Atlantis Found?

Atlantis by David Gibbins. I borrowed this book from a colleague of mine who said it was worth reading because of the technical details going into looking for Atlantis and underwater technology. She said something about that being a guy thing!

This book reads almost like an Indiana Jones adventure in the beginning, but pulls out all the slow-motion pace before it reaches page 100. Yawn. I'm having trouble trying to finish it, it doesn't keep the pages going and I'm not reading it fast enough to move onto my next novel. Unlike what I did with all of Dan Brown's novels and the Harry Potter series, those were page-turners!

I'm struggling hard, some sections are interesting, however, too much technical detail which makes it read like a JANE'S book on archeology, without the nice pictures, if there's such a thing! Heh.

At present, not even halfway through the book, so will give another update when I'm closer to the end. Yawn.

Personally, I'd rather be watching the Stargate: Atlantis series on DVD when that comes out, I think that's more exciting!

UPDATE: I've finally finished this book! Hooray! The technical details are too detailed and too much for the layman to understand. At the same time, I had to concentrate very hard on imagining the descriptions of the theories in the book, very taxing really! However, I must give the writer effort for his research into the history of the Black Sea and it's surroundings for it's link to a most imaginative, but ultimately too detailed account of Atlantis located in the Black Sea itself. It could have been better.

Next book, possibly Long Way Round By Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman. We shall see.

Cheers all.

Current Rating: 3 out of 10 (Revised from 3.5)

Arafel

Arafel is a Hebrew word meaning "cloud darkness" or in lack of a better term: the end of the universe.

As we have no doubt seen, Arafel is coming! It possibly started last year Boxing day, 24 December 2004, the fateful day of the Aceh tsunami and it hasn't stopped. Up till today, we've seen relentless worldwide natural disasters ranging from earthquakes to hurricanes, typhoons and tornadoes. Coupled with all the violence in Iraq and terrorist bombings going on throughout the world, which include the latest New Delhi bombings and the Paris riotings, not to mention, the upcoming media-paniced avian flu "invisible pandemic", we are certainly, without a doubt, approaching Arafel.

It is the end of the world, humanity's eventual extermination from this planet. Next up, the 7 plagues of Egypt!

F.E.A.R

First Encounter Assault Recon or F.E.A.R, that's the name of the latest PC first-person shooter (FPS) I'm hooked onto! And why is that? Well, me being the fussy type when it comes to computer games, I like my stuff to have a nice storyline/plot, something that has good graphics, good sound and all that. I might even compare this game to Half-Life 2, but that's entirely different.

FEAR has a storyline, a rather interesting one at best. It mixes the usual story-telling genre games so that there's a mission and stuff, but it also has an extra "ghost" element in the storyline. A death, a lingering angry spirit, a prototype project gone wrong, genetic experiments for super-soldiers, this game has got it all.

Graphics and sound effects are good and eerie, I think I've never had to deal with goose-bumming so many times while playing this game. You have out of the blue scares and cutscenes that you have to deal with. The graphics are not as well-defined as Half-Life 2, but are good enough for a game of this calibre. I'm not complaning because even if you design the walls so nicely, I'm just going to run past them most of the time and not notice. There is also a nice twist at the end, which also leaves a nice cliff-hanger for hopefully FEAR 2, remember to watch till the end of the End Credits and listen to the short conversation!

I'm playing the DVD-ROM version of the game on my latest Wolfclaw keyboard, which makes it very easy to play as it's designed for FPS games. So, there you go, I won't spoil it too much, coz when I start talking about the game, I won't stop and that might just spoil it all for you. So go out there to get the game and enjoy it! I know I did! I finished it in 4 days, not exactly the fastest, but that was fast!

Ratings: 9 out of 10