A Review: StarScout Rising: First Trail by Gary Darby

The back of the book says: "The thundering acid tsunami raced towards Del as he tried in vain to pilot his damanged scouter out of its path. Tremors ran through the ship as it lost altitude and speed. Del had only one option, to dive the craft deep into the lake of acid ahead of the wave. Del glanced at his controls and wondered, 'would the bulkheads hold when the scouter slammed into the lake surface? Did the little ship have enough juice to power through the thick goo?'


Del didn't know. He only knew he had but one chance to save his ship and his comrades. With one final look back at the speeding swell, Del tipped the nose of the scouter over in a downward arc toward the orange liquid and the dark depths below."

Sounds intriguing, yes?

I'll admit, though, that it took me a bit for me to actually get in to this book. At first it was more of a chore, reading it, until I got about halfway through. At that point, it suddenly hooked me and I read the rest of the book all in one night (staying up far too late, I might add).

I think this was because of the characters. Some were introduced well, the main characters, but for the side plot lines, most of the characters were a little blurry to me, and it made it difficult to figure out what was going on a lot of the time. However as the book progressed, I was able to get to know even the more minor characters and really start to enjoy the book. I did like some of the personalities of the characters, though. A favorite of mine was Sami and his somewhat flawed humor.

The setting, "Out There" and the other terms that they used were a little overwhelming at first to me as well, which is probably typical of a science fiction novel, but I could catch on to the different terms easily enough as the book progressed.

The plot line is great, and I did enjoy that all the way through the book. The author, Gary Darby, had a few pretty good cliffhangers along the way that did keep me reading through the tough parts rather than just setting it aside and choosing one of the other books on my list to read.

Another plus for this book was its ending, which shocked me probably more than it should have. Now, I want to go back and read it again, searching for those hints that I now can tell led up to it. I'll probably enjoy it more the second time as well, since I already know the characters fairly well.

And, despite not particularly liking it in the beginning, I will be waiting for the next book in the series to come out so I can read it and continue the story.

Want to buy this book? Click here.
How about on Kindle? Click here.
And lastly, go check out the author's blog for this book -  http://starscoutrising.blogspot.com/

Thoughts About Motivation

Prompt: What's your favorite thing you love to waste time with right now? A guilty pleasure?


The Wii. The last week or so, I haven't been writing at all. Instead, I've been playing the Wii. Bad me. Tsk tsk..


~~~

So, the WAVA student ambassadors challenged the entire student body to have passing grades in every one of their classes before Spring Break. I agreed to it because, at the time, I had three failing classes (yikes!). It made me wonder, though, just how many of my classmates are also failing their classes. If that challenge is going out to the entire school, then obviously, there are a lot of us. At the moment, I'm only failing Psychology (only because it makes me think too hard), but even now that grade is quickly going up and I know I will be passing it again by Spring Break. My other classes grades are going up too, even though they are all at passing grades.

So, this whole thing made me wonder about WAVA, and why it is the way it is. It's difficult, that's for sure, and seemingly, a lot of people can easily slip into failing their classes if they aren't careful. Then, with just one simple kmail, grades started flying upwards everywhere, I bet.

I think it's a matter of motivation. At this point in the school year, all the students are just dying for a good long break. We're passed caring about our classes and our grades and just want to be done. Then, they give us a goal to work towards. 'Be passing all your classes by Spring Break, so we can all relax together,' (except the teachers, who will be too busy grading all the make-up work). We have a goal that seems attainable, and so we all go for it, and things get better. After Spring Break, since we won't have had to do any make-up school all week, we'll go back to the rhythm of school and continue working and continue with passing our classes, for a few more weeks at least.

I think we need to do that in real life situations as well. Stir things up a little bit and break through the routine. It'll give people something extra to work for and things will be done better for some time rather than getting sloppier and sloppier with each passing day.

Set a goal that is easily attainable, but that you might have to work a little harder than you are now to achieve, and then go for it. I bet if everyone did that this world would improve enormously because everything would have better quality.

Well, there's this month's attempt to save the world. I'm going to go write now. See ya! ;)

A Short Post

Prompt: Do you work too much?


If writing counts as my work...yeah, probably. Who cares, though. I enjoy it.

~~~

I suppose it's about time I updated my blog, not that anything new has really happened.

I've been writing a lot, as usual, but my daily word count is still fluctuating. Yesterday, I wrote only 500 words. Today, I made up yesterday's word count, wrote all of today's words, and then went on and wrote most of tomorrow's words. I like days like today.

I made Mexican Lasagna for dinner. It was good. Crunchy, but good.

I think I'm going to participate in Script Frenzy, though I'm still not completely sure. If I do, I'm debating between a comic book, which Lydia wants me to do, or a screenplay, which I attempted last year. I actually have some ideas for a screenplay, and none for a comic book. The comic book, however, Lydia could illustrate and then publish on Deviant Art, if it's good enough. The screenplay would just sit on a file in my laptop collecting dust. I don't know yet though. I still have almost a month to decide and plot for it.

We went to see The Music Man, a CYT production on Friday. It was boring, I thought. Lydia said she really didn't understand most of it, because some of the people spoke too fast.

I think it's pretty much everything, so this post will be short, I guess.