"A young boy puts a feather into his mouth..." "...A young boy takes a feather out of his mouth." This is the beginning and the end to one of the best books I've ever read. It's quite obvious why it takes 342 pages to explain these two partial sentences alone. What else lies between the covers? I can tell you, it's not all good and well. First of all, is this a book report? Why yes, yes it is. However, I'm going to laden it with curse words so you can't copy and paste! Ha ha! Go take "a flying fuck."

I suppose I should start with a summary of some sort. Scribble, the main character, Beetle, Mandy, and Briget are all in somekind of group doing a kind of drug called Vurt. Vurt is kind of like dreaming only the particular Vurt being taken will tell the user what the dream is going to be. Different color feathers, Vurt, tell what kind of feather it is. There are pinks, blues, silvers, and they're all legal. The feathers the stash riders are after are yellow, totally illegal but totally necessary according to Scribble. Scribble lost his sister, Desdemona, in a yellow Vurt called English Voodoo and was given a horrible slimy "alien" in return. It's the rules of Vurt, when something is lost in the Vurt something plus or minus 0.267125 will replace it. A sucessful switchback has never been recorded though so it is only natural that Scribble and the Stash Riders get into some shit... Deep shit... Literally.

Jeff Noon, the writer of the book, frequently switches from being the best writer in the world to the worst. He can come up with an amazing description or an awesome, symbolic sentence, but then describe something like "scared to fuck." How does "fuck" describe something? It's like reading a book that a modern day teenager wrote. One who can't go for two minutes without saying the "f" word in a random part of their sentence. When he writes a good sentence, he really writes a good sentence! He wrote this novel in 1993 and it was his first book. I can't even imagine how good his later books must be.

How can a book laden with "fuck" possibly be the best book in the world? Even though a drug taken by brushing a feather into someone's mouth will probably never come about, the characters in the book are a different story. They are so life-like you can almost cry for them. A review from The Times (London) wrote "...spiced with dark humor and the horrible realization that Noon knows of which he writes." That's so true. He had to have been on some hard drugs at one point. That's just the only way I can see that he knows what it's like to be at the very bottom of the line with nothing but a drug in his hand. It feels like that is what the characters are going through throughout the entire book. From the same review "Vurt is a fantasy video game on acid..." Once again, I agree completely! This is probably as close as you can get to going through an acid trip without taking the drug. The descriptions of being on Vurt are insane and crazy and they play with your head! If you listen to some crazy music while you read... GOD DAMN!

Before you go running down to the library or to a book store in search of Vurt, you're not going to find it. I haven't found a copy in a store yet at least. I recommend half.com. I got my withdrawn library book copy for about $3.00 there. Wait, don't leave yet. I have more warnings for everyone who wants to read it. If this book were completely clean I would have recommended this book to everyone at the top of this review. Unfortunatly, it has a few sex scenes that I know I was offended by. Not to mention the insane amout of cuss words this book has in it. See for yourself:

• Dick - 1
• Crap - 1
• Hell - 1
• Damn - 3
• Bastard - 3
• Arse (this was written in the UK) - 4
• Jesus - 7
• God - 14
• Bitch - 27
• Christ - 34
• Shit - 77
• Fuck - 160
• Grand total - 332

Have you ever read a book with that many cuss words!? Well, if you don't have a problem with sex, cuss words, or violence I highly recommend this book. Remember, in the words of the Game Cat, "Be careful. Be very, very careful."

What is the House of Leaves� storyline? That is an interesting question as most of House of Leaves is written as a long movie review for a fictitious movie called the Navidson Record. A photographer named Navidson made the movie. He set cameras in every room of his house except for the bathrooms and documented the strange happenings that went on in the house. He measured the dimensions of his house and found that the inside was bigger than the outside. Further evidence of this appeared one day when a strange door leading into an impossibly large, dark addition to Navidson�s home appeared in his living room. The many rooms and passages that Navidson and his hired team of explorers find in the pitch-black addition is constantly changing, moving, and becoming larger and smaller. The possibility of getting trapped or lost is a big problem, made even bigger by the fact that the fishing line the team has set behind them to get back to the house is disappearing. This horror film comes to life in the strange layout of the House of Leaves.

Most of the House of Leaves is about the Navidson Record, however, there is a second storyline that goes on in the footnotes. An old man named Zapan� passed away, and a tattooist assistance named Johnny Traunt was convinced by his friend Lude to sneak into the old man�s apartment to possibly find something to sell for drugs. Johnny finds the House of Leaves instead, a pile of napkins, scratch paper, and other bits of paper scribbled on by the blind Zapan�. He still takes the pile of writing home with him where he slowly becomes more obsessed with the Navidson Record movie review, even though he knows it isn�t real, and the other writings of Zapan�. He slowly realizes that there is a darkness lurking within his own apartment too and vows to publish the House of Leaves so everyone can hear Zapan�s warning.

Besides the footnotes of Johnny Traunt, there are also normal footnotes throughout the book that make references to real and made up books, interviews, and movies on a variety of subjects from echoes to psychology. In the back of the book, there is an appendix with other works Johnny found in the House of Leaves including poems, pictures, quotes, and random bits of writing. There is also a series of letters from Traunt�s mother when she was alive in an insane asylum. The book also includes an index with words like �cut,� �endnotes,� and �meaning� to name a few.

The layout of this novel gets even more bizarre within the Navidson Record movie review. Words will be crammed into a small box in the middle of the page, be written sideways, upside down, at a slant, or stretched out, or do not exist on a page at all. This seems to give you the impression that you are actually watching the movie. Parts of the book are also written in different languages including Russian, Latin, Spanish, German, and Italian. There�s even some brail. These are all translated into English either by Johnny or the �editors.�

Since this book is written mostly as a movie review, it analyzes itself at the same time it�s telling the story. The critics interviewed for the review will try to explain the meaning behind every scene making it easy for the reader at the end of the book to tie the lose ends together and understand the theme of the book. The book even goes as far as explaining its own existence. Zapan� wanted to make people understand the theme of the Navidson Record with the movie review. He was trying to illustrate how dark thoughts and actions consume people�s lives by making it literal in the movie. At least that's how I interpreted it.

I found House of Leaves to be a very good book. The Navidson Record is a truly scary horror film that doesn�t require loud noises just to make you jump. It doesn�t even need film. Johnny Trant�s story of drug problems and how he overcomes them is spiced with dark humor, lots of description, anecdotes, action, and many strange events that keep you entertained. House of Leaves is even entertaining when you�re not reading it, and you�re just flipping through the pages looking at all the crazy layouts. This book has something for everyone since it touches on so many subjects and even has references if a reader wants more information. I recommend this book to everyone. If anything, it makes for an easy book report.

Eyes of War is the story of Mat Trakall and Princess Janevra. No, it�s a story about much more than that. So much, maybe it�s too much. It�s also about the six phoenixes, Raxsen the Dark Lord, and many others. This fantasy/romance is the story of the events that took place at the beginning of The Seventh Age, the Age of the Second Dragons. The book had the potential to be full of thought provoking writing with complicated storylines and complex characters. Unfortunately, I couldn�t see past the bad writing.

The errors began within the first few chapters as Mat Trakall traveled to Caendor. I�ll admit, traveling is exhausting but not to the point where Mat has to sleep it off for twenty hours that day and the day after. I don�t think I could pull that off. I�d be nice� but no. Janevra got the same problem at one point as well. I almost laughed when Mat suggested that she�d feel better after she slept. Then, it stopped being funny when she slept for seven hours after waking up less than two hours before. Sleeping is a bad time passer.

Giving humans superhuman stamina is just as bad. During the rise of Raxsen, he captured many villages. One village would run to the next village. That village would be destroyed or they would be too late. The first village would rescue the survivors, and they all would continue on to another village. This went on for days and weeks at a time with no mention of exhaustion. All that sleeping in the first few chapters could have been used around here.

There were many contradictions in the character of Janevra. In the first few pages she stated that she wanted a normal life but wanted something exciting to happen. Later, she said she liked being a princess and wanted to become queen. Soon after she left the castle for good. That is only a few examples of the contradictions in her character. By the end of the book, I still wasn�t sure what her goal was. Other characters had similar problems at points but none to this extent.

Problems were also in the storyline. One example of this was Mat�s parents as well as Janevra�s parents said they didn�t want the two to get tested to see if they were shoi�s, magic users, or not. The parents were sure that Mat and Janevra would be taken away. However, when Mat and Janevra snuck out of the castle to the Tower of Light to get tested� nothing happened. It was very anti-climatic.

The process of sneaking in and out of the castle is even sketchy. Janevra wasn�t allowed out of the castle, and that�s why Mat and she couldn�t just leave. The first time they snuck out, the guards just let them out because they were nice. It turned out it wasn�t even required that the two sneak out. Janevra would be allowed out of the castle anytime after she went to a festive event that happened a day later. They could have just left if they had waited a day or two. The second time, there was a guard who didn�t even recognize the princess. Something�s just not right about that.

All these errors seem to suggest that the book wasn�t well planned. Constant time passers and super human stamina suggest the writer had nothing to write about at the time. Spreading out the dialog, stories, and prophecies could have helped cover this up. The contradictions in character are easily seen as bad character design. Constantly changing how an event takes place, even if it was intended, also gives the impression of bad planning.

I could give many other examples of where the storyline was weak, but I�ll focus on the main flaw in the storyline instead. The main flaw is the prophecy. Sure, many fantasy novels like this have a prophecy of some sort, but a prophecy shouldn�t be the reason behind the characters� every action.

An example is when the six phoenixes were traveling to Raxsen, Janevra, and Mat as it was written in the prophecy. The only reason they traveled to these people was because they felt they were being called. I would have liked to see a more creative way of getting the characters from point A to point B. Getting all the characters together in some quirky way is more interesting than having them �feel� their way.

The ending, though there were some nice fight scenes, was rather disappointing. Again, I blame this on the prophecy driven plot. As Raxsen was preparing to kill Mat and Janevra, Tghil and Kard, the Good and Evil Gods, came and stopped the action. Raxsen demanded to know why they stopped the fight as Kard had said that he wanted Raxsen to kill the two. Tghil and Kard replied that the battle between Good and Evil had to be a greater struggle than one battle to see which was worthy of a prize yet to be mentioned in the second book.

There were also the normal typos that every book these days will have a couple of. This book had an unusually large amount, however. One just shouldn�t see two typos on a single page. Another sign of bad editing is the constant repeats of the same lines. The most repeated line was probably �butt the shape of a saddle.� There were also many lengthy descriptions of battle that all sounded about the same.

Perhaps some of these �mistakes� were intended. For instance, the lengthy description of battle could be illustrating the horrors of war these days. All these mistakes could be minor too. I might have just started judging this book heavily due to the large amount of sleeping in the first few chapters, making a bad impression on me.

The way that I see this book now though, I could only recommend it to other writers. It�s a good example of what not to do. The book is also kind of addicting for some reason. I spent an entire weekend reading this book instead of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell after all.

The Zombie Survival Guide is just that, a zombie survival guide. However, Max Brooks put a little bit more into the book than meets the eye.

This guide will inform you how to live through the real life threat of a zombie attack. It has information on the Solanum virus, the virus that turns humans into zombies, how it is spread, and the proper way to dispose of infected bodies. There are suggestions on how you can prepare for a zombie attack now, the warning signs of a zombie outbreak, and most importantly how you can survive through it or escape. The guide does away with all the myths of zombies and tells you what you need to know. Also discussed is living through a �level four� outbreak, a world full of zombies. Near the back of the book is a description of many cases of zombie attacks that have taken place throughout the world.

The Zombie Survival Guide is more than just a guide to surviving zombies as I said before. On many occasions, Brooks points out the problems with American society like how we spend our days watching TV and eating junk food. Of course, he tied it all into the case of a zombie attack, but his message is still clear and down to earth. We must improve ourselves by exercising daily, learning a martial art of some sort, and taking better care of ourselves in general. In the case of a zombie outbreak, we must be able to flee on foot between cities or shelters, and we must be able to defend ourselves. In the case of everyday life, it will be a huge benefit to our health.

Even if you don�t take Max Brooks seriously, The Zombie Survival Guide is still a fun read and will leave you prepared for the occasional zombie attack as well as with some tips for life.