Book Crossing

Book Crossing is not new, but I still thought it worth a mention.

Wikipedia Provides a fairly comprehensive article here.

The sites blurb gets the point across

Where books have adventures of their own. BookCrossing is earth-friendly, and gives you a way to share your books, clear your shelves, and conserve precious resources at the same time. Through our own unique method of recycling reads, BookCrossers give life to books. BookCrossing books are not stagnant dust collectors, but living entities travelling the world as true BookCrossing emissaries. Our books find new readers and introduce them to the wonders of BookCrossing.

Book crossing is not just a site though, Its an idea. I like the idea for years i have sent books to friends, charity shops or just left them in a cafe to see how long they stick around there.

Book crossing adds a social element and method to track these books. The site is starting to look and feel dated missing out on social elements like twittering updates,  and obvious tracking options like mapping the locations in API resource such as Google.

But in general the idea is sound, set your book free, let some one find your story and spread it.
Ecological friendly and interesting results. The sites popularity s waned but I'd like to think the concept keeps going.

Space Captain Smith by Toby Frost

I thought it an idea to review books I am reading as I work through them.

Storytelling is not just about telling of stories but also learning, listening and gathering them.

I read a lot, not as much as I once did finding work balance to leave me with not as much time as I would like.

My current book of choice and enjoyment is Space Captain Smith by Toby Frost. A Christmas gift was made to me of the current set. Three books, the original Space Captain Smith, Emporer Didcott and The Wrath of the Lemming Men.

The best description I can make of these books, is Black Adder in space. Starring Rowan Atkinson as Smith, Hugh Lorrie as Suruk, and Gabrielle Gaistere as Polly Carveth. Guest appearnces by Miranda_Richardson as Rhianna, Stephen Fry as W and Rick Mayal as Wainscott.

I think that characterisation will give you the best idea of the books and there style.

Space Captain Smith  is a highly comical Science fiction comedy series set in our future after the rise of the new empire in a time where the real history as been slewed by the historians and the empire.

The comedy is often dark, slap stick and innuendo laced.The books are well written and some of the jokes broadcast pages ahead while others played close to the chest.

I don't have a scale or rating in mind for this review system, so I'll just say I could not put the first book down, the second book found a space in the houses smallest room and kept me there far too long. I am just starting the third, and think it will entertain this week.

Genre

  Defining "genre" is a feat in its own right, try it for your self. Everyone seems to have an understanding and this understanding varies with everything, some by agreement share the definition and others do not.
 A general definition is: 

• a kind of literary or artistic work
• writing style: a style of expressing yourself in writing
• having a characteristic form or technique 

What I'm apllying to "genre" is the differnt flavours of stories, Horror, comedy, folk, historical, religious the list goes on. The use and frequency of these is determined by many factors, fashion, taste, time of year, location.

Has I write this, horror, vampires, zombies and steam punk are fashionable in the western hemisphere. replacing fantasy and wizardry from the last few years. seemingly to be replaced soon by scifi, 3d and post apocalyptic revival. Avatar standing strong at the box office with no origional story while "the road" and "book of Eli" provide the new stories. These are the stories being told in film,while in the book shops, "pride and prejudice", queen Victoria and a host of others get the Zombie treatment and Vampire,vampyr,wampyr or how ever, whatever author wants to spell it are selling strong.

So genre is important in a story, what mood you are in can dictate your choice of story or how well you receive the tale being told or unfolding in what ever medium you choose.