Crewel Lye

I finished reading the 8th Xanth Novel today called “Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn”.

This was sort of different from the rest of the Xanth novels that I read. This time the story was all about Jordan the ghost. He was telling 5-year-old Ivy the story of his life and how he died.

In order for him to tell his story they had to clean the magic tapestry with a homemade cleaner (which was a crewel lye) but he died because of a crewel lie. See the pun? I forgot where it was but there was a reference to spinning a yarn (telling a story) but it was caustic? LOL I don’t remember now. The puns are getting a bit confusing.

I really hate giving too much of the story away just in case anyone hasn’t read it so I’m just gonna say that I liked it. Of course I like all of the Xanth novels so it’s hard for me to say anything else.

I don’t know what it is about these books but they are so easy and fun to read. During the time that I’m reading them, I feel like I’m in the story. Have you ever seen The Neverending Story? That’s the way it is except I’m not actually in the story lol. But I feel like I’m there watching instead of reading from my bedroom.

So that’s 8 Xanth novels down and 25 to go until they release the last 2 books then it will be 27 to go. My next book will be New Moon, the 2nd Twilight book. I bought it from the grocery store on December 3rd (impulse buy) and I still have yet to read it so it’s next on my list to read tomorrow.

The Four Fingers of Death

via The Four Fingers of Death – Hachette Book Group.

A few months ago I won a book on GetGlue called The Living Dead by George Romero and then I found out in a stage Q&A video on YouTube that he knew nothing about the book and denied it’s existence. Today I got an email from GetGlue telling me that the Hatchette Group who I apparently won the book from has offered 4 other alternatives. Here they are:

ADAM by Ted Dekker
A serial killer known only as Eve is on the loose. The victims are sixteen young women, each murdered on the night of a new moon. Special Agent Daniel Clark is determined to find Eve at any cost, even if it means he might be the next target.

THE FOUR FINGERS OF DEATH by Rick Moody
Rick Moody’s masterful new novel vividly imagines a lowdown, darkly comic future, as inspired by a drive-in movie classic.

THE CAPITOL GAME by Brian Haig
New York Times bestselling author Brian Haig returns with a riveting new thriller about a man caught between the politics of big government and the corruption of big business.

POSTCARD KILLERS by James Patterson and Liza Marklund
James Patterson teams up with #1 European bestseller Liza Marklund to create the scariest vacation thriller ever.

I think it was very cool that they offered a new book instead of making me wait for the book that they offered me a couple of months ago. Since I already knew that The Living Dead wasn’t going to happen, I gave up on waiting for it.

The only issue that I have with these 4 books is that they are not an equal alternative to “the livingdead”. They aren’t zombie books which is what I won for being the guru of a zombie book.

So because I had to choose 1 I chose The Four Fingers because it sort of has a zombie in it, the reanimated arm with the middle finger missing. That should be interesting to read about considering it is the remains of an earth human who went to Mars and the only thing that came back was his arm. I’d also like to see how the arm came back to Earth lol.

The other 3 books seemed suspenseful but I’m not into murder mysteries. The book genre I’m really into is fantasy and horror. You know, vampires, demons, zombies, magicians, wizards and witches.  If it is supernatural then I like it. Those other 3 did not seem very supernatural to me.

It is hardcover which is a bit of a bonus and I look forward to receiving it but I won’t hold my breath for too long.

Update 2011-01-27: I still have yet to receive this book

Update 2012-10-03: I STILL have yet to receive any book.  I gave up a long time ago.  In fact, I totally forgot about it until I received an email saying that 2 of the links from this post were broken.  I tried to fix them, but 1 of them isn’t even on the Hatchette Group website anymore.  The Capital Game.  Oh well.  I guess after nearly 3 years I might as well just give up ever expecting to receive any “free” gift other than stickers from GetGlue.