What About Now

I know that at the moment I am doing more music reviews than book reviews. This is because I am writing a long in-depth post on Jonson's 'Volpone' and I am trying to update and finish my post from a few years ago on 'The Odyssey'.

I watched Bon Jovi play live yesterday and suddenly realised that they have released a new album. So I'm going to review it- afterall it is the first real rock album that i've reviewed in my blogs!

We owe so much to Bon Jovi. All their songs are anthems and I'm told that they are truly amazing live! I'm desperate to go to their concerts and sing you give love a bad name as loudly as i possibly can! Songs like Livin' on a Prayer, It's my life, Wanted Dead Or Alive and You Give Love A Bad Name are the most commonly known songs and the most requested in sing-a-longs. These songs get you through crap times and motivate you all the time.

What amazes me is that they have never produced a bad album! Of course there are some songs that are better than others, but they don't have a bad album. Another amazing point is that i have never heard a cover of Livin on a prayer. There are some songs that shouldn't be covered and everyone seems to accept that this is one of them!

So 'What About Now' was released in March 2013. The song What About Now has a similar feel to Two Story Town or Say It Isn't So. It's got a calmer, more relaxing feel to it that is often associated with Bon Jovi . It shows their ability to really sing and keep writing songs in the same style. Sometimes we hear bands and we think that all their songs sound the same.... Bon Jovi songs all sound like Bon Jovi songs, but they don't sound the same. They incorporate the styles of Bon Jovi but manage to adapt and make every song a new song.

All their songs are catchy and easy to listen to, but a personal favourite of mine is #2 on their album "I'm with You". It sticks in my head easily and incorporates everything I liked about It's my Life and You Give Love A Bad Name. I wouldn't say that it is the best ever Bon Jovi song- I don't think that they will ever outdo 'Livin On A Prayer', but they are still meeting the exceptionally high standards they have set for themselves over the previous 11 album.

I have to admit that I almost forget about the existence of their 2009 album 'The Circle'. I do know some songs off of it such as 'We weren't born to follow' and 'Brokenpromiseland', but they just don't spring in to my mind when i think of Bon Jovi, not like Bad Medicine. Their album wasn't bad- they aren't capable of producing a bad album, i just forgot to listen to it on loop because at that time, a lot of things were due to come out such as 'The Final Frontier', 'Death Magnetics' and 'Black Ice'.

Because I stopped reading Kerrang!, I stopped becoming informed about new albums and therefore didn't realise that Bon Jovi had released another album. So this is a reason why you should carry on reading Kerrang! and keep following bands that you like.

My final point is about his voice! He sounds like a trained singer and has managed to keep his voice exceptionally well. It has a mystical tone to it that manages rock exceptionally well but also does acoustic songs beautifully. I know they did a cover of hallelujah, which i really liked and if Romeo And Juliet wasn't such a good song to start with and on the list of songs that should never be covered, i would go as far as to suggest that they could do a really good cover of it!

Ignore the ratings that magazines gave to this album- all Bon Jovi albums are better than 3 stars and this one is no exception!

Steeleye Span- Wintersmith

Following on from my other music reviews... i thought that i would do an album that has recently been released that is based on a book!
My chosen topic (so to speak) is 'Wintersmith' by Steeleye Span, which is based on the book 'Wintersmith' by Terry Pratchett. He collaborated with them on the lyrics.
For those of you that don't know who Steeleye Span are, just as I didn't until they released this album... they are a kind of electric folk group. They use the traditional folk instruments but also have a slightly more electric and rock like feel to them.

I've got to be honest and say that i've really only hear the whole of two songs: 'The dark Morris song' and 'Wintersmith-you'. Even if like me, you haven't read Wintersmith, you can still easily enjoy the music. What makes their songs unusual are the female vocals. They are perfect for the song, but you probably wouldn't hear them anywhere else except in this band. Folky with light rock but i still can't really make up my mind on the vocals.

Anyway... I should be talking about the music. 'Wintersmith-you' is more of a ballad, and a great one at that. calm and more traditionally like the folk that you would associate with Simon and Garfunkel.
'The Dark Morris Song' has more of the rock/folk feel to it and has a really catchy chorus part. This is the song in which you have the slightly unusual vocals. I'm told that the vocals and the music fit the song perfectly based on the book. I'll take their word for it because i can't possibly comment.
If the rest of the album is anything like this song... it's going to be one hell of an album! I absolutely love listening to this song and walk around singing it all the time.
If you are like me and haven't read the book, listening to this album will help encourage you to read the book!
This is the link... listen to it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfEUBJLZSHw

Mort

So I thought that i'd carry on with the fantasy style books by posting about Terry Pratchett's Mort.

Pratchett's discworld novels contain a lot of characters, but you can separate them by character. Mort is the first discworld novel about the character DEATH.
If any of you have seen the film 'Hogfather'.. it is another Death novel.
Mort was also made into a musical and put on in the rose theatre in Richmond a few years ago.

Plot:
DEATH takes on an apprentice: Mort. Death's job is somewhat like the Grim Reapers. Death comes when you are dying and completes the last step of your death... removing the soul from the body. Death can suspend reality... meaning that he moves through time while effectively, the rest of the world is moving very slowly or has in fact stopped moving.
He trains Mort on how to do this job effectively, how to ride the horse, that Witches and Wizards can see him and are always difficult, and that he has to read the books and look at the hour glasses. On no account whatsoever is he allowed to turn the hour glass up the other way to give someone more life.
So guess what he does!

He is sent to remove the soul of a queen... or almost a queen. A young girl who is about to be killed. Instead, he kills the people that have been sent to kill her and turns over her hour glass.

Then the story really happens...
Death has adopted a daughter... guess what? She falls in love with Mort, Death turns over her hour glass.

Death has a wizard living in his house called albert. He is there because he will die if he goes back into the real world. His time was up and he refused to die.


I have to be honest and say that I never really got into Terry Pratchett. I started reading them when I was about 8 or 9 and that's too young to be reading his work. I started off by reading all the ones about DEATH and have now moved on to some of his others. There are a lot and I have a long way to go but i'm gradually doing it! If you haven't read any of his discworld novels, I suggest that you start like I did and read the ones about DEATH first.
Pratchett has possibly an acquired sense of humour, but the more you read, the more that you will understand so long as you accept the fact that it's all mostly made up and mostly completely insane!
One last thing... The album 'Wintersmith' has just been released and Terry Pratchett collaborated with the band Steeleye Span because the album is about his book 'Wintersmith'.

Gemmell

David Gemmell:

Troy Trilogy:

The Lord Of The Silver Bow:

Opening up the novel and reading the first few pages was something really difficult for me. The pages weren’t very self explanatory and i found myself not knowing what was going on and was very tempted to put the book back down...DON'T! The beginning is intriguing and a novel that explains the entire novel in the opening chapter is not worth reading past the first chapter in my opinion.  Gemmell has made it so that we have to keep reading to find out what the first part of the book is about.

As the book opens up and I realised there were 4 small books in the novel, I really had to fight to convince myself that this was going to be worth reading! Fantasy, Love, Death, Revenge and Mythology all in one novel, how could someone fit that many themes into just one novel? By intertwining the themes into each other and by allowing the genre of the novel to play a small part in to novel, small but none the less important!

I am ashamed to admit that I had pushed off David Gemmell for such a long time, everything I love to read about is in this novel and as an opener to the trilogy; Gemmell produces a fantastic opener that really makes you want to pick up the next part as soon as you finish the first part! Well done to Gemmell for producing such awesome novels!

Shield of Thunder:

The seccond novel in the 3 part series! absolutely fantastic! the time changes that close down the boredom that could otherwise be found in this novel to keep the action and excitement going is simply incredible! More action, more drama, everything is still here, carrying on from where he left off in the first novel- Gemmell creates an even more thrilling 2nd part to this novel ending with a cliff hanger like ending to make us want to grab the remaining book and just keep reading!

Fall of Kings:

This third novel is an amazing finish to the series written by David Gemmell and Finished by Stella Gemmell! The fall of kings really talks about what the title is, the battle for troy and the fall of many warriors to defeat the on going threat from myken king Agemnon  to restore peace and order in the world and to start a new line of Kings.

Dont want to say any more that might spoil the book- read it and find out!

Moving along:

The Swords of Night and Day

An Earlier novel by David Gemmel consisting of his usual fantasy and mythology action/romance.

At the start of this novel, I felt that Gemmel had failed to capture his audience in any way; that is to say that I wanted to put the book down because I couldn’t understand the point of the novel or anything that had really happened and I felt that I knew what was coming later on and didn’t want to read on when the novel was so easy to predict, however I was wrong.

This Novel takes a while to get in to but like many other slow starting novels, it contains something absolutely fantastic that is impossible to take your eyes off of. By the end of the novel, you are wishing there was another one to carry on from because the end half of the novel is simply breathtaking and filled with everything you look for in a David Gemmel novel.

For all those obsessed with sword play and games such as Age of Empires and old fashioned mythology, this definitely is the novel for you. Films such as Troy and Gladiator only slightly put in to perspective the style of sword play used in that era and David Gemmel helps to explain in detail what’s missing from those films by creating characters that can handle multiple swords and are completely undefeated in battle.

So now we ask ourselves, if they are completely undefeated in battle, why should we bother to read about it because we know that the hero will win and everything will be ok? Or we ask ourselves, because the hero is un beatable, does that mean that he will die in the end of the novel? I answer these questions for us, Gemmel creates and un beatable hero and Villain so that it’s not a typical ending to a novel and now asks us the questions : if there are two un beatable warriors, who will win?

The ending of the novel makes up for the slow start of the novel and by far, when the characters develop, this is not a book to be put down however I do feel that this book is a sign of Gemmell’s work in progress towards novels such as Troy and Ravenhart that take the form of some of his ideas in this novel but expand and develop them in a way that Gemmel wasn’t able to do with the plot of this novel.

I encourage all of you readers out there to pick up this book and to persevere with it to find the adventure and satisfaction that you are searching for in this type of novel.