The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen

About Thomas Mullen

Thomas Mullen is the author of The Last Town on Earth, which was named Best Debut Novel of 2006 by USA Today, was a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year, and was awarded the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for excellence in historical fiction.
His second novel, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, will be published in early 2010 by Random House. Since the publication of The Last Town on Earth, he has given lectures/readings to universities and community libraries (some of which have chosen The Last Town on Earth for "One Book/One Community" or "Freshman Reads" projects), literary festivals, and the Chicago Humanities Festival.
Mullen was born and raised in Rhode Island and graduated from Oberlin College. He has lived in Boston; in Chapel Hill, NC; in Washington, DC; and he now makes his home in Atlanta with his wife and two sons. - taken from the authors website.

The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers: A Novel

I found out about The Many Deaths of the Firefly brothers while browsing through some review of Charlie Huston's books at goodreads. Seen a good review by this some guy and decide to check out his bookshelves. Placed in the sci-fi/fantasy category I found a four star review of this book. Decide to check it out. The premise, two bank robbers, namely Jason and Whit Fireborn woke up in a mortuary. Seeing the damages done to their bodies they should be dead but they're not.The whole story took place during the Great Depression, so this book could be considered hirstorical horror fantasy. 


What sold this story to me was the prospect of reading about the two undead bank robbers. On this aspect, the book more than delivered, there were deaths, blood, shooting, exciting chases galore. If you don't expect much from this book you'll probably like it. This book also gives us a glimpse of how bad it was to live during that era. I'm uninformed about the current economic situation in the US today, but the author, an American, who I assume is well informed, seems to be showing us the similarities between what is happening today in their country to what happened in the past. The most obvious seems to be the foreclosures of houses by the banks.

Aside from the social commentary, this book isn't what you would call deep. It's an enjoyable book about bank robbers and their escapades. Characters weren't given the time to develop, they remain the same throughout the story. The Firefly brothers too busy robbing banks and being killed to given some real character development. The love interest, the FBI agent, all seems to be just card board cut outs of their respective role. The plot is as I said before pretty straightforward but near the end there is a twist, probably the only one I didn't see coming, but still very cliche. As to the ending itself, the book was fun enough that I would like to read a sequel.

Score: 8/10

Hidden Treasure: Nobody's Boy Remi

Nobody's Boy Remi 

Synopsis

Remi, a poor boy growing up in the French countryside, is separated from his mother and sold to a street performer. Now accompanied by a brusque old man, 3 dogs and a monkey, Remi must learn to survive harsh winters, punishing cross-country journeys on foot, and devastating hunger, and somehow, some way, find happiness. from animenewsnetwork

Thoughts:
Woohoo! I've just found out that AnimeNewsNetwork has been streaming Remi on their site. I'm supremely happy to have found out about this. Nobody's Boy Remi is one of the first anime I've watched as a child. I was probably traumatized by this. The situations the main character goes through was horrifying for me to watch. After so many years, I get to experience this masterpiece again. My thanks for ANN for making this available again.

Update: I've just finished watching the first episode and my gosh was it brutal. Every child's nightmare must have been shown on that lone first episode. This is the kind of anime that build's a child's character that was so popular in the 90's but sadly can be seldom seen today in children animation. On the production front, the animation style was novel after getting used to the modern techniques used today. It was still beautiful tho. For a classic anime, it's not boring, probably because episode 1 contains so many intense moments. I can only vaguely recall the plot of this show, but I know that it's going to be a painful journey for Remi and it's viewers. Right now I plan to watch a couple of episodes a week.This show is definitely worth the watch.

This anime is available and currently airing at ANN website. For those not living in the US and thus can't watch the show, there's always the fansubs and proxys.  

Animes I'm watching this Summer.

The Legend of Legendary Heroes (TV)

Plot Summary: Raina Lute is a lazy student of Roland Empire Royal Magician's school. One day, Roland Empire goes to war against a neighboring country Estaboole, and he lost his classmates in the battle. After the war, Lute sets out for a journey to search the relics of a "Legendary Hero" at Emperor Zion Astar's command. And he finds out a deadly curse spreading the continent. Summary taken from animenewsnetwork.

Thoughts:
The Legend of Legendary Heroes anime is based on a long running shounen light novel in Japan. The title alone makes me hesitate to watch this show. Fantasy shows with cheesy title are not popular nowadays. Gone are the days where anime like Slayers abound. The last fantasy anime I've watched that I can honestly say as epic is 12 Kingdoms, which was also based on a series of light novels. Berserk, with it's bloody, brutal plot is another. 

Legend and I did not start in the right footing. The sub version I've watched was horrible, after watching the funi subs, I cringe at the injustice done to this anime, I can only assume that a lot of people were turn off this show because of it. Not that I'm ungrateful to the subber who I'm truly thankful for subbing this show but they could have done a much better job. ^^; 

 Episode ratings:

Episode 1 - 4/5
Episode 2 - 4.5/5
Episode 3. 5/5


This show is available at Funimation website.

Mangas I'm currently following. Fantasy

Jio to Ougon to Kinjirareta Mahou 

Summary

Jio is a young magic user whose goal is to one day become the greatest magic user in the world! He lives a sheltered life with his master Iregaura, until the events of one day leave him to journey out into the world alone. Jio, whose magical specialty is making flowers bloom, has a lot to learn about the world outside his home, but he is still determined to achieve his goal!

Thoughts:
Quite refreshing, straightforward fantasy manga. The plot at the moment is uncomplicated, unlike so many fantasy mangas out there that tries to over complicate things. This manga is a soothing one, it's about flowers, magic and friendship. The drawing style is one of it's big points too. Reminiscent of Brothers Grimm fairy tale, one could get addicted to the story.  As of this moment 17 chapter is out and the group responsible for uploading this series is Simple Scans.

Ao no Exorcist

Summary

This world consists of two dimensions joined as one, like a mirror. The first is the world in which the humans live, Assiah. The other is the world of demons, Gehenna. Ordinarily, travel between the two, and indeed any kind of contact between the two, is impossible.
However the demons can pass over into this world by possessing anything that exist within it.
Satan the god of demons, but there's one thing that he doesn't have, and that's a substance in the human world that is powerful enough to contain him!!
For that purpose he created Rin, his son from a human woman, but will is son agree to his plans? or will he become something else...? An exorcist?

Thoughts:
I've been following this title since last year. The scans are slow but it's worth the wait. As a supernatural shounen manga, it's not very original. Similar to D. Gray Man, it has of course as the title says exorcist. The main leads are teenagers. What makes Blue Exorcist worth the read is because of it's quality. The drawings are clean and strong. The plot flows well, not fast but deliberate. The action hasn't disintegrate to meaningless battles yet and I sure hope that they won't lead to that. It is still early in the series for it to breakdown. Nothing to rave about but if you've got time on your hands, read this. This series is being worked on by J. A. C. Group.

Aniblog Tourney: Winner

                                         
Star Crossed Anime Blog run by psgels is the ultimate winner of Aniblog Tourney. Aniblog Tourney is a contest to find out which  is the most popular anime of all.Another reason for Aniblog Tourney to exist besides the popularity contest was to exposed blog readers to other blogs they haven't had the chance to visit before. Blogs like BakaRaptors, Just as Planned, Cannes, the Nihon Review, Oguiemaniax are just some of the blogs I've added to my bookmark.   I've just recently find out about this tourney so I haven't had the chance to participate on the earlier rounds. That might be because the only anime blog I follow is psgels.

In spite of the giant oppositions like Sea Slugs, Random Curiosity, which compared to Star Crossed has a more vocal community and Star being only blog by one person it is quite impressive that it won and by such a large margin. Seeing the disparity between Star Crossed and his opponents number of votes, I could not help but conclude that Star Crossed Anime Blog is the most popular anime in the internet to date. Which it totally deserves because in my opinion psgels dedication to his blog and readers are unparalleled in the anime community. 

Speaking of communities. Before the aniblog tourney, I was quite unaware of the existence of the anime blogger click and how they support each other. It also made me aware how bloated the anime blogging scene is and that's just sad.  After reading this post by Ogiue Maniax, I could not help but think that the ordinary anime fan doesn't read a vast variety of blogs, they like, me are probably stuck on their on ways like grouchy old men. Content to visit the blogs they can rely on, and one that shares views similar to their own.  This might lead to stagnation, bad for us-readers, and bad for the bloggers. I think the Aniblog Tourney made a good effort to help increase the community's awareness of what else is out there besides their own watering holes. I hope further events like this will happen in the future.

Top 5 Fantasy Books

1. The Malazan Book of The Fallen Series by Steven Erikson.                                 
2. The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan
3. A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin
4. Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham
5. Drenai Series by David Gemmell

A win for People's Champion Manny Pacquiao against Oscar dela Hoya

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS1W99IYlN8

Last night or this morning depending on where you live, our People's Champions and National Hero Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao made one of the greatest upset in the game of boxing by beating the 10 time World Champion Golden Boy Oscar Dela Hoya.

What was termed allegedly as the Dreammatch of the Year, became the mismatch of the year. Long before December 6, day of the fight, experts on boxing and its most of its avid fans had predicted that the smaller Paquiao will lose against the much taller and heavier Dela Hoya. But fans of Pacman strongly disagree quoting that boxing belief "speed kills".

And they were right. Last night, Manny Pacquiao once again proves that he is the number one pound for pound boxer in the world. Confounding his opponent with his lightning fast punches and great footwork he was able to avoid DLH's punches and returns his own power punches that almost always finds its designated targets.

According to Manny he realizes after the first round that he could take Oscar Dela Hoya, seeing that he could easily avoid his opponents hits, he followed his coach's advice to stay in the center of the ring and avoid touching the rope and to fight aggressively. All of this paid of, face red and swollen his opponent gave up the fight before the 9th round begun, making Pacquiao the winner by an 8th round TKO.