The Ukazoo Books Blog
May 15th, 2012 by Ukazoo Books
* No coupon necessary. Used books only. Does not include new, collectible, or special-order books. Buy 3 Get 1 Free does not apply. Cannot be combined with other offers or coupons. Sale ends 5/20/12 @ 6pm.
Jan 27th, 2012 by Janna
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter is yet another mash-up of horror and familiar story from Seth Graham-Smith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. While PP&Z was a hysterical reimagining of the Bennett sisters acquiring husbands while being the best zombie killers in the county, Lincoln’s vampire story, like Lincoln’s actual life, is full of melancholy and darkness.
Lincoln is looked upon by many as our greatest president due to his leadership skills, character, and crisis management. His life was filled with a sense of duty to his family, to his country, and to the sanctity of the Union. This becomes a key part of Graham-Smith’s story, and drives the character.
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter begins when the narrator, a failed writer, is given one of the most amazing documents in American history: Lincoln’s secret vampire journals. Why he is given them I won’t spoil, but he is then compelled to write Lincoln’s secret story based on these journals and research into Lincoln’s public life.
The journal excerpts themselves are well-written, beginning with the writings of a young boy, whose mother was killed by a vampire. In real life Lincoln was estranged from his father, and in this reimagining, the estrangement was caused by a bad business deal with a vampire that led to his mother’s death. Thus begins his journey to learn all he can about the secret vampire scourge controlling much of America, strengthening his body with hard work (wood chopping and rail splitting, of course), and improving his mind to fight vampires on more than one front.
The strengths of Graham-Smith’s story is the use of real occurrences in Lincoln’s life to propel him to fight vampires, first in deadly and nearly disastrous direct combat, then in government. It is well known, for those that have studied Lincoln’s history, that when he finally comes of age to leave his father’s household and lives on his own in New Salem, Illinois, he made a name for himself as a person of strength and character when wrestling the town bully to the ground. In Graham-Smith’s retelling, he befriends this bully afterward, recognizing his strength, which he enlists to fight vampires in the area. As he gets older and vampire killing takes its toll, he builds a family, and fights vampires on the political field, for vampires control the slave-holding South. Slaves provide a readily disposable food source for vampires, and the vampires in power want to see slavery expanded, and eventually control all of America as a food source. Lincoln, a very successful vampire killer as long as he was able, is then called upon to become President by Northern men who know of the vampire scourge in the South and seek to destroy it in combat (the Civil War) and political schemes (Lincoln’s election to spark the conflict, and Emancipation).
The tragedies in Lincoln’s life are not made light of in this retelling. As his mother and son were killed by vampires, the latter while he was President, his melancholy is palpable and powerful. Lincoln in real life was brooding and melancholy, and a fan of Edgar Allan Poe’s works. These interests and elements of his character are highlighted in the fictional journals, as they portray his very real melancholy and despair, yet he continues to fight for what he believes is right, even as he suffers tragedy.
If Seth Graham-Smith, like in PP&Z, made a light and airy diversion out of Lincoln’s story, this book would have been awful and possibly offensive. But as it incorporates his real character and his real life with a fantastical horror story, it becomes almost believable, due to the devotion to Lincoln’s real character. This book is still a fun read, as it is diverting and well-paced, but also has the level of seriousness it needs to keep you enthralled.
For: fans of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Graham-Smith, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, graphic novels, alternative history fiction.
~Janna Tanner
Tags: Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, funny, Pride Prejudice and Zombies, vampires, zombies
Jan 23rd, 2012 by mwolff
Inside Book Cover: Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel Grace has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.
John Green’s latest novel, The Fault In Our Stars, is an unconventional love story to the nth degree. Hazel Grace Lancaster, our sixteen-year-old narrator, is a lot of things; witty, obsessed with America’s Next Top Model, and without a doubt going to die. Hazel takes an experimental cancer drug that barely suppresses the tumors resting in her failing lungs. Luckily, this isn’t some dreadful young adult cancer/teen illness romance book (thank goodness). As our cynical, and oh-so-poignant narrator confirms for us, “cancer books suck.” No, this is not a cancer book. Instead, this is a book about dying, a book about having death living and growing inside of you, about death in every step, blink, and breath, and still, living with it. Hefty topics for a young adult novel, huh?
If you know any of Green’s other novels (Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, An Abundance of Katherines), you’re sure to know that Hazel Grace is his first female narrator. If you’re not familiar with his other stuff, you’d never be able to tell. From the very first page we find Hazel, intelligent, engaging and totally sixteen. Never does her prose feel forced, her emotions irrational, or her outlook unfounded. This book reads with the intimacy of a diary.
Hazel’s mother forces her to Cancer Kid Support Group, a circle of chairs in the basement of a church with bland cookies, paper cups filled with lemonade and “a rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness.” Through this cancer group, Hazel meets Augustus Waters, a quintessentially Green character. Green’s got a penchant for male characters with over-the-top compulsions. Miles, the narrator from Looking for Alaska, memorized the last words of every historical figure ever and Colin, An Abundance of Katherines, was infatuated with anagrams. Augustus, who lost a leg to osteosarcoma but is now in remission, has a thing for metaphors. Thus, Hazel and Augustus’ relationship becomes the driving force of the narrative. At times awkward (don’t be surprised if repressed memories of high-school relationships suddenly resurface while reading) and at others achingly sweet, their relationship is compellingly absolutely human. But don’t worry dear Brutus; this is not Romeo and Juliet and Cancer.
I began my longwinded review of Green’s novel with the word unconventional, and I’ll stand by that. Green masterfully balances teenage angst with abstract and metaphysical ponderings on human existence. Death is all around them, and while some of his characters are starving to leave a legacy and others yearning for their own sequel, they are all just trying to make their time together last. No, this isn’t some lame overtly emotional cancer book. And yes, this book will probably make you emotional, in every possible definition of that word.
~ Matt Wolff
Nov 4th, 2010 by Ukazoo Books
‘My name is Daniel. I believe in Good.’
‘God. Not Good.’
‘I believe in God.’
‘That’s better.’
From the outset, Swedish-born Henning Mankell makes big promises with his latest novel, Daniel. The body of a young girl is found near-cloven in the mud just outside a small, pre-industrial town in Sweden; a desperate, directionless man stumbles through Sahara sands in search of an insect he may call his own; an African child is thrown into a cage, his parents dying before his eyes…
Another Swedish vengeance-fueled thriller in the style of Stieg Larsson? Hardly. Those in search of a blood-n-guts, read-it-once paperback, kindly back off.
Dickensian characters, McCarthy-like themes are at the heart of Daniel. Delusions and misunderstandings, God, and the frayed machinations of the heart take us from Africa to Sweden and across all of Europe. One is reminded of The Thousand and One Nights in the scope and breadth of Mankell’s undertaking; that, or perhaps a good, old-fashioned bedtime story, one that placed continents and men, their lives and misgivings right in your palm for viewing.
We start in Sweden. Rainy, dreary, barn-peppered Sweden still chesty with forest and wolves. Hans Bengler has just fainted his way out of medical school and is desperate to make something of himself beyond what his father had made of his own self.
His father was a shadow and had never been anything else. …he realized that it was time to say goodbye. His father would soon be gone.
Bengler is an incompetent drunk, a coward and chronic masturbator. Unsure of God and the soul, he goes to the unmapped African desert to seek his earthly fame, an insect that has yet to be discovered that he may then name after himself. Instead he finds Daniel, a little African boy without a word of any European language. Bengler’s African host, Andersson:
‘I very seldom whip my Negroes. I don’t pinch them with tongs, don’t box their ears, don’t teach them the catechism. I do keep order, it’s true. But I don’t rip them up by the roots so they’ll fall dead in the snow of Sweden. I ask you a very simple question: which is worse?’
Daniel is adopted, learns English and settles into his new life, fraught as it is with cold ignorance and hurtful misconstructions. He yearns for home, his deceased parents. Remembering the long boat-ride from Africa, he feels he must walk back, even if it is over water. After placing a snake as an offering in the basket at church, Daniel has a talk with a priest:
‘I want to learn to walk on water.’
‘Nobody can walk on water. Jesus was God’s son. He could do it. But no one else can.’
Daniel knew that the man standing at his side was wrong, but he didn’t dare talk back.
‘This is where you will stand next Sunday,’ said Hallen [the priest]. ‘You will beg us all forgiveness because you violated the holy church by putting a viper in the offering pouch. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Daniel realized with dread what Hallen meant.
‘Will I be nailed up on boards, too?’
There are complaints that could be made about Daniel. Readers are introduced to myriad rich, deep characters throughout the course of the book – even incidental characters are internally motivated and interesting. However, just as soon as we get to know them, they are dispatched by circumstances, plot-twists and the like – even a number of primary characters disappear just as they become engaging. We are often thus left with Daniel himself, whose own character, sadly to say, can be altogether two-dimensional.
But really.
Daniel is a perfect cold weather read that will keep you on the sofa turning pages, and for what it lacks, it makes up for with thought-provoking imagination. The loose ends that would otherwise hamper most novels make Daniel the stuff of musings and before-bed thoughts for weeks to come.
~shenkoshenkoshenko
Tags: books, Daniel, Henning Mankell, nordic fiction, swedish fiction, used books
Oct 11th, 2010 by Ukazoo Books
“Seven Half-bloods shall answer the call,
To storm or fire, the world must fall;
An oath to keep with final breath,
And foes bear arms to the doors of death..”
Rick Riordan’s last book in the Percy Jackson series, The Last Olympian, left fans with a clue of more to come. At last the wait is over. brings readers back into the world of Demigods and Monsters. The Titans have been defeated and Kronos has been sent back into Tartarus. The Demigods and their trainers expect peace, at least enough for a small vacation.
But Zeus has closed the doors to Olympus and Percy Jackson has gone missing. Three new Demigods are brought to Camp Half-Blood. Jason, who doesn’t remember who he is or where he came from, has strange recollections of the Gods, using their Roman names. Piper has been dreaming about a monster whispering to her to betray her friends to save her mortal father. And Leo, who was instantly claimed as a son of Hephaestus, has been seeing ghosts and owns a rare pyrokinesis talent few of Hephaestus’ children are granted.
Together these three must embark on a quest to stop the Giants, the children of Gaea, from rising to make war on the Gods.
The Hero’s of Olympus: The Lose Hero is released Tue. Oct. 12 and will be stocked by Ukazoo Books
Tags: Book Reviews, Hero's of Ollympus, Lost Hero, Rick Riordan