So I really love the version two software for iPhone. There already was the excellent typepad by 37signals that enabled you to blog on the version one interface, but with the app store you now have a plethora of groovy apps to play with. In my usual miserly fashion I am not paying for any of them, just using the cream of the free applications to test the versatility of my phone.

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I last updated my books read so far this year in May and I haven't done any blogging of them since then, I have though been reading, trying to keep at least one book a month in the bag along with all the internet reading I do.
So here's the next crop. Simple books first:

Dr Who and the Hand of Fear, Warriors of the Deep and Made of Steel are two classic Target and one newer Quickread books all by Terrance Dicks. Yet again a set of three books from my sister and from a second-hand stall and a quick and fun set to read. I enjoyed plenty 🙂

The next group are books 5-9 of the Y: The Last Man series, all of which are good and lead nicely to the fact that the final chapter is out now. i will have to re-visit book nine when I read ten, most likely next month, I hold myself in anticipation.

I also read a semi-adult Doctor Who, Last man Running, quite a good read with an interesting conceit concerning Leela's relationship to the fourth doctor, and since Leela was an early crush of mine a story with plenty of Amazonian Who-companion action was certainly appreciated.

Doctor Who: Last Man Running (Doctor Who)

Chris Boucher

And onto the best book I read recently and the first of a trilogy. It is Duncton Wood a rather excellent Fantasy story based around moles. The idea of an epic story with moles as the central chacaters is slightly odd and most would see this as a children's book, but I assure you it is not. The book workds on a great number of levels and i feel that although it is a great story for mature children it is so deep, rich and i have to say greatly emotive that it easily satisfies the lusts of an aduklt reader. I was toatlly engrossed in the story and found that I often had to stop reading it for days on end as the emotions is stirred in me were so strong I was unable to continue without calming myself for the next onslaught. It has been a good while since a book lifted my spirits or wrenched me with sorrow so expertly as this book did. i think it may be a couple of months before I feel strong enough to read the second in the trilogy as I cannot see how it can be as great a story as that of Bracken and Rachel and if it is I need a couple of months easier emotions in my reading material.

Duncton Wood (The Duncton Chronicles)

William Horwood

The next four books I have started and are in various states of reading (I tend to read more than one book at any one time as I have different reading places, front room, travelling book, bedroom book – always usually novels for the final two locations and technical/factual books in the front room).

They are Adobe Premier for Dummies, The Truth (Terry Pratchett), The Prefect (Alistair Reynolds) and Wicked. As is my usual style I will talk about them more when i have finished them, barring The Truth which is an old favourite and a re-read book – I have read this, like other Discworld books, several times. I think this is the third reading of the Truth and it gets to be as much fun each time I delve into it. William de Worde is one of the great single-issue Pratchett heroes.

The Truth (Discworld)

Terry Pratchett

Ah well, that's it for now…

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So i caried on thinking about what theorbtwo said about my goth figures looking a bit more like modern raver-goths and post/pop-punks and I think he had a fair coment and a good (-ish) point, so with tha in mind I have revisited in a spare hour and made a couple of more goth figures:

Gothesque Female

Gothgirl2

And gothesque male:

Gothboy2

And because I want to see them together and a little smaller here they are again:

And just for laughs lets put them all together and go to a club 🙂

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That's an interesting comment that theorbtwo made… so let's see how they look smaller 🙂

Please note I am just going to link in the images again and not edit them and trust to fate (and my skills/lack of skills) as to what happens

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If you have been reading my wife's blog (Starkitten) you'll know that she has posted a couple of her stick figures that she created using Inkscape (grab it at: http://www.inkscape.org) and its very fun Order of the Stick tutorial. Well for shits and giggles i did the same tutorial and have created a couple of figures (not for any competition and not for resale as they are definately mine – so there). Anywhoos here they are:

Gothgirl

Gothmale

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Okay, rather dull but here is a list of the books I read in April. It seems like quite a lot but to be honest most of them were very easy to read (some graphics novels and some TV tie-ins aimed at teenagers). But I read them and this year I decided to record any book I read so here they are:

These first two – whose pictures do not load from Amazon – are Doctor Who: Warriors from the Deep and Hand of Fear – the first is a Fifth Doctor story and the latter is a Fourth Doctor. Both of these were adapted by the solidly dependable Terrance Dicks.

Next up:

Doctor Who: Banquo Legacy and Vanishing Point. Both of these are new novels set during the reign of the Eighth Doctor. They are both solid books, though I must say I enjoyed Vanishing Point more. It wasn't that it was better written as both books had very competent authors, it was that the Banquo Legacy is part of a series of linked adventures and due to the majority of the book being told through memoirs from two of the supporting cast we are not let into what is happening with the Doctor and Fitz so it feels very distant and abstract and in fact about 100 pages are pointless to the story because of this. Unfortunate really as I liked the conceit of it being two narratives from two points of view I just hated the fact that since I haven't read these in order most of the conversation/events of this other plot made no sense.

And finally:

I read the first five novels of the "Y: The Last Man" series. This is a great series of comics and lots of fun. There are elements in this story that do jar quite horribly with me, I think some of the stereotypes on display are too much a caricature and become unwieldy clichés, but the writers do like to mix the events up a notch. Basic premise is great, some cataclysm has destroyed the men on the planet except for a loan bloke and a monkey. Only one unrealistic point is the fact that he didn't die after two months from exhaustion.

That wraps up the books for April, May seems me move onto something a little heavier in terms of Sci-fi – but since I got a parcel containing a lot of Doctor Who books gleaned by my sister from second hand stalls I guess it may have some of those as well.

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Okay I know this is April but here are the books I read in March. Both of them were Dr Who books (once again) – those charity book stores and remaindered chains are coming in real handy for this – but I read 'Eater of Wasps' and 'The Slow Empire'.

Currently I am reading two more Dr Who books which I should finish this month. After that I go on to a whole range of old Target Dr Who's – a children's Dr Who book, 'Y: The Last Man' series of Graphic novels and a couple of heavier sci-fi if I can find something I like (I have picked up 'The Prefect' by Alistair Reynolds so that may be a start.

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