Title: Asylum
Author: Madeleine Roux          
Publication Date: August 26 2014
Publisher: Harper
Format: Paperback
Price: ₱359 (Philippines) - $5.23 (Amazon)


Plot Synopsis:


I actually bought this a couple of months ago, lent it to my friend Godwin from Machinations of My Muddled Mind (Thanks again! :D ) to get signed, and i just got it back this week! XD I've been meaning to read this for a while, some people say it's a good series to start reading after Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and it look creepy and interesting as hell, and I have it now, so why not? (Also, two words: BOOK. SLUMP.)

This is the first book in Madeleine Roux's Asylum trilogy, with Sanctum as it's sequel, and the upcoming Catacombs coming out this September!

It follows the POV of Daniel Crawford who's going to summer school at NHCP, and his guess where his dorm room is or what it was? You guessed it, an asylum! Because it's always a good idea to put college dudes in a building that used to perform lobotomy and experiments on insane or disabled patients! :D Did I mention that it used to house a serial killer?

What I like a lot about this book is that it has pictures from asylums, people getting experimented on, abandoned rooms, and all that creepy crap! It's like Miss Peregrine's except there aren't any young kids there with superpowers like going through walls or controlling bees that come from inside you!

Mysteries begin to pile up, ghost emails, pictures popping up with grotesque images of doctors and nurses restraining patients, almost-normal-pictures but with scratched out eyes and contorted nurse-necks. The old office still containing phones, files, and pictures, as if the people there left in a hurry, strange eerie notes, is this just them getting hallucinations and nightmares about gurneys and being operated on? And when a student get's murdered in the dorm, it raises the question: Is the serial killer still alive? Every chapter gives you more questions to ask and less time to figure them out.

But he has the help of Abby Valdez (Not related to Leo Valdez, unfortunately) and the kind-of-an-asshole-but-not-really Jordan, who are really cool and they just seem like a good trio!

Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage. 

Title: The Lord of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Ring
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien            
Publication Date: August 12 1986
Publisher: Del Rey
Format: Paperback pocketbook
Price: ₱315 (Philippines) - $8.99 (Amazon)


Plot Synopsis:



The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is definitely one of the most famous Fantasy/High Fantasy book ever published, It's also one of the most well known and best-selling novel ever written (Or at least, Smeagol/Gollum is, with his raspy/creepy/rapey voice saying "My precioussssssss") It is safe to say that J.R.R. Tolkien not only created an instant classic that has (and will) persist years and years, but that he influenced many great writers and stories.

This is, of course, the continuation to the Hobbit (and the Silmarillion, if you want to read up on the beginning of it all, literally the beginning of it all), the tale of Bilbo Baggins (Frodo's uncle) thirteen dwarfs, the wizard Gandalf the Grey, their trip to the Lonely Mountain and their quaint tea party with the vicious fire-breathing dragon Smaug. But that's a book review for a later time. (The ordering of my releasing these reviews is fucked up, I know, I apologize XD).

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” 

HE'S BACK
Berlin, summer 2011. Adolf hitler wakes up on a patch of open ground, alive and well. Things have changed--no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler's barely recognizes his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman.

HE'S FÜHRIOUS
People certainly recognize him, albeit as a flawed impersonator who refuses to break character. The unthinkable, the inevitable happens, the ranting Hitler goes viral, becoming a YouTube star, gets his own T.V. show, and people begin to listen. But the Führer has another programme with even greater ambition--to set the country he finds in shambles back to rights.

LOOK WHO'S BACK
stunned and then thrilled 1.5 million German readers with its fearless approach to the most taboo of subjects. Naive yet insightful, repellent yet sympathetic, the revived hitler unquestionably has a spring in his step.




So the most hated and infamous characters in history wakes up in the middle of Berlin, completely healthy and fine, not a day older, whether the Illuminati aliens put him there, some kind of Back to the Future-esque shit or something, the point is: the Führer is loose in the 21st century. He's Seig Heil-ing advertising fascism around kids' playground and Starbucks as if it's 1945. Yeaaaaaah this is gonna be good.

It's like that movie, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home where Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock has to go back in time to 21st Century San Francisco and they don't know how money works and how and why people move and act the way they do, basically they're almost completely clueless about that time period's culture. It's kinda like this, except with your favorite German dictator.
Or like your grandpa who's just been introduced to the iPad, or him going to Japan for the first time, really.

The novel opens up with Adolf Hitler waking up in 2011 Berlin, he's completely weirded out by almost everything he sees, he has no passport, no ID, he really doesn't know anything about 21st century culture and it's many alienating points, like that first time you had an iPhone or just a phone in general, or having a pair of Google glass when in comparison, you had this heavy-ass, literally brick-shaped "mobile phone" that had a backpack-mounted battery, all of which weighed about 10 pounds.

I can now totally see him doing this after a few years

One of the lighter "What if?" books about history, most specifically about the possibility of Hitler in our modern world, the author showed us how Hitler would've reacted in our technological world  quite well, with a bit of British Humor for good measure. Things like Herr Hitler figuring out how to use an iPhone, a Computer, and people thinking he's just a dressed-up comedian. And don't forget the fact that he's with his personality and the fact weird fact that most of the Germans in this book's pretty cool with someone who did some bad stuff in WWII, it's not unlikely that he could get some modern street-credz.

And weirdly enough, there are some parts in this book where you can't help but sympathize with him, having no family, being alone on Christmas and him thinking it's all right, that's some weird feels man.

Halfway in you'll be asking yourself "Is Hitler really a bad guy as a person?" and  But the real questions in our minds are: "Will he get arrested/executed? How will the rest of the world react to his presence?  How the hell did he get to 2011?", "How will he react to 'swag'?" and most importantly: "Is he still alive today and walking about?"
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Featuring some pretty cool and tasteful mix of Mein Kampf, Terry Pratchett-esque dry humor (meaning it isn't like obvious gags and American jokes), and some parts of a YA novel, a somewhat controversial book since this does deal with Adolf Hitler, and practically anything to do with him is taboo. This was a pretty good read (this is also a satire on modern media and Germany's current status :) ) and I suggest you guys read it :)

Alright, just a word of warning: I like to rant about these kinds of things, and when I rant i don't give a damn if my paragraphing is correct and I will unintentionally digress from the main point from time to time. Also, this can be quite boring.

You have been warned.



Back when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about the famous adventures of the Consulting Detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. James Watson (A Study in Scarlet first published in the Beeton's Chirstmas Annual 1887), it was written in the perspective of the discharged army doctor James Watson, chronicling the singular exploits and adventure of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Its general idea was simple, but brilliant: Sherlock Holmes is a consulting detective, someone the police looks for when they're out of their depths ("Which is always," Says BBC Sherlock), he looks at ordinary people and things, the dirt, the windowsills, and from the minute and trifling details he forms a conclusion based on his deductions which is based from evidence, observation, and his vast encyclopedic knowledge. With this, he solves crimes that people might claim impossible.
Conan Doyle couldn't have believed that this fictional detective would gain popularity, so much that Sherlock Holmes would overshadow his creator. He would later come to hate his creation, and eventually, kill him off in His last Bow.

Over the years, there has been many, many portrayals of the iconic crime-fighing duo (No, not Batman and Robin) and primarily, Sherlock Holmes:  Basil Rathbone (RIP), Christopher Lee (RIP), Michael Caine, Leonard Nimoy (RIP)  Jeremy Brett (RIP), Robert Downey Jr., Jonny Lee Miller, Benedict Cumberbatch and Ian McKellan, to name a few. And I can honestly say that a majority of us has or is still wishing to be this genius of a man, to wear the deerstalker hat, pretend to smoke a pipe and go around solving crimes with a sidekick, forming deductions which will leave people astounded and mistaking you for a wizard.

Well yes, enough digressions. The Classic Conan Doyle way of writing was quite simple, it only took me a few minutes to get a feel of the language when I first read his stories, but the usage of technical terms is different thing entirely. Since Sherlock Holmes is quite knowledgeable in chemistry, anatomy, and sensational literature, it is quite difficult for us ordinary folk to understand what the hell he's saying half of the time! He also knows quite a lot about geology, for example, he knows that that brown smudge on your left trouser leg is mud distinctive in the upper Thames, near White Chappel. That you have been traveling for about a day now and that you carry a small luggage, judging from the color and size of the splash. That's how good he is. But, the thing is, once he makes these deductions from commonplace things, we take him for a fucking wizard. But after he explains us how he formed these deductions, we thump out hands to our foreheads and exclaim "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" (The common reaction of Watson after Holmes has explained himself)
These things are still existent in the new  BBC television series Sherlock, featuring the talented gentleman Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman from the Hobbit. Indeed, these deductions are made even more fantastic and sometimes unbelievable. It may simple stem from the fact that the viewers of today have standards that are constantly spiraling upwards, they cannot be content with a elementary cases like the Adventure of the Red-Headed League or the Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.

But try to write a fan fiction on the BBC's Sherlock, however, it's like making Michael Bay write a movie that doesn't have any explosions in it, it can be done but it's reaaaaaaally difficult, just like if your writing style/mindset is at the moment the 20th century London of the Great Detective: hansom carts, Holmes smoking more tobacco snuff than Wiz Khalifa, Watson being more clueless than usual, more house calls to Holmes than to a doctor, simple plots. Do relatively simple plots and crimes diminish the enjoyability and depth of a story? No. You don't need a complicated plot to give the reader a sense of what you're writing or to give them a laugh.

Furthermore, I couldn't help but notice that a majority of people these days (teenagers, usually) cannot stomach or take to read the original cases, whether they simply don't want to, or because they think they're uncool or lame, probably another reason why the more modern incarnation of the sleuthing detective was created, the movie Sherlock Holmes featuring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law,  the BBC's Sherlock which is already mentioned somewhere above, Elementary with Jonny Lee Miller and the female Dr. Watson Lucy Liu among others. The shows and movies of today feature plenty of action, comedy, and romantic interests that are too much for  Grenada's Sherlock Holmes to contend with today.

Anyway. To me, writing in the classic Conan Doyle sort is easier, you can add more things to it that you just can't in fan fictions of Sherlock or Elementary. For one thing, neither of these Holmes smoke a pipe, ride a dog-cart, solve trifling cases such as a bank robbery or a madman smashing Napoleonic busts. And another thing, we have yet to see Benedict Cumberbatch box a drunkard at a tavern, Robert Downey did it, why can't he? Just a trifling thought.

Although it is of no consequence to mention that it is getting increasingly difficult to make fan fiction with the grand flourish and theatricality of  20th century literature, because to some people it is too slow, not enough action and interest. And modern literature (or at least, most YA novels) focus more on what the characters think and on the dialogue, not saying that that's a bad thing, for from it, but the flowery and detailed descriptions of yesteryear's slowly losing its grip on today's readers' minds.

Really, the BBC's Sherlock was more vain, more silly, cute, more disliked by Scotland Yard (as was evident in the Study in Pink, with Anderson and Sally) and eccentric than Conan Doyle's, although we might just be seeing a smaller part of his life because it is a series, *Cough* and there are only 3 seasons with 3 episodes each *cough*.

From what I read and watched, the Victorian Holmes encountered far more difficulty than his modern counterpart, no smartphones, they had to send telegraphs, cabs took longer, money was somewhat easier to counterfeit, accessibility of weapons and drugs (Now you know when to time travel), medical care (not to mention that practically nobody wears a top hat nowadays!). In short, Classic Holmes had to go out and actually solve the cases, because nowadays people don't wear suits everyday everywhere, you wear T-shirts, hoodies, tank-tops, you no don't need to go the library to get information anymore, you just need look it up on Google!
*Sigh* Kids have it easy these days.

UPDATE: 30/06/15

Modern renditions of Holmes (or most adaptations of the past 20 or so years) have been flashier more stunts, more explosions, more adventure and excitement, which the past tales sometimes attempted but due to trying to be as accurate to the books as possible while maintaining the air of dignity, gentlemanliness, and the solemness of Holmes during a case. You can use the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies by Peter Jackson, for example. You will see some key differences between them, the same can be said of Jurassic Park and Jurassic World. It could just be the charm of their compensating for their limitations brought on by their time, such as goofy-looking animatronics or cliche action clips, but there's a certain feeling and wonder in the original renditions, if you get my meaning.

Title: The Iliad
Author: Homer      
Publication Date: 2004
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Format: Paperback
Price: ₱625 (Philippines) - $7.00 (Amazon)


Plot Synopsis:




These are the words that begin Homer's epic of love, war, godly interferance, blood, death, and a story that has endured the test of time.

Assuming that you already know how the Trojan War went down, we can have a smooth review and discussion on this version of the Iliad.

I was fairly recently (by that I mean a few months ago.) in a campus day lecture in UA&P and it's Lit prof, Leon Peckson was talking to us of sehnsucht, of our human, infinite, insatiable longing, our endless yearning for something more, and it eventually drifted off to him reading aloud a part of the Iliad, about an interaction between Akhilleus and a son of Priam, Lykaon. And that was what got me, the action, the drama, the sheer bloodshed in the book! And the language there wasn't too hard, after a few lines or stanzas you'll get the hang of it, just like riding a bike.

Title: Les Misérables
Author:Victor Hugo        
Publication Date: October 1, 2013
Publisher: Signet
Format: Paperback pocketbook
Price: ₱285 (Philippines) - $5.97 (Amazon)


Plot Synopsis:



Les Misérables. The book, the musical, the 10+ hour audiobook, 'the Brick', the bane of your existence if you don't have the guts, patience, and time to read this titanic novel by Victor Hugo!

Bought this 2 years ago when I watched the 2012 movie adaptation with Russel Crowe, Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman and Borat-- I-I mean Sacha Baron Cohen, I love the musical numbers, the story, the setting! It was one of my strongest fandoms back then, and I think it still is now! If you go on Tumblr you'll see a lot of funny .GIFs or memes about the movie, like:

Today, in 1832, June 5th, the June Rebellion broke out in France between the Republican and Democratic people against the Monarchists and the military, barricades out of everything were made in streets and in buildings. Although they failed, it was one of the sparks that kindled change and a revolution in France.

If you're not a big history fan or fan of France, I suggest watching or reading or hearing Victor Hugo's Les Misèrables! It's an absolute must! Great captivating story, awesome characters, phenomenal song numbers, a history lesson, you gotta love this book! It's one of my favorite fandoms right next to Sherlock Holmes, The Phantom of the Opera, and Doctor Who!

Check this out, this is the French version of "Do You Hear the People Sing" in the play and the movie, it was sung by the Friends of the ABC (Les Amis de l'ABC), it's one of my favorite songs in the play/movie, and it's even more epic and inspirational in French!



Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Courfeyrac:
Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Will you give all you can give
So that our banner may advance
Some will fall and some will live
Will you stand up and take your chance?
The blood of the martyrs
Will water the meadows of France!

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes! 


*****


A la volonté du peuple
Et à la santé du progrès,
Remplis ton cœur d'un vin rebelle
Et à demain, ami fidèle.
Nous voulons faire la lumière
Malgré le masque de la nuit
Pour illuminer notre terre
Et changer la vie.

Il faut gagner à la guerre
Notre sillon à labourer,
Déblayer la misère
Pour les blonds épis de la paix
Qui danseront de joie
Au grand vent de la liberté.

A la volonté du peuple
Et à la santé du progrès,
Remplis ton cœur d'un vin rebelle
Et à demain, ami fidèle.
Nous voulons faire la lumière
Malgré le masque de la nuit
Pour illuminer notre terre
Et changer la vie.

A la volonté du peuple,
Je fais don de ma volonté.
S'il faut mourir pour elle,
Moi je veux être le premier,
Le premier nom gravé
Au marbre du monument d'espoir.

A la volonté du peuple
Et à la santé du progrès,
Remplis ton cœur d'un vin rebelle
Et à demain, ami fidèle.
Nous voulons faire la lumière
Malgré le masque de la nuit
Pour illuminer notre terre
Et changer la vie.

Pretty awesome, right? Doesn't it just make you feel patriotic as hell even though you aren't French in anyway? And that it makes you want to take up a red flag, build a barricade out of your table, your chairs, your hamster cage, and you other furniture in the middle of your street, pull out a musket, and sing this song? Yeah, that's what I feel whenever I hear this! It's definitely better than the English version, even though I can't understand 1 out of 30 words in this song.

Although, while I was listening to this I was constantly gesturing widely and mouthing the words terribly. Imagine singing in the shower to the English version, and then your bastard of a roommate tossed a toaster in with you and then you're being electrified but you're too into the song to stop and you just look stupid. Yeah, that's what I looked like, practically. To be honest, it was like, 2 in the morning and I had coffee a few minutes ago and I just read some Les Misèrables.

Not only does the book/play give you a pretty good picture of what France was Post-Napoleon, but its story stays with you even after you watched the movie, the play, and the book (after like, 2 years). It's one of the best books and play and movie that I know of, the soundtrack is simply fucking amazing! If I went back in time to 19th century France, I would thank that white-haired genius and give him like, ten trophies. And that's only for the 2012 super condensed movie inspired by his novel.
France is pretty damn awesome.


Don't forget, my friends: Libertè, Ègalitè, Fraternitè (or Death). Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, unity, quality in everything, and brotherhood, these are what we strive for, what we work for, raise your barricade, raise the red flag, forward unto dawn!

I can definitely tell that the Government might seize me for this hahahahaha So-/viet/ lol

And for the hell of it, here's a video of the fairly-recent game Assassin's Creed Unity, which  is set in Revolutionary France, Assassins, France, Revolution, parkour, multiplayer? Hell yeah!