Monthly Archives: July 2011

Jul 31 2011

Book Review: Frankenstein: Prodigal Son by Dean Koontz (Book 1)

This is only the second book from Koontz that I’ve read, and since this one introduces his Frankenstein series, it certainly won’t be the last. I finished it in record time for me – just 7 days.  It’s a fast page turner thanks to its short chapters, lots of dialogue, and lack of detail. Sure, it may not hold much literary merit or be an engrossing read that really makes you think, but it still holds a certain amount of entertainment value that I liked.

Victor Frankenstein, now known as Victor Helios, has survived the last 200 years since Mary Shelley first wrote about him.  He’s rich and living in New Orleans, and he has perfected his ability to create life.  He is creating a New Race to live upon us and eventually wipe out the “Old Race.”  His new creations have two hearts, no scars, and lack the ability to feel certain emotions such as the urge to kill or harm themselves.  They also lack the need for love. Sexual gratification, achieved by having sex with any member of the New Race because they lack the needs for attraction, only brings them self satisfaction and they are all sterile.

To Victor, they are the perfect humans and he will conquer the world with them.  He’s even on his fourth wife, Erika, who is the perfect servant.  But Erika loves to read and begins to question Victor’s motives.  She wonders why he collects fine art – all created by humans – if he hates the Old Race so much. And Victor’s first creation – the monster – is also still alive.  While Victor has become the monster, his first monster has become more human.  He now goes by the name of Deucalion and he comes to New Orleans to find Victor and discover what he has been doing.

However, a serial killer is upon them – killing both Old and New Race members and collecting body parts. Young detectives Carson  O’Connor and Michael Maddison are on the case. They are quick-witted and smart, and they are also attracted to each other. Carson’s brother, Arnie, suffers from autism and spends his time building an elaborate castle from Legos.

Victor has also created a New Race Member known as Randal Six, who also has qualities of an autistic child.  Randal is determined to escape from Victor’s lab, Hands of Mercy, to find Arnie and discover what brings him happiness.  Meanwhile, O’Connor and Maddison team up with Deucalion to track down the killer and to get one step closer to Victor.

These are pretty much the story lines that make up the first book in the series.  The detectives chasing down the killer is actually probably the weakest of the lot.  Their sarcastic humor and loving looks at each other are pretty dry, and their steps through the case are somewhat predictable. When the identity of the killer is revealed, it’s not much of a surprise, but at least the reader gets to find out who it is before the detectives do.

While you’d think that Deucalion would have a primary part in the first book, he doesn’t.  He spends over half of the book in an old movie theater – doing no investigation of his own to find Victor.  It’s not until he teams up with the detectives in the last 200 pages that we really see him step out and begin to move around. The best parts are Ericka, Victor’s wife, being tormented by what she believes to be a rat.  The more time she spends at home with herself and her books – she loves Emily Dickinson and becomes a metaphor for one of her poems – the more she begins to question humanity and what Victor really is.  Randal Six’s attempt to escape the lab, via spelling out crosswords on the tiles in the floor, is also a nicely paced tale.  We want to see him escape.  We connect with him as a character because of his condition.

There’s also lots of intense scenes and good writing involving the subjects of creation and God and mortality – science vs. religion.  Koontz definitely has several underlying messages here to make you think, which really make this an intriguing read overall as Victor’s New Race members struggle.  They aren’t supposed to question their existence or feel the need for religion.  He has purposely denied them such feelings, but sometimes even immortal humans begin to question and when they do, their fragile balance is thrown off.  It is these inner conflicts that really give this book life, overshadowed with a killer on the loose.

Like I said, its the minor characters that I really connected with here and who stole the show.  Was it enough to keep me reading?  Absolutely.  I plan to move forward with Book Two right away.

Jul 30 2011

Scaling Down

Last weekend a friend asked what was going on with my weight loss program. He hadn’t seen any mentions of it on Facebook lately.  So, I thought I’d spend today’s post updating everyone on how I’m doing.  From June 12th (the week of vacation) through July 4th, I don’t want to say I fell off the wagon but let’s just say I wasn’t religiously watching what I was eating.  And I certainly wasn’t counting calories.  Hey!  It was vacation time and there was a holiday in there too!

I didn’t meet my original goal which was to lose 25 pounds by July 4th, but oh well, I didn’t get too discouraged.  I am happy to say that I have since lost 26 pounds total and this being the end of July, I didn’t miss my original deadline by much.

I started by “weight loss goal” for the year on February 13th when I got a new gym membership.  I weighed 248 pounds then.  I’m proud to say I’m now down to 222 and have lost about 2 to 3 inches from my waist. I can definitely tell a difference in the way my pants fit, that’s for sure.

At first, I was also keeping a calorie journal and religiously recording everything I eat everyday – every calorie consumed – and also every calorie I burned with each trip to the gym. I abandoned this somewhere around April, but picked it up again this month because it actually helped. 

In the beginning, my goal was to avoid exceeding 2,000 calories a day and to burn at least a fourth of that with each trip to the gym. Crunching the numbers was fun to do and it quickly weaned me off unhealthy snacking.  In fact, it probably changed my eating habits entirely.  I now rarely exceed 1500 calories a day and burn about a third of that at the gym three days a week.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t been snacking.  I’ve sure had my fill of ice cream this summer, but I’m not beating myself up over it. 

What’s important for me is that I’m eating better, I’m getting exercise, I feel better, and I’m seeing results.  It’s been a slow process, but I don’t feel like I’m chained to a diet plan that isn’t comfortable.

So, for those interested I picked one of my gym days from my calorie journal to share with you here.  On average Monday through Friday at work, my breakfast consists of the same amount of calories every day.  My lunch may vary, but my gym time (Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) is consistent.

Breakfast:
2 cups of Coffee with Splenda 45 calories
1 medium apple 45 calories
Apple Cinnammon Oatmeal 130 calories
Yoplait Yogurt 100 calories
320 calories total

Snack:
1 cup of plain Cheerios (no milk) 100 calories
1 serving of seedless grapes 80 calories
Calorie Free Sobe Flavored Water
180 calories total

Lunch:
Tuna Sandwich on Wheat 200 calories
1 Serving of Jolly Green Giant Broc/Cheese 80 calories
Yoplait Yogurt 100 calories
Coke Zero 0 calories
380 calories total

880 calories total

Gym Workout – 45 minutes on the elyptcle – 500 calories burned

Dinner:
Kahiki Chicken 300 calories
Side Salad with Ranch 150 calories
Sobe Water – calorie free
450 calories total

End of Day Calorie Count – 830

Most of my days fall right around this range on gym days – I end the day at just about 1,000 calories consumed after I subtract what I burned at the gym.  Most professionals would say I should probably be eating more, and of course with that, I should burn more by mixing up my routine at the gym.  Or maybe I shouldn’t count calories at all now that my hunger is pretty much under control and I’m not really snacking or straying out of the plan. 

Nope!  My plan is working for me right now.  I do take a multi-vitamin every day and keep myself hydrated.  But I don’t feel like I’m starving myself.  And remember, I only work out three days a week right now.  So, I’m content and its working for me.  I still weigh in every Sunday, but I don’t beat myself up if the scale isn’t going down.

By the end of the year, I’d love to shed those 23 pounds to put me under 200, and I’m going to do it. It’s taken 6 months to get me here, so if it takes another 6 to burn 23 more – I’m up for the challenge!

Jul 29 2011

The First 100 Pages: Frankenstein by Dean Koontz Book 1 Prodigal Son

Having just read my very first Dean Koontz book at the beginning of this month (Read my review!), I was anxious to start another.  I chose Book 1 of his Frankenstein Trilogy which is called Prodigal Son.  And I’m actually 200 pages in as I write this, having just started it last Saturday when I finished Stephen King’s Bag of Bones.  I always seem to read mass market paperbacks quicker. Plus, Koontz is a much easier read than King.  He gets right to the point and really pushes the story along which keeps my interest. 

While Frankenstein is definitely a page turner and I do plan to read the other 2 books in the series right after I finish this one, it’s not as captivating as What The Night Knows was for me. Koontz actually wrote this originally as a miniseries script which he abandoned after the network wanted to make a lot of changes.  He developed it into a five book story instead.

It’s the story of Victor Frankenstein and the monster (now known as Deucalion) from Mary Shelley’s classic now living in a modern day New Orleans.  Like vampires, or more like zombies, they’ve both sustained immortality. Deucalion has become educated and refined.  Frankenstein is a rich doctor who is developing a New Race now that he’s improved his mechanics of new life forms.  Throw in a serial killer – who may or may not be a member of the New Race – who is preying on both humans and New Race members, and a storyline about two young detectives tracking him down, and you’ve pretty much got enough suspense to keep you reading.  I know I’m intrigued!

Like I said, while this one is a bit more loose as far as details go, moreso than Night was, it’s still a good read and is holding my attention.  More about it later when I post my full review.

Jul 27 2011

The Urban Gardener: New Additions for Spring 2012!

Yes, I know its just the end of July, but last week I got a shipment in the mail of irises and day lilies that I had selected several months ago to plant along our stone pathway. I checked with the vendor to make sure it was okay to go ahead and plant them, and they said absolutely! As you can see from the pictures, I chose mostly red, yellow, and orange tones. This will add more coloration to the back yard and break up a lot of the purple and lavender. And I’m happy to say that they are all planted! Can’t wait to see the flowers come next year!

Jul 26 2011

Sit Down And Read This Review

Fellow author and dear friend, Cheryl Anne Gardner, posted a review of Are You Sitting Down? this past week.

You can read the full review here or at Amazon.

While I love the entire review and have read it about a dozen times by now, here’s my favorite part:

They say in a small town everyone knows everything about everyone else, and this story serves to debunk that myth. Here everyone knows what they think they know, and in reality, they only know what’s relevant to their own personal struggle, and their attitudes towards the secrets that they think they know are really just reflections of their own inner turmoil. No one really knows anything deeper about the other characters aside from the surface wounds, which is sadly true to life. We talk to the people in our lives, but we rarely really listen. We claim to “share” our most intimate feelings with a certain few, but we rarely tell anyone the unadulterated truth about anything. That realism and truth about the collective consciousness is driven home quite powerfully in this story.

As Cheryl mentioned early on, I thanked her in the back of this book for just “getting me.”  Cheryl and I have never met face to face and have never verbally spoken to each other.  Our communication has only been through email or Facebook. I’ve read three of her books though and she’s now read two of mine. But you know how sometimes when something just clicks and you know you’ve made a genuine friend?  I got that from Cheryl very early on in our correspondence.  And there have been few people like that in my life because I think there are few people like that out in the world for each of us.

Sure, we make lots of contacts throughout our lives.  We have friends, good friends, and best friends.  Heck, don’t you wish you could divide them into groups sometimes on Facebook?  But those genuine friends, those real connections, no matter how they are made are real.  And we know it when it happens. And I’m glad Cheryl is one of mine.  Her opinion is important to me, and her praise for my book made my day!  Like I said, she gets me.  And when someone reads my work and they connect with it the way I intended a reader to, I know I’ve done a good job.  I’ve written a good story.  And that means a lot to me.

Thanks, Cheryl!  Love ya!

Jul 24 2011

Bag of Bones by Stephen King – Book Review

I haven’t read Stephen King probably since junior high when a neighborhood friend first turned me onto him.  I read him all summer long for two or three years, and then I had abandoned him for other reading by high school.  A recent trip down memory lane found me collecting King’s books again and Bag of Bones was his first book I’d read since way back when.

It’s the story of Michael Noonan, a fairly well known author, who is recently widowed.  Noonan suffers from four years of writer’s block after his wife’s death, and he decides to go back to their lake house, called Sarah Laughs, to see if that will help.  At the lake house, Noonan soon begins to hear bumps in the night, bells ringing, and children crying. He’s convinced it’s his wife’s ghost until the alphabet magnets on the fridge start to spell out messages.

All ghosts aside, Noonan befriends a three year old girl, Kyra, and her white trash widowed mother, Mattie, who are wrapped up in a custody battle thanks to the little girl’s millionaire grandfather who is from the lake town. Quite smitten with the mother, Noonan decides to put some of his money to work by hiring her a big New York lawyer.  And suddenly, he finds himself writing again.

King excels (as he always does) at building a haunting ghost story with lots of mystery for you to unravel. The story grows from Noonan’s obsession with a female negro singer from years ago, who the lake house is named for, and the gossipy glaring neighbors of a small community who might be haunted by a town secret and suffering at the mercy of the millionaire grandpa.

In typical King fashion, he also dives deep into the psyche of each character, really drawing them out and giving them life.  Unfortunately, this is also his downfall.  With each ghostly cry and bump in the dark, King strings you along but then brings the story to a shuttering halt with pages filled with detailed dreams, long drawn out picnics, and other drivel. As a whole, King’s penchant for detail does serve a purpose but the monotony of it really slows the story down.

At times I stopped and wondered if King ever got bored with writing the details.  True, this is not one of his longer books.  It’s only 529 pages and he has many more that are closer to 1K.  I can appreciate how well he draws each character out, and it is indeed the characters that you fall in love with here.  Michael, Mattie, and Ki are brilliant and certainly characters I will remember; I feel like I know them as well as a neighbor.  But it’s the spaces between where King falls short.

I give this one 3 out of 5 stars for its fear factor and stretched out storyline, but a generous 4 stars for its characterization.

By the way, many have sung praises for this book because they had not yet ruined it with a movie.  Well, Pierce Brosnan is slated to play Noonan for a TV miniseries of it.  While Brosnan is not the first person to come to mind when I picture Noon on screen, I haven’t decided yet if I’ll be watching.

Jul 23 2011

2011 Reading Challenge Update

Although I said I’m not going to religiously hold myself to a number of books this year, I’m still keeping track.  Having just finished Stephen King’s Bag of Bones (review to follow tomorrow) this morning, I have now made it to 20 books read this year (for pleasure).  For this little challenge that I’ve been doing for a few years now, I don’t generally count the books that I also read for review on LL Book Review.

I keep track of the book using an Amazon.com Listmania list.  You can view mine here!  The only problem with this list is you are only allowed to add 40 items.  I ran into this problem last year when I had surpassed 40 books by a few. That’s why I also update GoodReads.com regularly with the books I’ve read.

As I near the end of a book, I’m always torn as to what to read next.  I loved Koontz so much, which I read right before King, so I’m tempted to go back to him since I’ve already picked up a few more of his books. I could certainly read another King book since I’ve been collecting those the past few months, but I’ve got to have a break from him and read something else.  More about that in my review tomorrow.

What are you reading right now?  Are you keeping track of your books read for the year?  If so, do you use some kind of online tracking system like I do?

Jul 22 2011

The Urban Gardener: Backyard Revisited Part 4 – Sago, Sago!

Ever had one of those plants that you just can’t kill?

About three or four years ago I bought a Sago Palm at K-Mart because I loved the look of it.  We’ve brought it inside the past few years for the winter, and put it back out for spring and summer.  It always sprouts a new set of leaves each year.  You can see the new leaves right in the middle of the photo.

The hot sun bleaches the old leaves.  That’s the yellow markings you see in the photo.  I’m thinking about cutting all those leaves back after this summer.  Does anyone else have one of these that they care for?  Any suggestions on caring for it?

It’s a prickly plant that sits on our deck, but it has hung on forever now.  I’m convinced you just can’t kill it. Maybe next year I’ll consider putting it in the ground to see how it does.

When we visited Dauphin Island, Alabama in 2008 and New Orleans in 2010, you see these things everywhere on the coast.  Its a cool looking plant despite its tendencies to stick you.