Friday, January 6, 2012

VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR: INDIANA FIRE by Neisa Hutson




Author Neisa Hutson is touring for her book INDIANA FIRE with Tourz de Codex and we are proud to present ourselves as the first tour stop.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Neisa Hutson currently lives in Farmington, West Virginia. When she’s not reading, she is writing. When she isnot writing, she is spending time with her fiancé, her family, and of course her dog Tia. In the past she has worked with the local newspaper, but is undecided on which direction to take with her writing career.
She graduated from North Marion High, and even though she is not in college, she is enjoying her time working,reading, and growing as a writer. For the time being she spends her time writing stories, working on her other love, painting and sketching, and blogging about her favorite books. Her first novel, Indiana Fire, was written for friends, writers, and fans of zombies alike. Her love of Dystopia led her to writing her own novel in hopes of making it unique and original.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

Q. Hi Neisa. Please tell us and our readers a little bit about yourself.
Well, I am twenty years young. I live in West Virginia. It is in fact its own state! Some people apparently think that West Virginia is part of the state Virginia. I love writing, but my first love will always be drawing and sketching. I have been drawing ever since I could pick up a pencil. I secretly still love finger painting. I am a big animal lover. Dogs and horses are my weakness. I do have a part time job at the moment to help pay for things, but when I am home I love to write, blog about books, or play with my dog Tia.

Q. Describe your book in a sentence to convince us to buy it.
When the apocalypse has come and gone you’re still alive, what will you fear?

Q. What was your inspiration behind “INDIANA FIRE”?
At the time, I had been reading books like The Forest of Hands and Teeth, World War Z, Pride Prejudice and Zombies, and How to Survive a Horror Film. My passion for zombies had grown along with my passion for Dystopia. I wanted something personal and something that could keep not only young girls attentions but also young guys. I wanted something with action and pain. I wanted something not exactly simple, but an easy enough read for everyone to enjoy. I wanted to put out my hand in the dystopian world. My fiancé influenced and inspired my decision. He also writes, and I wanted to write something that we both could enjoy. I forced myself away from the chick lit, the fantasy, and romance. I found that I love this side of writing; this darker style is very addictive! I think most of all it wanted an original zombie story that had never been heard of before.

Q. What are the best aspects of writing?
The being able to reach out to someone else through a story is the best aspect. It knows that maybe someone out there like you will read your book, and it is the hope that you’ll be just that extra encouragement they needed to write one of their own.

The freedom that comes from being a writer and the knowing that you can let your imagination run wild is one of the greatest aspects. I love being able to just sit down at my computer, drink my cup of coffee, and fall into a world that I have created.


Q. How do you research for a book before you being the writing process?
I write a lot of fantasy, so I do not do that much researching. That is what I love about fantasy! You can write anything you want without having to worry about being realistically right. That is why I love writing about our world, but making it my own with Fantasy and Dystopian like things. It gives you so much freedom as a writer.

The one thing though that I try to research states or countries. I try to place my characters in states that I have visited or lived in. Having them live in your own state makes things so much easier. When writing Indiana Fire, they live in New York, but generally speaking, I knew enough to write about it. I also created my own island off the east coast, which gave room for imagination. The only two other states that I used are West Virginia and Indiana. 

I had visited Indiana once for the National FFA Convention in high school. Yes, I was in the FFA and participated in things like Parliament Procedure and Agronomy. Anyways, I remembered buildings and places. It influenced my choosing Indiana as the state for the disease to begin.

Q. Any advice you would want to give to aspiring writers?
Do not give up! Everyone has to start somewhere, even if it is at the bottom. I still have much to learn and much to work towards. Even when I received rejection letter after rejection letter, I still moved on and worked even harder. The hardest thing to stomach was the agent who almost accepted my book, and even asked for more to read. Those are the hardest rejections to accept. However, you have to look at it as a relationship.
Think of it, as there is someone out there just right for my book. It is the finding them that is hard. Everyone has that special someone, whether it is an agent or reader. The adventure and exciting part is the finding them!


ABOUT HER BOOK

Christine-
Everyday you look over your shoulder. Every night you lock the door and lay the gun next to your head. Every touch, every breath, and every scar could mean death. Every day you live in the fear of the Blayz...This is my world as I hide inside the walls, but even here the disease rages on killing us off one by one. The world outside seems so cruel now compared to the one I live in, but good things don't last forever. I hide in fear of the disease, the Black Fire. The burning causes your mind to go insane, then your skin turns black as ashes decaying by the second, and third you turn into a Flaym hoping wishing that someone would kill you, end the pain. I am locked away from this world, until I met the green skinned boy who promised safety within 'Alamo', a place deep within the West Virginia hills. Traveling is dangerous, and the state is far, my chances of making it there are little to none. I can only hope that I will find my place across the ocean. If only I could escape this world where the skin crawls, humans are scarce, and the Blayz fill the streets.

Alan-
A flash of movement and a screaming end to the Blayz that line the Florida shores. My days of killing are over as the government releases me from my duties. Along with my friend Broc, I travel North to a place once known as New York. I go there not only to flee from the disease, but I go there in hopes of finding my lost love. After years of pain, watching my own brother kill his daughter, and leaving my fiancée behind, I am ready to return to the sane. But even there within the walls there is not much comfort. A dead lover and no home. I find comfort in knowing a young man who loved a young girl, who had been long gone from the city. We find peace in an island off the east coast, and it is there that I learn that the Blayz aren't the only things we need to fear. Together we travel to a place called the Alamo. A deadly journey begins to a place known as Indiana where the disease began. This is a place where mutants roam and disease spreads consuming everything dead or alive in it's path.

REVIEW

Every touch, every breath, every scar can kill. A dystopian raging with a deadly disease. This is a dying world. This is the story of Christine and Alan, the world outside is cruel now compared to the one I live in, but good things don't last forever. I hide in fear of the disease, the Black Fire. The burning causes your mind to go insane, then your skin turns black as ashes decaying by the second, and third you turn into a Flaym hoping wishing that someone would kill you, end the pain. A job well done by the author for you definitely can't leave the book for even a second.

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Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

In 2009 Guy Ritchie defied the odds with his reboot of Sherlock Holmes and managed to readjust perspective about the legendary sleuth to a kick-ass, crime solving hero. Now he returns again with a sequel that furthers the story of Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. John Watson in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Like its predecessor, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is fun, easily-digestible entertainment, but the sequel simplifies the mystery and misses a major opportunity to highlight one of literature’s great villains.

While Holmes’ nemesis, Professor James Moriarty, swirled around the first movie in the shadows, and now he has emerged (played by Jared Harris) to move towards a mysterious endgame. The device Moriarty stole at the end of the first movie has nothing to do with the new story, but grand plans still abound and Holmes has gone even more manic at the possibility of facing off against his equal. He must also deal with the annoyance that Watson (Jude Law) will be leaving for a peaceful married life with Mary (Kelly Reilly). His annoyance turns to serious concern with Moriarty threatens to harm Watson, Mary, and Sherlock’s brother Mycroft (Stephen Fry) if Sherlock doesn’t back off. Naturally, the cocky detective does no such thing and ropes Watson into the hunt along with a Simza (Noomi Rapace), a gypsy who helps the investigation in order to find her missing brother. 

A Game of Shadows reduces the detective aspect of the first film and focuses on playing up the action and the comedy. Ritchie knows his approach worked the first time, and he’s all too eager to try to top his already over-stylized visuals. Downey once again plays the character with daffy abandon and his chemistry with Law remains strong. The homoerotic comedy fires on all cylinders and I imagine the third film will have Holmes and Watson making-out for at least 60% of the runtime. Fry gets to steal a little bit of the humor as well, but considering his comic abilities, he feels underutilized. But Fry is practically a lead when compared to Rapace. Rapace was supposed to be a big splash in the states after earning raves for her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish Dragon Tattoo movies, but her character inShadows is barely present. Simza is merely a plot point and it seems like the need to have a female co-star was more important than giving the female co-star a good character.
But the real crime is wasting Moriarty, because villains can help illuminate our heroes. Moriarty is Holmes without conscience. He’s the only person on the planet who can challenge the great detective and A Game of Shadows makes a poor play by shuffling him off to the side. The intent is to make the villain’s presence felt even when he’s not on screen, but we got that in the first movie. Whenever Moriarty is on screen, Jared Harris steals the spotlight, which is impressive considering he has to contend with Downey.

A Game of Shadows retains most of the best qualities of the first film: Downey’s charm; the witty banter and strong chemistry between Holmes and Watson; the slow-motion sequences that illustrate Holmes’ analytical powers at work; action sequences shot in Guy Ritchie’s signature hyper-kinetic style; and the Steampunk aesthetic that makes the 19th century setting feel fresh and interesting, without breaking too far from the realities of the period.

On top of keeping all those elements intact, the sequel adds a wonderful villain in the form of Moriarty, who is realized onscreen in the best possible way by Mad Men actor Jared Harris. Moriarty is a sociopath hiding in plain sight: whether he’s delivering a lecture at university, hatching a terrorist strike, or directly threatening Holmes, the mad genius never loses his staunch English formality and soft-spoken demeanor, making him all the more disturbing.

Ritchie handles the build-up to this crucial sequence brilliantly, skilfully increasing tension levels before achieving a famously intriguing payoff. If there is to be a third instalment to the Sherlock Holmes franchise (there should be if the final scene), the standard set by this cracking scene is what Ritchie and his team should be pushing themselves to match.

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Monday, January 2, 2012

Terra Nova: Season 1 report

Again I know this is a very late post, I should have already done with it when Terra Nova finished its first season run but my semester exams were going on and after they finished something or the other happened and I forgot all about it. But no worries again I say I’m back with a full season review…..so here goes nothing (also be sure to remember it contains spoilers!)

Season re-cap – In the year 2149 planet Earth is breathing its last air…sorry did I say air…wrong no trees left every inch of the planet is covered in houses and domes (expensive housing areas), people are forced to use re-breathers, a type of mask that help the person breath to stay alive because there are absolutely no fresh air left, even the sun can’t come through with so much smoke and dense fumes (this situation should be a wake-up call for our authorities and do something to save the planet because while they plant one tree but thousands more are being cut to fill in the pockets of the rich) and due to the exceeding population it was decreed that a family can only be four, meaning no more than two children.

During all this, few years back a time fracture was discovered that went back somewhat around 82 years in the past, the era of the dinosaurs to be exact and the colony of Terra Nova was born. The only hope for correcting the disastrous future and make a better tomorrow, so every year, the organization, Hope Plaza, build around that time fracture, sends selected pilgrims to help restart life on Earth. So our story starts with the Shannon family; Jim, Elisabeth and their children Josh, Maddy and Zoe, yup I mentioned three kids….Zoe the youngest is the illegal child, she was as the story suggests not planned and they are trying to raise her in secret (here is a note of suggestion from is vasectomy and tubectomy not applied in the future where there are advanced technologies? If the population police are so intent on keeping a family of four then they should have enforced a rule for this surgery….. don’t have anything against children or Zoe but wanted to say this bit). While so far they have been able to keep her safe but somebody tips the police about it and the Shannon home is raided and little Zoe is found but Jim won’t let anybody take their daughter away from them and attacks the officer….fellow officer, Jim is a cop. And so he is sent to jail and they take Zoe away.

Two years later Elisabeth, Josh and Maddy are selected to go on to the 10th pilgrimage but they don’t want to leave Jim and Zoe behind so they stage a prison break and Jim gets Zoe (who had to be kept in a back with a re-breather) and force their way through the time fracture to the past. Getting there was no problem, Elisabeth is to be the Doctor in-charge of the infirmary and after a talk with the head honcho Commander Nathaniel Taylor (yup enter Stephen Lang), and Jim is kept on agriculture duty. But not for long after saving Commander Taylor’s life from a prisoner Jim is selected to be on the security.



So Terra Nova and the past, although maybe a paradise compared to the future but not quite; aside from the colony being in the past….that past also houses the dinosaur and a rogue group of pilgrims who had for some reasons defected from Terra Nova. They had all come on the 6th Pilgrimage, so they are all referred to as the sixers. These sixers were sent for a reason, why? Nobody knows. But they do know is that these sixers had an agenda. Now back to the Shannon family, being in the past and being able to breathe fresh air isn’t all sunshine and daisies, there are a few things that is disturbing their peace, Josh for example is headstrong and rebellious, making his anger at his father clearly visible (although it doesn’t really last). Maddy meets her love interest, soldier Mark Reynolds (swooning…..love Dean Geyer!) and Zoe is adjusting to a life where she doesn’t have hide anymore. But living in the dinosaur era really makes them learn the values of life and they definitely try to get over the past to start anew.



So over the course of the season Jim and Commander Taylor form a strong bond of friendship. We see them all deal with their demons of past, whether it is past love, memory loses due to a virus outbreak or dinosaurs attacking them, or the reveal of the sixer spy or even the reveal of the true nature of the sixers’ agenda. A lot happens in this 13 episode season, where ultimately in a avatar sort of twist (sorry couldn’t resist the comparison), turns out that….well “Control the past, you control the future”, the sixers were sent to take control of Terra Nova from Taylor and sent for their employers as they pillage the natural resources of the past to fill in the pockets of the rich b******* but instead they got a face full of Carnos and the enemy decided to run to the badlands, why that is the biggest question that needs to be answered because they found the prow of an 18th Century ship in that area. How it got there? Definitely not through Hope Plaza that’s for sure……Well let’s hope we get a season 2 for this question to be answered.

Anyways moving on thoughts for the season and where it could have been a little better – So as far as season 1 is considered I loved the show, while it may bear a likeness to avatar but its fresh and its new and every episode was always interesting to watch. Although they could have worked the episodes a bit better because the dialogues needed a bit recheck and acting while subpar had definitely improved through the season. I have no qualms about the CGI….its not a million dollar buget film people, it a tv series and you can’t expect top level CGI dinosaurs all the time. The one thing that needs a bit of check was how the main plot was played, that was one part of it all that definitely needs serious thinking because you can’t drop a bombshell in the first episode and then wait till towards the end to work it out.

All in all I was satisfied with the show and definitely would love and season 2 of the show.

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Glee: Till Now: Mid-season Finale

My first post for this year and before I forget Happy New Year 2012 to all….Now I know this is a very late post, I should have already done with it when Glee went off for its mid-season hiatus returning this month, i.e., 17th January but my semester exams were going on and after they finished something or the other happened and I forgot all about it. But no worries I’m back and although I’m starting to lose interest in the show but I thought why not do it…..so here goes nothing(also be sure to remember it contains spoilers !)

Now Let’s recap what we know so far – Last year New Directions went to Nationals but there you go they lost because of a kiss, maybe not so much but that kiss onstage while it was a contributing factor their losing can also be attributed to the fact that they had not been ready…come they had no song prepared till the landed in New York. And the way it was….i’d say Rachel was being a hypocrite because she had told Jesse that she wanted to focus on nationals but she and Finn were skirting around one another…..and kissing in front of Jesse….definitely bad in my opinion. Sorry I’m ranting but it was what made me start lose interest in the show.

But moving on this season, its senior year for some of our fellow gleeks and they are all into doing all they can to get into their colleges of choice and end high school with a bang. Rachel and Kurt are now closer to one another, technically they want the same thing…but wait for it they get a big shock, in the form of Harmony. Both have been thinking they were one of a kind with their voices enough to get them to Broadway but there people out there who are as good as they are and have been working hard to achieve their dream of making it big on Broadway as well…a rude awakening but a good one for both Rachel and Kurt.

Finn for a lack of better word is as clueless as ever. He has no idea what he wants to do after high school and definitely has no idea what he wants with life…and frankly speaking I have no idea what Rachel sees in him. Quinn has left New Directions and gone the outcast way, dying here hair getting a tattoo (of none other than Ryan Secreast) and smoking. Sam has left town after his dad gets a better job. Mercedes has a new boyfriend who looks like a giant truck. Lauren Zises has also left Glee because it was degrading her reputation meter.

Shelby returns not because she wants to make peace with Rachel but because she has been offered a job at McKinley to start another Glee and the Trouble Tones are born (to show Sugar Motta….who is for lack of a term horrible at singing). With another Glee club we start to see a discord among the New Directions, Mercedes, Santana and Brittany leave to go to Trouble Tones because they felt over shadowed by Rachel.

Did I forget to mention Blaine now goes to McKinley? Yup you heard right Kurt beau decided he better be together with him (Kurt) than away from him in Dalton. Santana comes clean that she bats for the other team (more like word leaked out about it). McKinley is also going to do a musical this year, West Side Story. After much drama Rachel is selected to play Maria, Blaine as Tony, Santana as Anita, and such….Also through in the mix a new character Sebastian (Dalton), who wants Blaine for himself..trouble for Kurt….nah Blaine has made it clear he wants Kurt. Oh Kurt was also running for senior class president but lost to Brittany in the end.

If all this isn’t enough Puck is sleeping with Shelby now that is something I don’t want in my head. And Trouble Tones and New Directions go head to head in Sectionals but in the end New Directions win with a Jackson family medley. And we finally get another original song from the Christmas episode titled “Extraordinary Merry Christmas” by Rachel and Blaine. Also not to forget New Directions also get a new member in the form of Rory Flanagan (who is an exchange student) and what do you say Sam comes back to McKinley.

Anyways moving on thoughts for all nine episodes and where it could have been a little better – So I don’t really have a high opinion of season 3 so far, while yes the songs are great and maybe the reason why we actually watch the show but one of the major reason Glee suffers is because its highly discontinuous….yup one episode we see one thing another it’s a new scenario, the directors need to rectify this problem besides the humor is good. And the only episode I like in this season so far are the Sectionals and the Christmas episode.



I'm sure the trailer is satisfactory enough. Meet You guys on the 17th January.

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