This morning I finished reading Dune. A book I never thought I would get around to reading. I’m really not sure why it has taken me this long to read it as I’ve loved the story since I was a kid. I think it was mostly because I expected it to be something less than I wanted it to be.

See, when I was around twelve (at a guess). I got my hands on a computer game called Dune. With it’s great story, soundtrack and gameplay, It quickly became one of my favourite games. Starting out as little Paul Atreides flying around in an Ornithopter gathering up spice and talking to fremen then going on to organising an army using telepathy. Great fun.

I knew it was a book then, and I knew my father had a copy of the second book - Dune Messiah, I think I even read a few pages, but who wants to read the second book when you haven’t read the first?

It was a couple of years later, long after I’d completed the game, that I saw the David Lynch film. I wasn’t exactly sure if I liked it or not. There was the story that I remembered and loved but… It just wasn’t the game. I haven’t seen it since that first time, maybe I’ll watch it again sometime and see something in it that I didn’t see before.

Then, a few years later, I came across a box set of video tapes titled: Frank Herbert’s Dune. Unfortunately, much more expensive than I could afford… Not much later though, as video tapes were leaving the stores forever, the box set dropped in price to an easy $15. I snatched it up. And again I revisited Arrakis, now with glowing blue eyes and better (comparatively not relatively) special effects.

Onto the present: A few weeks ago I finally picked up my very own copy of the book. Though, I was still weary that it would be less than I wanted. This was the source material for one of my favourite childhood computer games. (They don’t make games like the ones I grew up on any more.)

How I was wrong.

I had not been so immersed in the world of the fremen since those days I spent hours in front of the computer. I flew through the book, enjoying Paul Atreides’ rise to power all over again. It had been enough time since I had seen or played any of the Dune’s that I couldn’t recall everything about the story but there were elements that came to me time and again. When Paul met Chani and vaguely remembered meeting her before, in a dream, I vaguely remembered meeting her before, in a game.

And now, I’m starting on Dune Messiah. Which, ironically enough, now that I’ve come to read it my father no longer owns it. - But, don’t fear (Because fear is the mindkiller), I picked up my own copy on Saturday.

After work today I was walking past Angus’s. And, as usual, I couldn’t resist the urge to walk in. I can never seem to pass a book store without going in.

I told myself the same thing I do everytime I enter a bookstore - “You’re just LOOKING, you have a long TBR stack at home already, You DO NOT need more books… Just yet.”

So, I look around for a while. There are a few books I’ve come across on my internetting recently that I’d like to read, so I thought I’d see if any of them were in stock… Abandoning my ‘do not buy’ decision as soon as the first whiff of published pages hits my nostrils.

I’m having a look along the shelves when I notice that they now have a couple of Neil Gaiman’s books stocked. And as I recently read and loved The Sandman, I’d been thinking about giving one of his books a go.

But which one??

As it turns out I had a choice between two books - American Gods, which was over 600 pages long, or Stardust at a slim 200 odd pages.

Guess which one I chose…

That’s it, the short one. Maybe if I enjoy Stardust I’ll have a go at American Gods. It does sound pretty interesting.

I saw the movie of Stardust not too long ago and thought it half decent. So I’ll at very least have a half decent read in front of me.

The odd thing, though…

When I was paying for my book, the guy throws in a ’special gift’. I’m not sure exactly what it was promoting or why we’re getting such odd gifts from book stores nowadays, but I got an itty bitty little tub of Anti-aging cream.

Oh well, I thought, Momma always said Free is as free does.

So I gave it a go, I tried a little on my cheek. But I think I got a dud batch because now I have a little mutant sticking out of my face that keeps yelling ‘Quaid…start the reactor!”

It’s called Deliver us from evil.

It’s a spectacular collection of short stories.

Here’s an example:

Yeah! That’s Right, I’m in a book! Boo-Ya!

You can buy it here: Link

Or Read my awesome story here: Link

Or Watch me reading it here: Link Missing

Anyway, I got my copy today and thought it was cool when I opened up to page 224 and saw my name… In A Book!

In other news I finished the first draft of a new short story. It’s called Dah’min. - Dah’Min is a rare pet human. He’s never seen one of his own kind before… Until Now.

I’ll load it up onto my site once I’ve finished a couple more drafts.

Till then remember: Lasagne is the best idea ever!

Video Trailers for books?

“Read a whole Synopsis? I’ll wait for the movie”

But, then - anything that sells more books is doing some good.

Book Trailers

I just finished reading it.

When I was a kid, I don’t know about six or something, I saw the movie. Loved it. Forgot all about it.

Years later I had one of those flash backs when you remember something you loved as a kid. This has happened to me on several occasions that left me searching for a name of a movie with little more than a vague description of a few scene’s. (one of which was Dark Crystal)

But all I remembered of The Princess Bride was a man (that turned out to be Inigo Montoya played by the great Mandy Patinkin) climbing up somewhere (The Cliffs of Insanity)

and that’s all I had to go on. Until one day (after carrying that vague scene in the back of my mind for, give or take, five years) my father asked me in the midst of a conversation “have you seen The Princess Bride?”

to which I replied “The What What?” - sounds stupid, girly, and boring I thought. ha!

he went on “The Dread Pirate Roberts, The Fire Swamp, The Cliffs of Insanity…”

something clicked inside my head. “did some dude climb some cliff with just a rope?” I said.

yes. I bought the movie at once. on Video Cassette! (for those who don’t remember cassettes - think of giant computers that take up whole laboratory rooms and can do the times tables in an hour flat) and when it came out I upgraded it to DVD.

Then just a few weeks ago when I was in Angus and Robertson, skulking the classic section as I do every so often, I saw it there. I bought it without a thought. Well that’s not completely true, my one thought was - I LOVE the movie, why haven’t I thought of getting the book earlier?

and so I just finished it. I Loved it.

and you have to laugh.

because as I sometimes do when I finish a good book, I went online to see what other people have said about it. I especially like to check out people’s negative reviews. And here’s what I found - (I’ll try to put this in a way that won’t give anything away, but just in case you haven’t read it and want to, don’t read on…

Every negative review said it was because they preferred S. Morgenstern’s writing over William Golman’s!!!

Oh! People Huh?? What will they come up with next??