Win a New YA Title in the Spring Fling Giveaway Hop!

Hey, look at that - another giveaway hop! Welcome to the Working for the Mandroid stop on the Spring Fling Giveaway Hop hosted by the great Kathy at I am a Reader, Not a Writer and Eve's Fan Garden. You can see all the other great participants of this giveaway hop at the end of this post.

One winner will receive their choice of one of the books below. Our usual rules apply: the contest officially begins as soon as I post this and runs through 12:01am eastern time on May 8. The giveaway is open to anyone with a US mailing address and will be chosen via Rafflecopter about a week (or two) after the contest closes. The winner will have 48 hours to respond via email or another winner will be chosen. Please respond if you are my winner because it makes me sad when I have to choose someone else. All following options are in the sidebar on the left, right under the WFTM banner.

Here is what you could win:

       

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And here are the other wonderful blogs participating in this hop. Visit them all to win some great bookish prizes!

Random Tuesday: Why Being a Nerd Is Awesome, Girls Create Better Superheros & Cuddly Daryl Dixon

This vid is going to fly through the geekosphere at lightning speed, but in case you haven't seen it, a lady at Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo this past weekend asked nerd king Wil Wheaton to answer a question on video for her newborn daughter to watch sometime in the future: Why is being a nerd awesome?

It's a little long, but he gives the perfect explanation on what makes a nerd and why it's really awesome to be considered a nerd. (Found via Laughing Squid)

I was a huge Anne Rice fan in high school, but even I thought Pandora wasn't that great. A blogger posted an honest review and Rice had her fans go balistic on the poor blogger. Bad form, Anne Rice.

Be still my heart! There will soon be a Funko Daryl Dixon plush for all your cuddly zombie protector needs.

Thank you TheMarySue.com for introducing me to the greatest thing ever - Little Girls Are Better at Designing Superheroes Than You.

There is a website that recaps Game of Thrones episodes as Facebook timelines. It's kind of awesome.

A fan attempted to map the TARDIS. It is really detailed. (From Tor.com)

And finally we've been watching Hemlock Grove on Netflix and it stars Bill Skarsgard, who happens to be the younger brother of Alexander Skarsgard (from True Blood). Fernando or I will probably review it when we finish, but in the meantime, have a picture of the elder Skarsgard for the hell of it (and because he may be in the remake of The Crow).

That's a lot of pretty right there. Have you found some interesting random things lately? Send me links!

Review: Between Two Thorns by Emma Newman

Between Two Thorns (The Split Worlds #1)
Emma Newman
Angry Robot
Released February 26, 2013
384 pages
Urban Fantasy / Faeries / Mystery

Find out more on Goodreads

Order it from Amazon

Something is wrong in Aquae Sulis, Bath’s secret mirror city.

The new season is starting and the Master of Ceremonies is missing. Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds Treaty, is assigned with the task of finding him with no one to help but a dislocated soul and a mad sorcerer.

There is a witness but his memories have been bound by magical chains only the enemy can break. A rebellious woman trying to escape her family may prove to be the ally Max needs.

But can she be trusted? And why does she want to give up eternal youth and the life of privilege she’s been born into?

Sometimes I come across books where I just don’t seem to have words to review them. Often it’s because they left me in a quivering mess of raw emotion that I will wallow in for days. Other times it’s because the world is so well built, so vivid, so complex that pushing it to arm’s length to analyze it is near impossible. Between Two Thorns was the later, making it difficult to go to bed at night because I needed to read just one more chapter. Making me crave reading time at incredibly inappropriate times of the day, like sitting in a meeting with my boss or on a call with a client. I expected withdrawal shakes to set in at any moment.

Emma Newman has created a world where faeries make sense, one that I want to crawl in and sit in a corner as all the madness unfolds. It’s filled with characters both odd and oddly human though at its core, it’s just a who-done-it with a lot of growingly complex character interactions laid over top. In The Split Worlds, there are essentially four sets of people, a concept that, having started reading the book in a near comatose exhaustion, was a bit hard to follow until about 50 pages in. There’s the real world, the one we mundanes trudge through everyday life and the place the Arbiters – humans with their souls detached from their bodies and stored elsewhere – assist magicians from the whims and tricks of faeries.

Click to read more ...

Trailer Park Friday: Black Feathers & Red 2

What is it about Fridays that give me a headache? Or maybe it's the impending rain that just won't fall from the sky. Whatever it is, computer screens are making it worse, so here's a quick Trailer Park Friday for you.

A really cool, creeptastic book trailer for Black Feathers by Joseph D'Lancey, which came out on March 26.

A trailer for Red 2. I've never seen the first Red, but anything involving Helen Mirren and large guns is awesome in my book. It comes out August 2.

That's all I have for you this week as all the other trailers seem to be Star Trek, Iron Man 3 or of something else I feel I've already seen a million trailers of and therefore do not wish to see anymore until I watch the actual movie. Did I miss any that you've loved this week?

Mini Review: Mind Mgmt Volume 1: The Manager by Matt Kindt

Mind Mgmt Volume One: The Manager
Matt Kindt
Dark Horse Comics
Released April 23, 2013
152 pages
Graphic Novel / Spies / Super Powers

Find it on Goodreads

Purchase it from Amazon

Matt Kindt, the most original voice in genre comics, outdoes himself in this bold new espionage series! Reporting on a commercial flight where everyone aboard lost their memories, a young journalist stumbles onto a much bigger story - the top-secret Mind Management program. Her ensuing journey involves weaponized psychics, hypnotic advertising, talking dolphins, and seemingly immortal pursuers, as she attempts to find the flight's missing passenger, the man who was MIND MGMT's greatest success - and its most devastating failure. But in a world where people can rewrite reality itself, can she trust anything she sees?

This is the most bizarre comic I have ever read, and I could not put it down. It had a weird Fringe vibe if Fringe had involved international espionage and terrorism instead of face-melting and parallel timelines. People with incredible abilities get recruited at a young age into an academy where they learn how to overcome physical harm, manipulate the thoughts of others and hone other creepy useful talents that might be useful to prevent and cause wars, stop rebellions and generally control the world.

The entire first volume tells the journey of Meru, a once-successful true crime writer, who is now lost and directionless. With a push from her publisher, she goes on the hunt for answers behind a flight that landed with all its passengers having lost their memories. This leads her to far-flung South American villages, African towns with mysterious pasts and to a land of talking dolphins (or an aquarium at least). Each clue takes her closer to the truth of what happened on that airplane and what exactly is happening to her. There are immortal thugs chasing her and an odd FBI agent trying to keep her alive. Everything is incredibly bizarre and mysterious. And did I mention the talking dolphins?

In between chapters are short profiles of some of the Mind Mgmt agents that cross Meru’s path, and her path is full of them. Some of these shorts highlight events and things that perhaps will come up in future volumes, but left me seriously intrigued. The entire story is unexpected and surprising, leaving me curious enough that I had a difficult time putting it down. Unfortunately the electronic ARC I had was difficult to read and prevented me from fully getting into this trippy story when I so wanted to drown in all this crazy.

Matt Kindt’s artwork is messy and raw, a beautiful contrast to the sharp, polished perfection of superhero and most mainstream comics. The e-ARC I had was incredibly blurry, which distracted me from truly enjoying the art, but it’s very striking and actively contributes to the mystique of the story. By keeping his art unpolished, it was as if any moment the characters might actually start moving around on the page.

Mind Mgmt was a very pleasant surprise from an author and artist I was previously unfamiliar with. Kindt has a very distinct voice and knack for creating believable twisted versions of our own world. It left me glancing around in public wondering if any of the strangers around me could really be psychic spies or worse. I would recommend this to readers who might want to get into comics but don’t like the capes and tights variety. A very different but enjoyable read.

I received an electronic ARC from Dark Horse via Netgalley in return for an honest review. Thank you to Dark Horse for introducing me to something new and trippy that I might not have found otherwise.