Underrated Treasures Blogfest! Beware the Awesome....

An opportunity to share some underrated TV, films, books or music that just aren't getting enough love! Share your favorite lesser-known gems with everyone in this BLOGFEST, created by the all-knowing, all-powerful Captain Ninja Alex Cavanaugh.

For this Blogfest, which is brand new, as far as I know, I love having the opportunity to share obscure gems with other people who are not aware of some amazing things out there that I know about. I'm going to separate things into categories: 

TV 

This TV show hails from Japan and it's quite popular over there, but here in the U.S., it's only hugely popular with the anime-loving crowd. Needless to say, that's not a very large segment of the population. *sad face :(* I'm a very big anime and manga (Japanese comic books) fan, so if I'm recommending an anime TV series to people who never watch anime, it's because this one is so different from the norm. 

Shingeki no Kyojin, a.k.a. "Attack on Titan" is like Japan's

version of "The Walking Dead" American TV series. But, these zombies are HUGE. Imagine having to battle zombies as large as skyscrapers! Yeah, it's a very harrowing, terrifying series, but so satisfying. The characters are genuinely freaked-out about their circumstances and not too prepared for what they have to deal with. Many twists and turns abound, so be sure to give this one a few episodes to really show its true nature. Don't expect this show to go easy on you--many characters die. DIE very horrible deaths, even the ones you come to care about. 

When the man-eating giants called Titans first appeared, humans retreated behind massive walls. After a hundred years of safety, a colossal-sized Titan smashes through the defenses, unleashing a flood of giants and carnage in the streets. Eren Jaeger watches helplessly as one of the creatures devours his mother.
He vows to kill every Titan walking the earth.

Eren and his surviving friends enlist to fight against the insatiable monsters. The future looks bleak, but there's more to Eren than meets the eye: he may be humanity's last hope against extinction. From the director of "Death Note" and "High School of the Dead" comes the series Anime News Network calls an intense, visceral, and graphic thrill ride. The Titans have come to feast. Anything can happen. No one is safe.

Available to watch on Netflix streaming in its original Japanese audio, or on Cartoon Network's Toonami block on Saturdays at 11:30pm in English dubbed voice over. 

MUSIC 

I'm going to be schizoid and jump from this very intense, terrifying TV show to my favorite music composers of beautiful, ethereal music. Try and keep up.... 

Adrian von Ziegler, an independent composer from Switzerland, has had my ear for the past year now with all his gorgeous high fantasy and dark gothic music. This guy is seriously a genius and needs to be hired for film and video games of every kind. He bases himself on Youtube and has quite a good following, making a living for himself from the sales of his audio tracks. Take a listen below!

Brunuhville is a contemporary of Adrain's and a good friend.

Bruno hails from Portugal and composes very similiar-sounding music to Adrian's, but in a very different style. If you end up liking Adrain's music, you're almost sure to like Brunuhville, as well. He, too, is based on Youtube and has a very nice-sized following, so far. He has a fantastic ear for extremely emotional music. Watch out or you may end up balling your eyes out! 

I'm just so happy to have found these masters of music! They are very young and have full careers ahead of them. I can't wait to hear what they dream up next. 

STAND-UP COMEDY 

Now, I'm going to keep up my unpredictability with a plug for a fantastic, but lesser-known stand-up comedian that I have recently discovered. Brian Regan is an American comic who has been doing stand-up since the 1990's, although I've never even heard of him. Maybe you have, since he's been around for so long. He's absolutely hilarious and a very clean family man. You can enjoy his comedy with your teenagers, since the younger ones might not get his jokes. Then again, maybe they will!

And, there you have it! Have any of you ever heard of these lesser-known gems? I'd love to hear from others who like any of this stuff, too.

Monstrous Monday Bloghop! My Favorite Monster

Today is the Monstrous Monday Bloghop, hosted by Tim Brannan at The Other Side. 

What you do is you blog about any monster or monsters you want. What kind of Monster?  Well that is up to you really.  You can post monster stats, or post a monster you like/love/hate, or tell us about the monster in your new book coming out.  Anything would be great really.

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I chose to blog about one of the most dynamic and most recognizable monsters in all of literature, the tragic monster created by Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  

The thing that stands out about him isn't that he's so hideous or even how he was created. Granted, those factors are really cool! He's yellow-skinned and patched together with visible stitches. He was animated through a clever use of electricity and somehow endowed with a soul. But, this monster's tale is far more interesting because of how he is treated by his creator, Dr. Victor Frankenstein. 

Had he been treated as a special creation, he surely would have turned out lovable and kind. But, Victor abhorred him the moment he came to life. How hypocritical can you get? It's a tragedy because the monster didn't have to commit so many atrocities if he had been loved as any child deserves by their parent. 

Sure, the monster grew into a mind that could reason and even learned right from wrong, yet he chose to make his creator's life miserable for revenge. That was wrong of him, but it all started with Victor and his inability to take responsibility for his own actions. He just runs around, acting like a demon is after him for no reason, even though he created this monster! What an idiot. 

But, this is what gives this story so much depth and forces us to ask so many questions about the nature of man and our relationship to our creator, whoever we each believe that being to be.

What I find fascinating is what I discovered about the author, Mary Shelley, and her life, which is what inspired her to write this tale. She was raised by a very liberal-minded philosopher named William Godwin who was the equivalent of a 1960's hippie for his era. He did not believe women should have to marry and that people should live more naturally. He detested laws and cultural values forced upon people, and even preached political anarchy. This guy was seriously unhinged for his day and age.

But, when his lovely daughter, Mary Woolstonecraft Godwin, was 16-years-old, she fell in love with a man who sought out her father's philosophy and wanted to live it. His name was Percy Shelley and he was just as much a proponent of anarchy and liberal society as was Godwin. Mary and Percy decided to live as liberal a life as she was raised to live, which meant they shacked up and had children all while not being married. Percy even had another "wife" at the same time, practicing bigamy. 

This, oddly enough, outraged Mr. Godwin, Mary's father, and he disowned her. She was so devasted to be cast-off from her father who raised her to live against the grain of society, and when she decided to live like a modern day hippie, he couldnt' handle it. No, she had to get married and raise children like a normal, proper lady, according to her father. What? So crazy and so hypocritical. 

This painful split with her father leaked into her manuscript during that fateful vacation spent with her husband and Lord Byron in Switzerland. Thus, the hypocrisy we see in Victor is directly lifted from her own father's hypocrisy over her common law, bigamous marriage to Percy Shelley.

In time, she and Percy did get married and the other woman, a relative of Mary's, got fed up with the relationship and left. When she properly married Percy, her father accepted her back into his good graces, but I doubt she ever saw her father the same way again. Her life was full of tragedy and the deaths of children, loved ones, and everything she ever believed in. 

Anyway, neither story has a happy ending, but I love that the novel makes us really think and opens up a grand discussion about our responsibilities to our own creations, namely, our children. Nature versus nurture--how much of it determines the course any being decides to tread in life?

How much of human behavior and decision-making is nature or nurture? In your opinion, how much can bad parenting damage a child?            

"Did I Notice Your Book?" Blogfest!

The Ninjas and Knights are joining forces!

"Did I Notice Your Book?" Blogfest, October 17, 2012

Post about a book you’ve noticed.

You can choose a book that you’ve read, something you saw on a blog or social media site, Goodreads, or a sales website. Anything that caught your eye because of a great cover, blurb or reviews, but DON’T tell the author that their book has been noticed. Instead, shout out on social media sites, and encourage others to do the same, until the author finds his/her book.

Leave a blog comment at Ninja Captain Alex or Ciara Knight’s blog when the author finds their book.

Only two rules:

1)You can’t post about your own book.

2)The book shouldn’t be on the New York Times or USA Today bestseller list.

This is your chance to shout out about a book that might not have been noticed by others.

Let’s blow up the blogosphere with great new reads!

Go HERE to enter the Blogfest.

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This is a really cool feature I've seen on Ciara Knight's blog, so I wanted to get in on this blogfest.

The book I've chosen to highlight ascribes to my love of (read: weird obsession with) Frankenstein fiction, anything inspired by Mary Shelley's classic novel Frankenstein. (Also, kind of works for the current October season, doesn't it?)

So, I chose My Frankenstein by Michael J. Lee. I have not read this novel, yet, but I do own it. As far as I can tell it is a self-published retelling of the Frankenstein story and geared towards the YA, paranormal romance-loving crowd with some horror elements, obviously.

And, this cover is TO DIE FOR. *dies*

Synopsis: In a small village in early 19th Century young Eva is enthralled by the new young baron, Viktor Frankenstein. Viktor promises to transform the traditional little town into a beacon of science and gives the book loving Eva access to his fantastic library. Eva becomes his student and assists him in a secret experiment, though she is kept in the dark about its ultimate aim. Soon after that Viktor introduces Eva to his “cousin” Adam. Adam is horribly disfigured with stitches running across his face. Viktor claims he is mute and simpleminded, but Eva takes pity on him and sets out to teach him to speak.…

What follows is a combination of tragic romance and classic horror as Eva is pulled between Viktor, who grows jealous and takes murderous steps to ensure his secret, and Adam, who possess tremendous strength and rage yet deep inside is innocent and vulnerable.

In his debut fantasy novel, Michael J. Lee retells the classic story by Mary Shelley as a dark romance with steampunk overtones.


Praise for My Frankenstein: "I would highly recommend giving this a read, probably more than once, and if you love Frankenstein, then this is an absolute must for your reading collection." 
        -Eric Swett, My Writer's Cramp


Know of any novels you feel need more love?

Never Surrender Blogfest: "This Is My Life"

The Never Surrender Blogfest is hosted by YA author Elana Johnson at ElanaJohnson.Blogspot.com from June 11 - June 16, 2012.

Hey, everyone. This is a post for a really cool blogfest that caught my attention this week. The challenge is to blog about a time, any time, that you didn't give up when giving up seemed like the most tempting thing to do at the time.

Writing about stuff like this is uncomfortable for me because I have to write about my personal life, and I hate doing that. Nevertheless, I love to read other people's inspiring stories. I'm not saying I think my story is so worthy to inspire others because it probably isn't, but maybe I should give a little back instead of always taking, so to speak. 

"This Is My Life"

Once upon a time (way back in 2000), when I was a seemingly healthy 23-year-old, I was attending a local university here in Southern California and just living my life, trying to keep up with school and friends. One day, I woke up and felt very "off." I was getting really tired, more tired than was warranted and I had problems with my blood sugar levels always plummeting way too low. I was experiencing a physical breakdown on an overall scale. I went to a doctor and had a ton of blood tests done, but they indicated nothing was wrong with me.

Something definitely was wrong with me, but doctors either couldn't help me, or wouldn't help me. I suffered a great deal because I seemed to have some baffling illnesses that weren't clearing up on their own, no matter how much time passed. I barely managed to graduate from college, and then I only did because I refused to give up on achieving that goal. Right afterward, I got sicker--much sicker. Doing anything with my life right after college was completely out of the question. I was lucky I could get myself out of bed most days.

Without medical help, I realized that I was on my own. If I was ever going to get better from these chronic, weird, unexplainable ailments that were ruining my entire life, I had to do it on my own. That year just after I finished college (2002) was one of the hardest of my life and I'm amazed I got through it at all. The only reason I did was because I refused to give up on getting better one day. I was determined to be the last one standing because these illnesses were going to leave before I did. 

I sound like I must have had such a "gung-ho" attitude at the time, but really it wasn't like that. I just kept on keeping on, day in and day out, and on the surface, I'm sure I looked like I wasn't doing anything productive at all. But, I was studying all about herbs and naturopathic ways of healing my body--ways not popularly practiced by most people. I taught myself a lot of things and learned more about how to take care of my body than most people ever believe they need to know. 

By 2003, I was doing somewhat better because I figured out how to either manage my ailments, or just outright cure them. You may have noticed I haven't mentioned which ailments I had. They are typically considered chronic and life-altering, but not life-threatening, and I'd rather not get into the specifics of what I dealt with on a day to day basis.  That would require a long tome and would distract from the purpose of this post. Forgive me for not being more transparent and just wanting to keep a level of privacy in that regard.

But, back to my story: I was by no means "out of the woods" when 2004 began. In fact, I had many more hurdles to jump over, but I did cure some more ailments on my own. Oddly, I still had many left to heal and even gained a few new ones. That was the story of my life back then. Heal a few, gain a few new ones in their place. Ugh... I was a walking magnet for all diseases known to mankind! (Of course, I didn't literally have every disease--I'm just exaggerating here.)

I think two of the worst years I experienced were 2005 and 2006. The emotional toll my physical ailments had taken was too much for me and I had several nervous breakdowns. Nothing that required me to be hospitalized, thankfully, but they were bad. Even small nervous breakdowns are traumatizing, if you've ever had one. I say these two years were when I truly knew what Hell was like because I was there. I remember thinking back in 2006 that I was never going to be happy again, and I'd just have to accept that as a fact. I really did not believe I'd ever get over those unstable, crazy, overkill emotions in my lifetime.

But, the funny thing was... I did get better. By 2007, my emotional state improved a lot and I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, even so very small. But, it was something to hold onto, to live for. I still gained a brand new physical ailment that left me almost entirely housebound, but I learned how to nourish my body with the nutrients it needed and my mind started to recover. I learned some Eastern energy healing techniques, which took years to learn correctly, and by 2008, I was finally healing from my physical ailments and my remaining emotional ones, as well. 

Since that year, it is has been a healing journey with every year blessing me with more and more vitality and health. Not that every year since then has been so easy, because it hasn't. Life happens when you're living it, and I've been no exception to the rule. It's just harder to deal with real life problems concerning your family, friends, living situation, etc. when you're already facing so many adversities without them added to the pot. But, they all faded away, too, in time, just like they do for everyone else. 

Today, I'm still not 100% healthy, but I'm healthier than I've been in a dozen years. That's saying a lot for me! I missed out on doing a lot of things that I figured I would do with my life when I was younger: starting a career, getting married, having and raising children. But, I don't feel like I've missed out on these things, even if they are missing from my life. They are simply things I never did, just like how many people never learned to speak Chinese, or joined NASA and traveled into space. I don't mind that I never did those things because I had to have my own journey in life, and I'm happy. 
   
I'm an author-in-training now, and I highly doubt I would be if I hadn't had all these hardships that "got in the way" of my life. Being a published author is my longest, fondest dream. Despite that, leading a "normal" life would have been the death of it because I would have had no drive to accomplish it. Did my hardships get in the way of my life? Or, was it that I was never on the right path to begin with? 

I now understand the saying, "to find yourself, you must lose yourself." I think by getting lost, I found who I was always meant to be. It was that difficult journey of perseverance that made me stronger and showed me who I really am. It got me to realize I need to follow a different road from everyone else. 

This is my life, and I have to forge my own path. It's hard and I always feel like giving up, but it's been totally worth it, so far. And, I know it will continue to be....



If you've read this entire post, then pat yourself on the back for being perseverant, too! I'm shocked you've made it this far with me. ;)