In Which I Beg John Connolly For More

My dear dear Mr. Connolly:

I have just completed the third book in the Samuel Johnson trilogy, The Creeps.

I beg of you, please please puh-leeeeeeeze turn this into a trilogy along the lines of Star Wars or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I'm not ready for them to be done.

I don't even care that I'll get to re-read them at least once with my son (they are, after all, "middle grade" and he's at that point).

I don't even care that you probably have other ways in which you would rather be spending your time.

I'm

not

ready.

Come on ... pretty please with a cherry on top?

What am I supposed to do while riding the bus in to work without breaking into hysterical fits and snorts of laughter?

How am I supposed to carry on without the greatest footnotes ever to interrupt a page?

Where is the humanity, man? WHERE?!? You can't leave me hanging like this.

*sniffle*

See? Now you've made me cry.

I hope you're pleased with yourself.

I know I have been.

~karen

#BookBeginnings & #Friday56 -- John Connolly's The Creeps

Ahhh ... the last of the Samuel Johnson books.

I'm more than a little crushed because I've been more than a little in love with them.

Ah well. At least I'm able to get one more Book Beginnings & Friday56.

As always, Friday56 (share a blurb from the 56th page or 56% mark) is hosted at Freda's Voice & Book Beginnings (share the first few sentences & your thoughts) is at Rose City Reader.

I love how the humor starts off from the get-go and never lets up. 

Gosh I'm going to miss my visits to Biddlecombe!

#BookBeginnings & The #Friday56

It's another Friday with The Friday 56 and this time adding Book Beginnings (also found at Freda's Voice & hosted by Rose City Reader)! I was tempted to use the book I just started, but opted to go with the one I just finished instead. The more chances I get to have people exposed to this wonderful series the better! (Not that the other series isn't wonderful, too, of course. Maybe some other Friday I'll use it instead of whatever ARC I might be reading at the time since, you know, I hate quoting ARCs.)

So, without further ado, the Book Beginning from John Connolly's The Infernals:

The place generally referred to as Hell but also known variously as Hades, the Kingdom of Fire, Old Nick's Place, and other assorted names designed to indicate that this is not somewhere in which you might want to spend an eternity, let along a short vacation, was in a state of turmoil. Its ruler, its dark king, was unwell, and by "unwell" I mean mad as a parade of March hares.

Having already read the first book in the series I pretty much knew what was going on & it was nice to see the havoc being wreaked!

Fast forward to the The Friday 56:

Okay, I think technically it was the 57% mark. You can flog me later ... after, you know, you catch up on at least the first two books of the trilogy yourself. Then you'll be too grateful to flog me for being off by a percent. 

In which we yet again say goodbye to Samuel Johnson

Oh, John Connolly. You give my heart great joy and I am SO very glad that I decided to kick off the 20 Books of Summer with The Infernals! I loved The Gates so much that I think part of me was afraid that The Infernals wouldn't be as good. That it would be like Godfather 2. Instead, I got Empire Strikes Back ... a tale just as good, if not better, than the first part of the trilogy (you know, back when Star Wars was just a trilogy).

In fact, all of my worries were set aside as soon as I started to read the chapter titles. I got as far as the third title in the contents and knew that I was in for a good time.

 Now, readers. For those who haven't read The Gates yet (even though I told you back in January to do so ASAP), Connolly does give a little recap so you can play catch-up ... with a glorious scolding in the footnotes.

Yes. The footnotes are back in all of their glory!

And, really. If you haven't read the first just .... just go and do it already. Jiminy. How many times do you have to be told???

So we're back and so are Samuel and trusty canine companion Boswell. Nurd and Wormwood. Mrs Abernathy. A smattering of supporting characters that will make you go "Oh yeah! I remember them!" like a pair of policemen from Samuel's town who witnessed the events of The Gates, and a pair of demons from the same time who developed quite a fondness for quite an awful alcoholic beverage, Spiggit's Old Peculiar.

We also get new characters since this largely takes part in a different setting than the last, including the most hilarious quartet of dwarfs who are also big fans of Spiggit's. Well, they're fans. They're not big at all ... you know ... being dwarfs. Of course, the dwarfs aren't originally from the new primary setting of Hell but from the original setting of Earth. They're sort of innocent bystanders in the whole ordeal (which is probably one of the only times they've ever been innocent of anything).

So, we're in Hell. Mrs. Abernathy and a slew of other unsavory types are trying to find Samuel for one reason or another. It's not so bad. Well, it's pretty horrendous, but it could be worse. Remember, Samuel is a remarkably resilient kid.

First, the most amazing thing happens and regjnfk tbun4nbv4qui ekmjtekl5jgv34 melntfkj                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             q4b   !!!

Oh, come on. You didn't think I was REALLY going to tell you what happened, did you? Are you new here or something? (If you are: HI! Glad you found me! I'm really not as much of a rambling freak as I appear. I'm sometimes even worse. But I never ever EVER post spoilers if I can avoid it.)

Go read the book.

Read The Gates first if you haven't.

While you're at it you should probably pick up The Creeps as well since it's the third part of the trilogy. I'll get to it once my 20 Books of Summer are done. Or I'll scrap one of those pre-planned books and replace it. I'm wishy-washy like that.

Go on.

Go.

In Which We Say Goodbye to Samuel Johnson .... For Now

The Gates has been finished and I loved it at the very end just as much as I loved it at Chapter 13. I'm so very glad that there are two more books in this series -- and that I already have both of them in ebook form. I'll need to get them in actual book-book, of course, but when I went to Barnes & Noble they were sold out. I guess I'll have to break down and order them at some point. (Hmmmm ... maybe when I get my next Amazon Affiliate credit.)

So on to the next. I signed up for a NetGalley account against my better judgement (since I already have so many to-be-reads it makes my head spin). Quite a few of my fellow book bloggers oooh and aaah about NetGalley so I figured I would at least take a look. The first book I saw (and then received)? The first in a new series geared toward 4th-8th graders by Rhys Bowen and her daughter!

Rhys, of course, writes the Royal Spyness series (amongst others) and I'm already a fan from those. I can't wait to see how she and her daughter tackle dragons! (It fits in my alphabet-series-random-alphabet-Christie schedule, too!)

Next up (thanks to NetGalley):

GoodReads Blurb:
Seven children. Seven special powers. One enemy.
Addy is a typical California surfer girl until her mother dies and she is sent to a strange boarding school in Wales, where one hallway leads not to another part of the school but to another universe. Addy has always had vivid dreams. Now it seems this power to dream has made her the enemy of the powerful ruler of Gallia.
How can Addy and her new friends be any match for the powerful Grymur who calls himself The One in a world where nothing makes sense.
If you loved Harry Potter, this is for you. By New York Times bestselling author and her daughter.

John Connolly's The Gates - Initial Thoughts

I'm just about to start chapter thirteen of The Gates and it seems like the perfect spot to pause and go

OMIGOODNESS! 

YOU HAVE GOT TO READ THIS BOOK!!!!

Well, you don't have to. I mean, it's not like I'm going to hunt you down and strap you to a chair and force you to read it. Even if I did do such a thing, it's possible (I suppose) that you wouldn't like it. It's possible that you have no sense of humor. You may live a life with no whimsy in it at all. You may be such a sucktastic stick in the mud that it would be entirely wasted on you. (If any of these ring true, please leave now.)

So, let's start at the very beginning -- a very good place to start. (Go ahead ... just ask Maria von Trapp.) 

See? I told you. A very good place to start.

But even BEFORE the first paragraph .... the table of contents!

This is worth picking up just for the chapter titles. 

No. Not just for the chapter titles because that would be awfully silly. Who in their right mind would get a book just because of chapter titles?

[In regards to the title for Chapter II : The "small boy" is the main character, Samuel. He's 11. And awesome. His dog, Boswell, is pretty awesome as well. The people who are up to no good? Well, not so awesome. You know, being up to no good and all.]

Okay, so maybe if I had picked up the book and only glanced at the contents I would have, indeed, taken the book home with me just because of the chapter titles. No one ever said I was in my right mind, though. And, really, the footnotes are even more awesome than the chapter titles.

Yes. Footnotes.

26 of them, in fact.

So far I've encountered the first 20 and they're all hilarious:

 

and, sometimes, even educational:

Nurd? You meet him in Chapter V. For a "bad deity" he, too, is pretty awesome so far. At least he's entertaining.

Basically what we have here is another so-called "children's book" full of awesome. (Amazon lists it as "Age level: 10-14.") To be fair, though, I'm not sure yet that it's full of awesome. According to my handy-dandy ereader it says I'm 34% through. Of course, because of the footnotes and whatnot the book actually ends at 88%.

I'm not about to do the math to figure out how far through the actually story I actually am. So far it's awesome. Just take that and run with it.

Seriously. Run.

Go get this book. Read it. Love it. I'll even wait for you catch up with me so we can discuss it togeth.......

Ah, who the hell am I kidding? I'll have it done in a day or two. 

Less than that if I decide to sleep and feed my child at some point.