous system. Such as one character Taylor can read thoughts, some other powers can change what you see or feel, and one character drains all electricity from you , thus killing you. I cant wait to see the developed and increase in all the characters powers.

Neil Gaiman

Text of Neverwhere

Neil Gaiman writes using a very vast vocabulary. He uses very sophisticated words as well as some old words that can be found in that of Shakespeare. He definitely does not use them like Shakespeare. That is not a bad thing either. His use of words gives him a sort of quirky yet very sophisticated and intelligent man who is appreciative of humor. He also phrases his words and sentences. He has a gigantic run on sentence listing what a room contains. IT is literally almost a hole page just describing the room. You definitely get a perfect picture of it in your head. Gaiman also has a ton of infused dry humor in his books as well as puns and his main character has a lot of funny thoughts as well that makes him human and real almost to human. I personally love the way he writes and all his books I have read so far on my own.

first 1/3 of Neverwhere

Neverwhere begins by developing the protagonist named Richard Mayhew. He is an ordinary man who moved to London for his work. He has a fiancee who is a completely horrid woman who thinks of him as an accessory. He in awe of her beauty just followers her in ignorance of her evil. Then another side of the story starts. There is a girl who is running from twp men who intend to kill her. She has a power to open any door and teleport through them to other places. She gets stabbed and runs through a door freeing herself from her attackers but using the rest of her energy to do so. An unexpected event occurs as Richard is walking with Jessica to have dinner with Jessica's boss. He encounters a severely dirty and injured woman on the street, Jessica merely steps over the bleeding, dying woman. Richard as he is actually human could not do this. Jessica yells at him to stop and leave her otherwise their engagement is off. Richard merely picks up the young woman turns and walks away, leaving little miss horrible all teared up. Its about time her left the witch.But the girl named Door doesn't just have her life saved but she completely flips another's life upside down. He then enters a place he never knew existed... London Below. I just got into this other world but it is unlike any other book or story I've read or heard.