Shadow Puppets by Orson Scott Card

Another great installment of the Ender’s Shadow series. Still focused on Bean. I'd prefer a little more about Peter. I always imagined his story as being more interesting. Perhaps the next books will give us a little more.

Ender wrote Civilization altering books together called, "The Hive Queen and the Hegemon" which I thought these new novels would shed light on. So far I haven’t read anything that would have made these books so impressive. At least from the Hegemon side of things.

I'll just have to wait and see how the world turns out under Peter's eventual rule. I hope card, in the end, makes a connection between this series and the original Ender series in some for or fashion. I miss Jane.

William Thomas Kisner

William Thomas Kisner

Originally uploaded by FlipSide3.

My old roommate Tom and his wife Marie just had themselves a kid! William Thomas Kisner was born on 3/5/2007 at 9:45 a.m. 5 pounds 13oz, 18 1/2 inches.

Now Katie has a friend to play with... and torment!

Canthan New Year

gw350

Originally uploaded by FlipSide3.

It was a few weeks back, before I actually beat factions, but Cantha celebrated its new year. I actually ended up spending the final day event with some of my Guild/Alliance members. Here's a group photo after we got our fancy new Lion Masks.

We also got mini-piggie pets. It is the Year of the Pig after all!

The Tachyon Web by Christopher Pike

Once upon a time during my high school days (and a little beyond) I read Christopher Pike books. I read a lot of them. I started with one called Chain Letter.

These first books could all be categorized as teen whodunit murder mystery novels. Conflict and relationships were all hormone filled teenage fair. At that point I wasn’t much of a reader, so at the very least I was reading.

Thing is the subject matter of the books changed. I attribute it to the popularity of R. L. Stine’s monster books. All of Pike’s books began to take on supernatural bents. He even wrote a sequel to Chain Letter, turning a normal mystery into a twisted zombie romp. I’m a big fan of sci-fi fantasy, but honestly my favorites of his were the straight up mystery books. No monsters or magic please.

My bestest friend Becky was an avid reader at the time and still is. Her taste in books was a little more evolved than mine. I lent her one of Pike’s books, involving a ghost solving her one murder or something. I think she read the whole thing, but even if she didn’t it was fairly evident that she thought it was laughable.

I now know what she was thinking. The TACHYON WEB is Pike’s foray into science fiction, but is really the same old teenage fair. No murder mystery, more mis-adventure. The plot was predictable in every possible way. Plot holes abound, and far too many things worked out a tad too perfectly.

I actually skimmed most of the book, and missed out on nothing. I enjoyed reading Pike again if only for nostalgia, but without the murder mystery the story seemed pointless. I can’t recommend this book to anyone, but I did enjoy it for my own reasons.

Time to move on to something else.

A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony

First book in the Xanth series. Piers Anthony would later go on to write many many more. I can’t wait to get started on the next one. Fantasy novel of the highest caliber.

End of Guild Wars Factions

Factions Credits Roll

Originally uploaded by FlipSide3.

I've been trying to get Satine through the last 2 missions of Factions for about a month now. The Raisu Palace mission was a little more difficult than most. I could have asked around for help, but I'm stubborn and wanted to do it by myself.

So last Saturday things worked out, I got through the palace. The final fight with big bad Shiro wasn't nearly as difficult. After that you arrive at the special end game area called the Divine Path.

I got my special unique item, I picked the shield though I probably should have gotten the zealous bow. I snapped a lot of pics. Walked all the way along the path, all the way to the Emperor.

And then the credits rolled...

:-)

Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card

Another book in the "Ender's Game" universe. Very interesting to see a bit of history only hinted at in some of the previous books fleshed out with unexpected details. I still liked Ender’s Game, as a stand alone story. It seems the more additions to the series diminish the original. Still I liked it enough to roll right into the next book.

This tale was on the furthering adventures of Bean and the beginnings of the rise of Peter Wiggin as Hegemon. Though the story is really about Bean’s survival and rescuing of his Battle School friends. Also he learns about himself in the process, which will be important in the upcoming books… I’d imagine.