Time Travelers Never Die

published in 2009
by Jack McDevitt

This book describe one major problem with time travel, you can not create paradoxes in the timestream. That is to say you can not make something that happen in history inexistant. In the book, Michael and a collegue wanted to test what would happen if they had a book in a briefcase and went back five minutes in time to take the book out. His collegue was the one to take the tripped and died because of a heart attack because of their attempt to change reality. However, in future attempts to remove items from the past, this cardiac arrest principle does not occur because the main characters decide that they will return the objects back to their time after they have served their purpose. How this makes sense, I have no idea.

Time Travelers Never Die

published in 2009
by Jack McDevitt

"Time Travelers Never Die" is a book about Adrian Shelborne, who suddenly finds that his father, Michael Shelborne, has disappeared. As he rummages through his father's belonging, he finds that he has been left a note from his father that he has been left a key to a rental mailbox. Inside this mailbox, Shel finds that his father has created time machines in the form of Q-pods, a hand-held device. Michael has asked that these devices be destroyed, but Shel has a better use, searching for his father in time. So Shel goes back in time to warn his father that he will disappear in the next few days. So Michael decides to leave and come back in two weeks saying he was on a work-related trip. Michael, however, does not return and Shel is worried. Shel, having no experience in foreign languages, enlists the help of a friend who teaches ancient languages at a university, David Dryden, to search through the time stream.

The Positive Power of Praising People

Published in 1994
by Jerry D. Twentier

Something I have only just noticed is that Twentier focuses mainly on one relationship in this book, the employer to employee relationship. Twentier says that the higher one moves up the work ladder, the farther that person distances themselves from their employees. This is just because managers pay less attention to the chatter amoung their employees. This chatter exists in places such as bathrooms. Twentier focuses on making this relationship better. One method he describes that everyone should use daily is empathy. Employees and employers should emphasize and understand where each side is coming from. Employees may perceive that their manager is unwilling to listen to their problems. They don't understand that a few years ago, their employers were in that same situation. People hurt each other everyday because they do not understand how the other person feels. If everyone felt the pain of something like bullying, would it still continue?

The Positive Power of Praising People

Published in 1994
by Jerry D. Twentier

Twentier has a lot to say about the positive power of praising people, but there is one thing that he states that makes the most sense. That statement is that the best way to acknowledge people is by listening. Listening is the most important skill in everyday. People listen to learn characteristics about their environment and absorb that information to make use of it later. Twentier describes listening much the same way, in that it requires full attention to the speaker. By giving the speaker your full attention, the speaker's message can be clearly understood and one can notice the small physical changes exhibited by the speaker that may help to understand the message meant to be given. Listening is not only an auditory action, but requires all the senses. To understand something, the most amount of senses possible must be used to understand a subject. Like a motor. It helps to be able to see a motor spin, see where the wires connect, hear the sounds, and possibly touch the work being done, but tasting is a useless trait.

The Secret Country

Published in 2003
by Pamela Dean

That last question from my last blog is a great topic. How do the swords really work? The children in the book have gathered up different theories. Either Secret Country is real or they are all hallucinating and imaging the same world at the same time. They fit perfectly into the storyline of Secret Country because they replace the royal children of the kingdom. So, somehow, the original royal children just cease to exist. The swords do not even make sense by how they were placed in the areas because, after reading further through th book, the swords are that of two ancient reknown wizards. If the swords started in Secret Country, how would they end up in actual reality, which lacks magic? Dean's plotline is just a little hard to follow, but still makes for a better read than some other plotlines I have read.

The Secret Country

Published in 2003
by Pamela Dean

When I first picked up this book, I read that it was about children who play a fantasy world together. Then all the sudden, they can no longer play this game because two are separated from the others and the world cannot be continued. Then, to solve the problem, Dean creates a bridge between reality and their fantasy world, through the use of swords. Somehow, swords that could let them travel to "Secret Country" existed near their homes and they could all play together. None of this really makes any sense. Why? Because I don't think Dean can keep my attention long enough in the ordinary parts of her book and I tend to skim over things. Does it really make sense for swords to be in easily found places and just to have kids find them? How do the swords even work? How would they be able to relate a made-up fantasy world and make it reality?

The Positive Power of Praising People

Published in 1994
by Jerry D. Twentier

Prettium is the Latin noun for price. I have taken Latin, so I would know. Twentier makes a connection between the English word for praise and this Latin word. Praise is derived from prettium. To be derived from a word is to share similar meanings. This means that praise is similar to price or highly valued. To be valued is to be helpful in some manner. Helpful can be defined many ways. Say there are two flashlights. They both perform their functions equally. However, one looks better than another because it is black, while the other is a conglomeration of mix-matched colors. The black one is more valued just because it looks better. Sometimes looks are valued not for vanity, but for the simply reason that people just like things cause they look better. It is a value in human society that exists everywhere because everything has a price.

The Positive Power of Praising People

Published in 1994
by Jerry D. Twentier

From the title, "The Positive Power of Praising People", one can only wonder what this book is about. It is, quite simply, a book on the power of praising people. The "fine art of appreciation" is a means of acceptance to others. This book looks to be odd in that it specifies praising people. But it makes sense. "In the Psalms and many other sacred writings, praise tends to be associated with gratitude, thanksgiving, and celebration, all of which gladden the heart." Twentier makes an appeal to authority when he mentions religious texts in this manner. This appeal works because everyone knows that religious texts and their effect on people. Religion has divided and united the world for thousands of years. Islam, Christianity, Lutheranism, and more all have caused conflict amoung different societies. And sometimes that conflict just happens to lead to the spreadng of cultures. The main thing Twentier looks at when mentioning religion is the feeling people get from religion, knowing there is an entity watching over them.

World War Z

published in 2006
by Max Brooks

Brooks goes into so many details in this book. But there is one question that is on my mind the entire time. What started the zombie virus? No one seems to know. And yet instantly the Chineese government seemed to know exactly what to do in the first case presented by the book. Why is that? Maybe it was just because being a reporter, Brooks did not give himself access to high ranking officials. This makes him more plausible, by not being able to do everything. But still how did the disease start? It affected everyone in the world and no one knew the answer. I feel as though the origin of the disease would be one of the major thing on everyone's minds. With so many resources someone should have found out the answer and shared it with the world.

World War Z

published in 2006
by Max Brooks

Brooks is very technical with his descriptions of the zombie menace. He creates his image of them by revealing a different aspect of them in each perspective he uses in this book. One perspective comes from a smuggler. This smuggler had an influx of a new sort of trade because of the outbreak, people. He specified in land smuggling. He knew that the exchange of people increased the risk of becoming infected because an infected person would travel to search for a "cure" and possibly turn somewhere along the way into a zombie and most likely infecting others. There were also other ways people could be unknowingly infected. So many people undergo medical operations all the time. When people get blood transfusions or organs, the origin of those items could come from anywhere. Those origins sometimes happen to be from an infected person, but only problem is that they look just like any other person at first. Another account describes the physiology of the zombies. Everyone pretty much focused on studying their behavior but a few actually were in the field to apply this information. The information were just tips, such as zombies moan when they get a scent, zombies move at a slow pace, zombies are not smart, and things like that.

World War Z

published in 2006
by Max Brooks

Brooks uses accounts from a variety of sources. No two are related to each other. Until readers get to a point in the middle of the book. This is his first use of a linked account. He gives no warning that he is doing this until the connection is distinctly made. Readers have to pay attention to the first account to understand the fist one. The first account was about the guy obsessed with computers. He escapes his nineteen story building and runs into the wild. As he runs off into the wild, the second account starts. Normally, this also means to a different topic. This topic is of an old man and how he went into the mountains, survived, and killed all undead at the will of the gods. Interestin thing, he is blind. Somehow he senses are acute enough for him to track most things in a fifthteen paces to half a kilometer. He meets the computer geek by jumping on him from a tree. Strange way to greet a human, but he wanted to make sure the guy had good intentions. I still find it amazing that the old man exists. Does "Daredevil" ring a bell to any of my readers? It is a movie about a boy who loses his eyesight and can see with hearing. He becomes a superhero and saves peoples' lives. That old man seems so unlike Daredevil. Brooks is basically throwing a superhero into his book.

World War Z

published in 2006
by Max Brooks

Brooks constructs this books on accounts. These accounts all string together and are organized based on the time of the outbreak. He starts with what he knows to be the first account of the outbreak of the undead. These are all postwar accounts, meaning the living survived in the end. The people Brooks uses are all survivors who all have a different perspective of the outbreak. The first was a doctor, who saw the outbreak for the first time. Another account was from a family traveling north to use the cold as a shield from the undead. Survivors all had different accounts because they camefrom different backgrounds. They all, however, have pretty much the same mindset that allowed them to survive. One account comes from a guy who spent his life next to his computer. His purpose was to just learn about the outbreak. When the computers failed, he got out and used what he learned from cyberspace to survive. These things were just facts, like zombies move slowly and can be outrun in open spaces. A pilot was blown out her plane caused by a malfunction of some sort. She had to use her training to get out the zombie infested area, to an area where she could be picked up by a chopper. When peoples' lives are at stake, a survival mechanism kicks in that helps some people survive. Brooks does't give accounts from people who haven't survived because, well, they didn't survive and he wants to keep this account as realistic as possible.

World War Z

published in 2006
by Max Brooks

Brooks uses the introduction of this book to set up the story line in a really interesting way. It is a epilogue/prologue sort of thing really, where he sets up the scene by starting in the "present" and looking back into the terrible times of the Zombie War. This is effective because Brooks creates a setting for readers and heads start into the actual storyline, unlike a previous book which I have only attempted to read. Brooks heads straight into the past with the beginning of the "outbreak". Already, I like this book cause the plot is easy to see, fiction is better than nonfiction in my opinion because of how thigs like this can be done. Brook just dives into his description of the "outreak" as if his readers already know what hes talking about. Since this is a fictional account, it would make since to fictional characters. But seeing as how this is real lfe, the beginning of the book is already filled with suspense. "The first outbreak I saw was in a remote village that officially had no name." This is his first sentence, and if I were a reader who had not read the background information, I would be reading on and on to find out more about the outbreak, which I am still doing even though I did read the background information.

World War Z

published in 2006
by Max Brooks


“World War Z.” Sounds like an intense book about possibly the end of the world. Well that is a pretty good idea of this book. It is described by the cover as “an oral history of the Zombie War.” From that, I am thinking, “first-person.” This flashes out to me because the last book I read in first-person was “Fight Club.” The use of first-person made the book just a tad bit confusing but a good read because of the twists that can be introduced through the perspective of the main character. I expect Brooks will do the same in this book because that is one of the best things to make a book better. The name is another thing that flashes. By naming his book “World War Z,” Brooks makes a connection between this book and the World Wars. This connection gives the implication of unions between nations and the terrors of war in this book. "World War Z" is a book I picked up solely on title and the little cover information. Will it be a good book? I don't know.

Crossing Hitler

by Benjamin Carter Hett
published in 2008


Looking at just the title, “Crossing Hitler” is seeming to be a legal book. I judge books by their cover and title. This book, however, starts with a very descriptive bibliography of “the man who put the Nazis on the witness stand.” The author's purpose is to give readers a picture of Litten before revealing the actual plot of the book, presented in part two of the book, “Crossing Hitler.” The bibliography had a different effect on me. Instead, I became slowly more tired of the book. This is probably because of the influx of information that specified in only Han Litten's life. This information is not helpful to me because I just wanted to know about what happened, not so much the person who caused the event. That doesn't mean Litten is not a fascinating person, he is. Bibliographical details are just not as important as historical event details.

Crossing Hitler

by Benjamin Carter Hett
published in 2008


Back to “Crossing Hitler”, Hans Litten is described to have a shy personality. He has a dull outlook on society, but has regard for self-improvement and education. The book describes that he prefers books over people. Although, not said so by the book, I would call Litten an introvert because of such characteristics. Many innovators of society are the same, such as Einstein. An introvert is a person who tends to shrink from social contacts and to become preoccupied with their own thoughts. Sometimes I consider myself to be an introvert because those traits apply to me. I prefer to analyze my thoughts to discover my own perception on a situation. Just by doing that, I sometimes need time to process those thoughts. That time puts me in a state of solitude that is helpful. Litten seems to be the same kind of guy, requiring a bit of solitude to collect his thoughts. Sometimes people just need time to themselves. This applies to everyone, not just introverts. Life just has to many issues for a person to deal with at a time.

Fight Club

by Chuck Palahniuk
published in 1996


Twists are one of the most amazing things in this book. They gives sense to everything. One in particular helps me understand everything. The twist occurs when the main character is looking for Tyler. Tyler just seems to be nowhere. As the main character tries to follow Tyler's tracks, I start to piece everything together. And then the main character reaches the stunning conclusion that the book has only hinted at, he and Tyler are one and the same. Not at all what I expected because Tyler just seems to know so much more than the main character. Tyler plays like a teaching role in guiding the main character throughout the book, in a cynical sort of way. To have the teacher and student become one is just weird. It makes the whole teaching process seem pointless. This is the first book I have read that involves a character with multi-personality, other than Gollum from “The Lord of the Rings” of course.

Fight Club

by Chuck Palahniuk
published in 1996


So I have gotten bored with a book once again, not because the book itself is boring, but because that the book tends to repeat a lot of information about the same thing in the beginning. I am sure however that “Crossing Hitler” will reach a point in which it becomes very interesting. “Fight Club”, by Chuck Palahniuk, is interesting because of the complexity of it. It is complex because it is a first person story of a guy. This guy doesn't seem to have name, helping me personally because that is one less name I have to remember while reading the book. Names aren't really a problem in this book either, there is Tyler and Marla, the two main people that the guy mentions. This guy doesn't really have friends. Hes the type of person that keeps to himself. The thing is though, he wants to be heard, not ignored by people on the streets, but actually given full attention to. That explains why he goes to support groups. I question why support groups help him the way they do. He can live with getting close to people that he knows will die. Most people would die at the thought of that. It isn't that comfort should not be given to those people that is terrifying, it is the act of losing a dear friend that people would be scared of. The main character just seems so set apart from society that he has almost no feelings for the lives of other people.

Crossing Hitler

by Benjamin Carter Hett
published in 2008


Hans Litten had a very interesting outlook of respect to people. Litten “was too friendly to with the street sweepers and addressed beggars as “sir”-a deference he never showed to aristocratic guests at the Litten Court.” He respects the poor class of society more highly than the rich. That says a lot even for a kid. He understands to some degree their role in society and sees they can be respected more than the rich. What makes a kid believe this? I question what causes Litten to become so attached to the underdog because most kids don't tend to think this way. It used to be that in the United States, kids, raised with nanny slaves, grew up thinking of the nannies as trash. Litten came from a dominant family in Germany, so why would he regard beggars with respect. The books describes Litten as “emotionally drawn to the underdog”. The book just doesn't describe why Litten has this interesting mindset as a child.

Crossing Hitler

by Benjamin Carter Hett
published in 2008


I'm pretty much the average guy walking down the street. My childhood has been pretty much the same as the average guy. Hans Litten is the not the average man, he wasn't even the average kid. He was a child prodigy one could say. Litten as a child, had an amazing memory and “could hold in his memory everything he had ever read in his memory, and he could recite hour on hour of the works of favorite authors, such as Rainer Maria Rilke. That is incredible. Litten could very much well be an actor at his age because of his memory alone. If I could memorize things as easily as he could, I'm sure life would be much easier for me. I could memorize all the formulas I would ever have to know just by looking at a piece of paper a few times. Why stop there? I could also memorize all the steps to writing a good essay. I lack skill in the art of essay writing and my memory of the key elements to essays could make me understand how good essays are made. There is no question that Hans Litten was extraordinary, but there were consequences from his choice in the course of his actions. Those actions caused him to get hated my a dictator and then sent to a concentration camp.

Crossing Hitler

by Benjamin Carter Hett
published in 2008


I read the prologue. As easy as that sounds, for this book, the prologue was slightly repetitive. In fact, I feel as if I already know what this book will be about, Hans Litten and all of his accomplishments. Not to say his accomplishments aren't worthy of recognition, because they are. Litten managed to be to be harmful to one of the most powerfully despicable people in history, Hitler. "Crossing Hitler" is about exactly what the title says, crossing Hitler in the courtroom. As a witness, Hitler was bound to tell the truth, and Litten took advantage of that while crossing him. Litten did such a good job at crossing Hitler in the court room. In fact, when Hitler rose to power, Litten was one of the first people he sent to concentration camps. I have never heard of Hans Litten, yet streets and buildings in Germany are named for him. What makes him not a part of the history we learn in class? This book makes him such an important person that I really question why we haven't been taught about Littens for his involvement against Hitler.

Unwind

by Neal Shusterman
published in 2007

At no time in this book are "clappers" described in this book, if I read this book correctly. As I am reading this book the mention a fear of clappers, a cult of some sort. People will actually freak out if someone starts clapping. I know this because an entire school starts freaking out and evacuating when the main characters start clapping to escape. Makes no sense whatsoever. Like I said before, everything makes sense at the end of the book. Clappers are the equivilance to our suicide bombers. Clappers have their bombs infused into their blood that ignite upon stress, so clapping is one method to ignite the bomb. Clappers intend to bring about chaos and change. That is about the extent of what the book describes clappers to be. I'd be scared of people like that too because they have no defined motive. They just have a sense that something has to happen and because of that no one has any idea what kinds of things are running through their heads. Even though I would be scared of people like this, in this book, clappers were described to be against the unwinding of people and the way Shusterman used them to help reach his conclusion was well done and the clappers can't be hated as our terrorists are.

Unwind

Unwind by Neal Shusterman
published in 2007



Another interesting thing about this book is a scary story told about one of the first unwinds, Humphrey Dunfee. The sounds an awful lot like someone else we've all heard of, Humpty Dumpty. Well like Humpty, Humphrey got split into a bunch a pieces, part of being one of the first unwounds. But his parents regretted their choice and tried to gather up all his parts to make him whole again. Would that person think the same way as the original? That's only if the procedure for a reconstruction plan of a person actually worked, because errors exist. But it is just a story in a book. Or is it? This book is full of twists so Humphrey Dunfree's parents are one of the biggest. They reveal themselves at the end of the book by bringing together all of Humphrey's parts so they can have one big reunion, and I bet it is not the kind of reunion you readers are thinking of. The end of this book nicely brought everything to a close and even gave people a little heart for the unwounds.

Unwind

Unwind by Neal Shusterman
published in 2007




First thought when looking at this book is ghastly. The cover shows a faded shape of a person. Presumably this book is about ghosts just from that. This book, in fact, is about how some kids just never die. In “Unwind”, kids, under eighteen, who are not promising are a problem. The solution is to have these kids unwound, thereby giving them the title of unwounds. To be unwound is to have one's body completely torn apart so that the parts may be used for other people. While reading this book, this was the hardest concept to grasp. Imagine if it happened to you, knowing your life was not really meant anything and all you had to look forward to was knowing your body parts did something. Obviously, the unwounds don't like being unwound, so they tend to run away if given the chance. This book is about how three kids escape their status of unwounds by running away. Eventually, when they are eighteen, they are no longer unwounds because the law say that eighteen is the age limit for adults which nulls the unwound status. Think about what kind of world these people were living in to allow the unwinding of kids. People can live decent lives without certain organs. But the society of “Unwind” values human efficiency over quantity. In comparison to our own government, unwinding would be an ethical issue, such as abortion. They both raise a look into the pros and cons of each issue.