So this time I read the hobbit again, it's been a long time since I last read it, so I gave it a go again because I remember enjoying it the first few times reading it. The story follows a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins who is told about a treasure at a dragon's lair by a wizard named Gandalf. The story is about the adventure he has and what he encounters along the way, he fights monsters and meets friends to help him and his band of dwarves along the way. It's a simplistic story but it works in many way because of the memorable characters such as the dwarves, Bilbo himself, Gandalf and even Thorin the dragon serves as great villain to the story. Maybe it's the way it's written but even with the basic story, it's still fun to read. Reading it again makes me hope that the upcoming film adaptation will be as good.

This week I decided to choose the Japanese novel, Kwadain which is a collection of short stories. Japanese horro seems to be a bit different from the kind we get here in America. The stories in this novel tend to focus on souls, love and reincarnation. One story featured a man killing a duck because of his intense hunger and had realistic nightmares of a women asking why he killed her husband. The next day, the wife of the duck comes before him and mutilates herself and the man became a priest for the rest of his life.
It definitely is strange considering what I am used to here, but it is a nice change although other stories seemed a bit too upbeat to consider them horror. One of those was a story of a man's wife dying and she promises she'll come back, years later, she does, and they get married, and it seems to end there. It's not my cup of teat, but there are people who do like this kind of stuff. All in all, it was an interesting read, but not my favorite of what I read so far in the class.

So I just finished the novel, Interview with a Vampire. I have to say, this was a nice new perspective to the entire vampire genre. This books is more of a self documantation than a horror novel. It stars a vampire named Louis talking about how he became a vampire and how his life was changed after that. There's drama, action and humor in this tale and describes how tough it is being a vampire which is a new thing at the time this novel was made.

 One part I especially found disturbing but kind of cute was the girl named Claudia, a girl who waas transformed into one of them and because she never aged in appereance, the fact that she spoke in such mature words but yet such a young body gives this novelsome interesting characters.

The vampire Lestat on the other hand, who is the one who turned Louis, is quite the sidekick/villain. His insane and dark personality make him a ominous but fun character to enjoy throughout the book.

Overall, it's a nice change of pace to the vampire genre, and I would definitely recommend it.

So I just finished Monster Island by David Wellington and went in expecting a typical zombie horror novel filled with people trying to escape a zombie apocalypse. I was only half right, there are too separate stories in this novel, one involves a man who has his daughter taken away by women who is a warlord from Somolia and will give back his daughter if he gets some AIDS medication in New York.

That story arc has it's moments when the main character is fighting alongside the warlords assistants in the zombie infested city and the writer details every emotion he is going through while doing this for his daughter. The other story arc is the most interesting, it features a man who has become one of the dead, but still has his conscience. David does a fantastic job on creating what it's like being a person from the undead from the characters point of view, focusing on what it's like being hungry and being hunted by survivors, I wouldn't mind if the whole book was about it.

In the end though, it's worth a read for both storyline, they do intersect throughout the book and each chapter does get more intense. I might as well read the sequels to this to see if they're any better. If you're a zombie fan looking for a book that does things in a different point of view, then I would give this a go.

Testing to make sure this works.