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Fablehaven by Brandon Mull

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It took me a long time to get through this book, but not because I didn’t enjoy it. I kept getting distracted by other books. In truth, Fablehaven is immensely entertaining, a wonderful read for both children and adults, and I should have read it in no time flat.

The premise is wonderfully imaginative: What if magical creatures are protected from the outside world and kept on preserves, in much the same way wildlife are. And the keepers of these preserves, the guardians, the caretakers, are sworn to secrecy and will sacrifice their own lives to protect the creatures in their care.

But here’s the catch: Fablehaven, one such preserve, is not solely for nice creatures. Dark, sinister creatures find protection in Fablehaven as well, making it a dangerous place for any human who doesn’t tread lightly and stick to certain protected spots on the preserve.

The novel’s story revolves around two grandchildren, Seth and Kendra, who go to their grandparents’ house in the country for a few weeks while their parents go away on a cruise. The grandparents are the caretakers of Fablehaven, and try to keep the preserve and all its magical creatures a secret from the children.

But kids will be kids, and Seth and Kendra discover the truth about Fablehaven. When evil creatures attack the house one evening and take Grandfather prisoner, all hell breaks loose. Seth and Kendra must rise to the challenge and save their grandfather before a powerful demon, locked away on the preserve, is unleashed.

The pace is pace and the action fun, and despite my bad example, it’s really a quick read. A wonderful addition to any young reader’s library. There are two sequels to this book, and I’m sure to give them a go as well. I’ll just make sure to read them a little faster than I did this one.

Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox

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Eoin Colfer (pronounced Owen) may very well be one of the coolest people on the planet. Not only are his books beyond brilliant and immensely entertaining, but he’s also Irish (ie. cool accent), incredibly down to earth, and bust-a-gut funny. Plus he used to be an elementary school teacher, for crying out loud. I mean, this is a one cool guy.

Recently Lauren and I discovered the promotional website for the Artemis Fowl series at (shocking) artemisfowl.com. It shows snippets of Colfer at work performing his one-man touring show: Fairies, Fiends and Flatulence. Yes, that’s flatulence. But before, you discredit Artemis Fowl as mere potty humor, give these books a try. They’re downright amazing.

I just finished the sixth book in the series, Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox, and it doesn’t disappoint. Artemis’s mother has fallen gravely ill, bewitched with fairy magic. The only cure, however, comes from a lemur that went extinct several years ago. Who’s to blame for that animals extinction? Well, none other than a much younger Artemis Fowl, who sold the animal to the highest bidder during his darker, criminal-mastermind days.

Now, to save his mother, Artemis must go back in time to outsmart his younger self and retrieve the lemur before it falls into the wrong hands. Time traveling isn’t easy, though. It’s highly illegal in the fairy world — not to mention extremely dangerous since it can shift events in the past and throw off the time stream, possibly causing catastrophic events in the future.

Fortunately, Artemis won’t have to do it alone. Captain Holly Short will accompany him, Artemis’s closest fairy friend and budding love interest. But to convince Holy to go along, Artemis lies to her, an untruth that could threaten their friendship and teeters Artemis back toward his darker-days behavior. But what can he do? His mother’s life is at stake.

Since this is an Artemis Fowl adventure, nothing is as easy as it first appears. Something much more sinister is at play here. And when Artemis finally uncovers the truth, the action really kicks into high gear.

I always say this, but this may very well be my favorite Fowl book to date — next to the first one, that is, which introduced me to this magic and universe. Colfer is at the top of his game here, and I hope the man never slows down. I’ll take an Artemis Fowl book any old day.

Simple Wins

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Advertising is a tricky business. And I think some of us in the industry forget that the simplest ideas are often the best. Too often we get caught up in the idea of creating a unique execution, a pretty picture, a flashy headline, and we forget that we’re selling a product and talking to consumers.

A new print campaign for the Volkswagen DSG does just that. They keep it simple. DDB in Belgium was asked to tout one of the car’s unique features, its 7-speed electronic transmission. I’m not sure what that is exactly, but I don’t need to know because the agency clearly communicates what that means: shifting between gears is fluid. I go from fourth to fifth with nary a notice.

The agency could have shown an image of the vehicle racing down some deserted highway and written a charming headline about the gear-shift feature. But instead, they ignored convention and break through the clutter with a single, extraordinarily simple graphic. I think it works quite nicely.

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Comic Con in San Diego

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Lauren and I just returned from Comic Con on Saturday. We flew out to Southern California on Wednesday and had a little vacation just the two of us. Lauren’s mom was kind enough to keep the boys.

Neither of us had been to Comic Con before, and we didn’t exactly know what to expect. We knew there would be big crowds, but I don’t think we anticipated crowds THAT big. There were well over 100,000 people there, many of them in some rather elaborate costumes. Lauren and I enjoyed the ecclectic mix of people as much as we did the actual conference. Here are a few of my favorite pix.

Lauren and Jabba the Hut. That’s a display, not an actual costume; no one is inside that thing. There was space for Lauren to climb up on the platform and lounge with the pillows for a better photo op, but neither of us was brave enough to suggest she do so.

This was my favorite costume of the trip, even though it wasn’t the most elaborate. I’d look to assume that these guys are actually father and son, but I can’t be sure. I didn’t ask. Dr. Jones Senior even had an attache case with an umbrella stuck it in (visible at the bottom of the photo). I thought that a nice touch. Young Indiana Jones looks very much like a friend of ours Warren Williams. In case you were wondering.

There’s nothing especially interesting about this shot. The LOST booth where this was hung turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment. I was hoping for an elaborate LOST display with cool trinkets, posters and giveaways, but no such luck. All that was there were a few couches and a flat screen TV showing one of Season Four’s episodes. I had Lauren take my picture with the banner anyway. There was, however, a cool LOST booth elsewhere on the convention floor: a Dharma Initiative booth was manned by a few DI’s in jumpsuits signing up recruits. I thought that cool, at least.

I loved the recent Iron Man movie, and so I couldn’t help but snap a shot of this bad boy, the evil suit worn by Jeff Bridges in the film. A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

Lauren and I went to a panel on adapting comic books to screenplays. I thought it very cool. The people in the photo are (from left to right) one of the screenwriters from Iron Man (who also adapted Children of Men, one of the best science fiction films ever), the principal screenwriter from this year’s Incredible Hulk, comic book legend Stan Lee, and the moderator, some guy from Creative Screenwriting magazine.

Stan Lee was incredible. Wonderfully self-effacing and absolutely hilarious. He had the crowd in stitches. A true delight. The man is a master of the craft. Seeing him was one of the highlights of the whole trip.

Friday was Star Wars Day. A lot of people dressed up as stormtroopers or scantily clad Princess Leahs. This group was one of my favorites. All the women were those go go dancers from Jabba’s palace, and the men were all pilots. A few of them didn’t look like they could fit in an X-wing, but hey, it’s all in good fun, right?

This guy’s costume was just downright amazing. I couldn’t tell if he had made it himself or stolen it right off the studio lot. Very realistic. We took this picture toward the end of the day and you would think that a guy like this would be sweaty and smelly after wearing this all day. Surprisingly though, the man smelled liked fancy cologne. And not too much of it either — proving once and for all that even evil undead half-human/half-octopus sea monsters can practice good hygiene.

Perhaps the best part of Comic Con was seeing old friends. Lauren and I had dinner with the Cards, which was great. And we saw two of our dearest friends from LA, Dagen Merrill and Chris Wyatt (pictured here), who had come to Comic Con to pitch a comic idea they had.

It was a wonderful trip.

Demolition Angel by Robert Crais

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Listening to the audiobook version of Demolition Angel I learned that the author’s name is pronounced Cray, not Craise, like Lauren and I had assumed. Boy did I feel stupid. I’ve read several of this man’s books, and all the while I was pronouncing his name wrong. I doubt Crais minds, of course. As long as we fans continue buying his books, he’ll remain a happy camper, I’m sure.

Demolition Angel is one of Crais’s earlier novels, and it demonstrates what it is that makes him such a star. These are action-packed thrillers with characters we all believe in. And it demonstrates Crais’s commitment to making his stories as beleiveable and real as possible. An incredible amount of research went into this novel. Crais immersed himself into LA’s elite bomb squad unit in order to accurately depict what it’s like to work in such a dangerous evironment. And all that research paid off. The story of Carol Starkey, a former bomb squad technician who died and lost her lover in a bomb, is one that snap crackles and pops. Three years have passed since Starkey was resuscitated by EMTs and saved from the bomb disaster. Now she’s merely a shell of her former self, spending off hours in therapy, smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish. All of that woe-is-me is challenged however, when another bomb in LA explodes killing another bomb technician. Starkey is called to lead the case, and as she fights her way through alcoholism and well-hidden clues, an intriguing cast of supporting characters emerge, including a field agent of the ATF who shows up to help the LAPD nab the perpetrator.

This is one to read, folks. It’ll hold you to the very last page. Crais a master plot twister. Just when you think you’ve figured it out or just when you’re sure everyone is out of danger, Crais pushes it again, surprising you with yet another whiz bang you didn’t see coming — like those roller coasters that lead you to believe the ride is over just before it takes you down one final, gut-dropping plunge.

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

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I’m LDS, or Mormon as the world insists upon calling us, so I was of course attracted to Stephenie Meyer’s teen vampire series. We fellow Latter-day Saints (as we call ourselves) have to look out for one another.

But then I actually read Twilight, and like most everyone else who has read the series, became totally engrossed in the world Meyer had created. I’d never read any books about vampires. They frighten me. And I’m a professional coward if there ever was one; horror movies and horror stories just aren’t my cup of tea, which I don’t drink either. But Twilight was different. Twilight was an anti-vampire story. Well, no, that’s not true exactly. Some of the vampires in the story fit the conventional stereotype quite nicely: savagely violent creatures out to get one thing, or better said: out to suck one thing.

And then there’s Edward, every teenage girl’s dream, a beautifully handsome, incredibly powerful, kindly self-sacrificing hunk of burning love. It’s unfortunate that Edward is a vampire, yes, but somehow every fifteen-year-old girl who’s ever laid the eyes of her imagination on Edward is willing to look past that tiny little character flaw.

As for me, I’m in love with Jasper, the taller, stronger, equally friendly vampire.

I jest of course. I haven’t swooned for any vampires. But I do enjoy the story. In Book Three, our heorine Bella is torn — isn’t she always — between conflicting forces in her life, namely Edward — who’s insisting she go to a fine ivy league college after gradutation and marry him — and Jacob, her werewolf, Native American friend, who loves her just as much as Edward does.

Add to the that the rising threat of a coven of vampires tearing it up in Seattle. Bella learns that these new vampires are somehow connected to her, and all the friendly vampires and werewolves in Bella’s life must step in to assist her.

Let’s make no mistake. This is a romance novel. Granted, a thrilling, moving, page-turning romance novel, but a romance novel all the same. And I’m not going to pretend to be above such things. I loved it. I devoured it, in fact, as the vampires might say.

A dear friend of mine hates these books and rightly points out that Bella is in a rather oppressive relationship that every parent would consider a nightmare. And she’s right. That said, I can’t deny that I love these books. They’re thrilling. Stephenie Meyer is an amazing storyteller. It all reads so easily. No clunky dialogue here. And the action sequences are just as long and vivid as they need to be. But Meyer’s greatest strength is her gift for creating characters we live for, characters who feel just as close to us as the real people in our lives. I think it’s the reason why Meyer has the following she does. Millions of adolescent girls in America are in love with a boy who doesn’t exist. Girls? What am I saying? I work with adult women who are just as obsessed with Edward. HE is the reason why these books have been so successful. Bella, the narrator and hero of our story, is probably the least interesting of the bunch.

Some of the book I did found annoying, however. How Bella treats Jacob before the final confrontation, for example. Or the idea that true love is a somewhat ambiguous emotion that one person can feel for two people at once. As true as that idea may be, I felt more like I was simply being pulled along to the next novel than experiecing one of love’s little conundrums. But who can fault Meyer for that? That’s how books are sold after all. Pull them along, pull them along, then make them buy the sequel.

Well done, Mrs. Meyer. Mission accomplished.