Forget everything you know about Halloween. The stories are distortions. They were created to keep the Church of Midnight hidden from the world. Every October 31st a gateway opens to a hostile land of sacrificial magic and chaos. Since the beginning of civilization the Church of Midnight has attempted to open the gateway and unite with its other half, the Church of Morning. Each year they’ve come closer, waiting for the ideal sacrifice to open the gateway permanently. This year that sacrifice has come. And only two can protect it.
Martin and Teresa are the nomads, battle-hardened people who lack identity and are forever road-bound on an endless mission to guard the sacrifice. Their only direction is from notes left from a mysterious person called the Messenger. Endowed with a strange telekinetic power, the nomads will use everything at their disposal to make it through the night alive.
But matters have become even more complicated this year. Teresa has quickly lost ground battling cancer, while Martin has spiraled into a panic over being left alone. His mind may no longer be on the fight when it matters most… because ever on their heels is the insidious physical representation of a united church: Chaplain Cloth.
WHY BOOKLOVERS NEED GOODREADS.COM
by Benjamin Kane Ethridge
I’ve kept track of all the books I’ve read since my late teens. I’ve also assigned ratings to them. Why did I do this? Well, I don’t really know, to tell you the truth. I have no doubt that people are just salivating for the chance to see how I rated their favorite books. Sure they are. Wink.
Nevertheless, I’ve been cataloguing my reads for a number of years. Now I can transfer all that data onto a website-- what’s more, I can also add books to my “to-read” list, and communicate with other readers about books I’ve read or haven’t read. This seems an especially simple concept, but until http://www.goodreads.com/ there really wasn’t a website that did this in a particularly organized fashion, or with a fun interface for that matter. LibraryThing, bless its bookish heart, possesses some of these concepts but looks archaic next to Goodreads. And Amazon, for all its head-start in the book industry, has not made a sociable interface for reviews and discussions, which super-sucks because that’s where we all go to check out the goods. Case in point: I currently have 27 reviews on Goodreads and 9 on Amazon. I know for a fact that most people buy my novel on Amazon, so… huh?
My praise of Goodreads doesn’t mean it’s completely without faults. I’ve experienced glitches here and there, but most are promptly fixed though. I’ve also noticed the home page takes a long time to load. This might be due to my amount of friends on the site or it might not. Either way, it needs to be addressed, and I’m sure it will if the site continues to grow in popularity.
As a social media site, bibliophiles absolutely need to jump onto Goodreads. There’s no real comparison right now. Facebook is a ship too flooded with its own ego to keep afloat on the waters of serious book discussion and exploration. In Zuckerberg’s domain, conversations are not always bright, lengthy or plentiful. Most users would rather opine on whether Sarah Palin is a Queen or a Quack, a series of rhetorical orgasms and battle royales.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be discussing why Dan Brown shouldn’t be famous, and why Daniel Quinn should be. If I started a conversation like that on Facebook, I might get a “like” or two, perhaps a comment agreeing or disagreeing, but it would soon drown in a million dribbles of pop culture and media.
So if you’re a literary fiend, go to Goodreads, pick a book and add to the discussion. You’ll soon see where your time is better spent.
No comments:
Post a Comment