September 5, 2009
The alchemyst
I took to my vacations some books to read in the (few) moments where I wasn’t doing anything (like when we couldn’t go to the beach at 13:00). 😛 I read several books, nut this time I will be speaking about the first volume of the “The secrets of the immortal Nicholas Flamel” saga, called “The alchemyst”, from Michael Scott.
This book tells the story of two apparently normal twin brothers, Sophie and Josh Newman which are introduced to a magic and mythological world through the hard way when the book store of Nick Flemming and his wife, where Josh worked, is attacked by a magician called John Dee. Nick and Perry Flemming (his wife) defend the store with magic arts and lose the battle, allowing John Dee to steal the a very old book called the Codex (or Book of Abraham) from them and kidnapping Perry. This book contains ancient spells, amongst with the secret potion that kept Nick and Perry alive for hundreds of years. With the aid of the twins, Nick Flemming, which is an alias for Nicholas Flamel, starts an epic battle to recover the book and his wife, Perry (who is actually Perenelle Flamel), while they find out that the twins are actually two important pieces of an ancient prophecy, having powers that even they cannot imagine.
The story is incredible and very well written, with some amazing and unexpected twists. When the reader thinks that something is quite predictable, the story takes our mind in a 180º spin and everything is once again impossible to predict. However, some people may find the writing style oriented to children. In my opinion, it is not, it just gives a false sense of simplicity that allows the reader to understand the whole story, but makes us think at the same time.
The only problem I found with this book is that it assumes that the reader knows a whole bunch of things about both mythology and technology. It was not a problem for me because I actually love both of these topics, but I don’t think that everyone knows what is a Golem, or who are Hekate, Scathach and Morrigan, or even the story of Yggdrasil (the tree of the world, whose roots cross the nine underworlds and keep a legendary monster (Nidhogg) in closure in the dark underworld of Nilfheim). However, the book provides some footer tips that can be quite helpful to understand it, if you have the basic knowledge about mythology.
I really liked this book and its sequel (The magician). I keep waiting for the third volume, called “The Sorceress”. I classify it as a must-read! 😛
September 4, 2009
State of the art…
Hi everyone! I’m officially back from some great vacations, unfortunately… But these holidays have been filled with some great days of beach, sun, party and a lot of new friends! 😀
However, in both portuguese and spanish radios, there was a music that kept going on the air, called “The boy does nothing” by Alesha Dixon. Well, it became quite popular due to its jive-like rhythm. But lets pay a little bit of attention to the lyrics, shall we?
Well, it starts off with:
“I got a man with two left feet
And when he dances down to the beat
I really think that he should know
That his rhythms go go go”
Ok, so far not too bad, so she has a guy that cannot dance and she seems to be quite upset about it. At this point, I’m thinking that she just had one too many shots when she wrote this and she just couldn’t tell the difference between a man and an umbrella. Nevertheless, she repeats these wonderful artistic verses and goes directly to the chorus:
“Does he wash up? Never wash up
Does he clean up? No, he never cleans up
Does he brush up? Never brushed up
He does nothing the boy does nothing”
Girl, let me tell you something… If you are with a man that doesn’t know what water is, then you can’t be very clean yourself either! Besides, what in the world does that have to do with dancing? If the smell bothers you, then try closing your mouth, or don’t even breathe… 😛 At this point, my opinion about whoever wrote these lyrics are way beyond the excess of alcohol! xD
The song ends with these beautifully crafted pointless verses: “And if the man can’t dance he gets no second chance”. Maybe if you wash, and clean and brush (and possibly learn how to sing…) sometimes, maybe then you can ever get a second chance in the music world. 😛
Here is the song if you have never heard:
August 7, 2009
Bim!
Yesterday, I found by chance a new music band in Youtube called Bim! It is a quite small band yet, but I found it so very talented that I thought immediately about putting a little bit of their work here.
With you, “Stay in my memory” by Bim!
Also check out this other music called “The Magic of us”, also by Bim!
June 30, 2009
Chillout…
After a hard day of work, here you have a great chillout song from the well-known Morcheeba. For me this is their best song ever… Absolutely amazing:
Hope you like it as much as I do… 😉
Tiago Fernandes 