Skulduggery Pleasant: The Faceless Ones by Derek Landy

The Blurb On The Back:

You’ve seen it all before: some bad guy wants to bring about the end of the world, and Skulduggery and Valkyrie fight valiantly to stop it happening. A few people get hurt, sure, but everything’s all right in the end.

Well, not this time.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

This is the third nail-biting, laugh-out-loud, imaginative and dark instalment in what is one of my all-time favourite Middle Grade fantasy series. Although it may be a little too violent for more sensitive readers, there’s plenty in it for child and adult readers and the cliff hanger ending has me panting to get hold of the next book.

Day By Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile by J. L. Bourne

The Blurb On The Back:

START INTERCEPT
Armies of undead have risen up across the U.S. and around the globe: there is no safe haven from the diseased corpses hungering for human flesh. But in the heat of a Texas wasteland, a small band of survivors attempt to counter the millions closing in around them.
INTERCEPT COMPLETE

SURVIVOR.

Day by day, the handwritten journal entries of one man caught in a worldwide cataclysm capture the desperation – and the will to survive – as he joins forces with a handful of refugees to battle soulless enemies both human and inhuman from inside an abandoned strategic missile facility.

BUT IN THE WORLD OF THE UNDEAD, IS MERE SURVIVAL ENOUGH?

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Although there isn’t a huge amount of emotional depth to the story and the plot is a simple one, this is an absorbing story of survival against incredible odds and the author’s military background gives it great credibility. With the book’s climax promising a switch of location to China and a hunt for the cause of the outbreak in the concluding volume of this trilogy, I will definitely be tuning in to see how things turn out for the unnamed hero.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the free copy of this book.

Mediated by Thomas De Zengotita

The Blurb On The Back:

Here is the world we think we know presented to us as if for the very first time. From oral sex in the Oval Office to cowboy politics, from Homer Simpson to O. J. Simpson, from Princess Diana’s funeral to the aftermath of September 11, from reality TV to hip-hop nation, Mediated takes us on a provocative tour of our media-drunk society. It is a brilliantly satirical treatise on our culture – the real and unreal times in which we live, the cult of celebrity and our own narcissistic response to it. Read this book and nothing that you see or hear can any longer be taken for granted.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

An accessible if at times jargon heavy and slightly dated examination of the influence of the media on our lives and how we perceive both society and our place in it, this is an interesting read that will make you re-evaluate whether you are consuming the media, or whether the media has consumed you.