Epinions Recent Reviews for smadakcin

Welcome To The World, Jimmy Tock ...

Wed, 5 Apr 2006 15:01:12 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - The only thing worse than a bad book, I feel, is a book which should have been so much better. For all the distaste a real stinker of a story can cause, it's quickly forgotten, whereas the remnants of the nearly-novel seem to linger for some time, an...

Secret of Evermore for Super Nintendo (SNES): A Fable About Freedom

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 16:45:08 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - Many Paths, One Traveller ... Many games promise many things, but the boasts of Fable are especially notable. "For every choice, a consequence", reads the tagline; this is a game about freedom. At its most essential level, the decision is one...

Back To Babylon; The Trilogy Concludes

Sat, 14 Jan 2006 10:28:17 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - The Two Thrones brings to a conclusion the "modern" Prince of Persia trilogy, which have thusfar more than lived up to their c
onsiderable
heritage. Which such success behind them, and no plans announced for a...

Let There Be Narnia ...

Sat, 17 Dec 2005 14:53:33 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - We often resolve to read a book, or a series, and spend years and years doing anything but, except occasionally recalling the promise and re-etching the mental note. In my case, the seven books in question are those which form The Chronicles of...

Travelling By Thumb In Search Of New Zealand

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 11:58:31 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - When I came to New Zealand I expected to stay for a year. I've stayed for sixteen. I like it here. For Joe Bennett, an Englishman prior to becoming an adopted Kiwi, this book is an attempt to track down and bottle that enigmatic appeal which...

"Say Yes More ... "

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 18:08:03 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - Danny Wallace must have pretty much cornered the market in what his ex-girlfriend called "stupid-boy projects" - a domination furthered by the story told by this book. Having previously founded his own cult, and put it to work to make the world a better...

Long Train Running

Thu, 8 Sep 2005 10:19:47 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - Leaving Boston station one chilly morning in the late seventies, few passengers can have had quite the journey on their minds that Paul Theroux did. Guided by a curiosity that provoked him to find out exactly where the "end of the line" was from his home...

Believing In The Miracle ...

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:13:33 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - Books about football (soccer, whatever ...) are hardly a rarity. The Miracle of Castel di Sangro, however, stands out for two reasons; firstly, it is written by an American, a nationality not traditionally known for their love of the game - and...

Beneath The Smog, A Heaving Hub Of Hidden Delights

Sat, 30 Jul 2005 15:36:58 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - One of the three largest cities in the world, Mexico City, its country's capital, comes with something of a reputation; several people expressed suprise that I would want to travel to somewhere seen as weighed down by crime, pollution and traffic...

J.K. Rowling And The Vanishing Editor

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 15:02:31 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - I know not what happened to J.K Rowling's editor, but it seems that somewhere along the way, certainly by the previous installment of the Harry Potter series, The Order of the Phoenix, they must have met some untimely end. Perhaps they're hopping...

Pullman's Epic Reaches Endgame

Wed, 8 Jun 2005 13:53:04 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - The Amber Spyglass concludes the His Dark Materials trilogy, which began with N
orthern
Lights and continued with T
he
Subtle Knife. The size of the task Pullman has set himself in...

Worlds Apart; Through Pullman's Looking-Glass

Sun, 5 Jun 2005 07:13:00 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - The Subtle Knife is the second of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, a truly epic adventure embracing religion, science and classic adventure. The series is very much one story broken into three books, rather than a set of interlinked, but...

Beneath and Beyond the Aurora

Wed, 25 May 2005 12:57:24 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - # This book is known as either Northern Lights or The Golden Compass, depending on region - my UK edition was the former # I'm a bit late getting to this one, it seems ~ although I could hardly have been unaware of the hype built up the His...

How Not To Write A Travelogue ...

Wed, 4 May 2005 17:05:05 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - Peter Biddlecombe is, according to his blurb, the world's most travelled travel writer, with 170 countries and counting scribbled off on his map. He also has nine volumes of tales from his travels behind him - so, being something of a lover of the genre,...

Papal Pandemonium

Tue, 26 Apr 2005 10:38:48 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - Rather topical, my reading of this, it seems - what with all recent Papal goings-on, it correlated rather closely with events in Vatican City (although mercifully not too closely ...). Dan Brown's third book, this introduces for the first time the...

Storming The Fortress

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 07:18:36 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - Before T
he
Da Vinci Code became the book which everyone in the world had read at least twice, and Dan Brown was a world-famous author, there was this. Digital Fortress was his first novel, although having jumped about...

"Once you learn how do die, you learn how to live "

Sat, 9 Apr 2005 09:36:21 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - Mitch Albom was, by his own admission, a man who had his priorities wrong. Driven by his career, over-obsessed with money and forever putting off his vow to take it easy and start a family, he was the antithesis of the ideals he had held when he had...

Just Nipping Out For A Bike Ride, Dear ...

Sun, 3 Apr 2005 14:57:17 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - Tierra del Fuego sits at the southern-most point of South America, at the very limits of the wilds of Patagonia. Lake Titicaca, reputed to be the place where the Sun first rose, sits somewhere around two-thirds of the way up, nestling on the border...

The Sands Of Time Surpasses Its Legacy

Wed, 23 Mar 2005 09:32:03 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - Although it was playing them the wrong way round, so taken was I with this game's sequel (W
arrior
Within) that I felt I had to root out a copy of The Sands of Time, to keep alive the Prince's adventures. I had...

Jarvis Digs Into The Deep, Dark Histories; Part Two

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 08:20:54 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - Peeling back the layers My book-consumption patterns are wildy erratic and wholly unorganised. Although I was half-way through one hefty tome, and only making a microscopic dent into the pile I had somewhat over-zealously assembled over the new...

A Wholly Unconventional Voyage

Sat, 19 Mar 2005 13:32:03 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - The second letter, I can tell, will be something juicy. The envelope feels as if there's something weighty in there. It's oddly addressed though. My details are typed, which gives the letter an official feel, but my surname is absent. Simply...

An Amusing Anatomy Of A Terrific, If Troublesome, Tongue

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 09:58:58 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - Although rightly noted for his travel books, Bill Bryson has also written a number of books on the English Language, of which Mother Tongue is probably the best known and most wide-ranging. In a sense, this is perhaps his most ambitious book to...

The First, Perhaps The Best Of Bryson?

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 17:23:00 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - "I wanted to travel around. I wanted to see America. I wanted to come home." And so began Bill Bryson's first best-selling journey, inspired by a desire to re-visit those places that made America what it was to his younger self. Having been...

Lost: One Sense Of Belonging

Wed, 9 Mar 2005 10:02:01 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - Is it possible, ponders Pete McCarthy, to belong to a place in which you've never lived?. Born and raised in the grim northern English town of St Helens, he insists he doesn't feel English, yet he's only ever spent time in Ireland,...

Have Fridge, Will Travel

Mon, 7 Mar 2005 11:58:41 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author smadakcin - "Everything you read from this moment forth is a tribute to what can be achieved as a result of a shabby night of booze" We all do silly things. Granted, most of them don't lead to us hitch-hiking the circumference of a modest country in the...