Trudi Canavan’s “The Magician’s Apprentice”

I do like a bit of escapist fantasy, and when I want to read a good fantasy book, I know that turning to Trudi Canavan is a good idea.  Her narrative is not perfect, and her habit of italicising characters thoughts is actually very grating and something I am still not used to.  But who cares?  Canavan is creative and knows how to tell a story.

The Black Magician trilogy is the only story other than Harry Potter to make me cry at the loss of a character.  This is not a ‘boo-hoo-character-died-closed-book-and-forgot-about-it’ type cry.  No.  It is a loss that puts a nasty unsettling feeling at the pit of your stomach that could go on for as long as three days.  Sad, isn’t it?  Yes, it is, but do you know how satisfying it is to become attached to a character in such a way?  It is what makes a good read into a great read and only the most talented writers that specialise in characterisation that can acheive such a feat.

Stephen King: Hates Stephenie Meyer, Loves J.K. Rowling

After reading this article of Stephen King praising J.K. Rowling and slagging off Stephenie Meyer, I have to say, I became rather more positive about the state of the world.

To make sure I would stay happy forever, I was cheered by this article that had a poll between Harry Potter and Twilight, and Harry has over three quarters of the vote.  I have to admit that I was worried that people would forget just how great Harry Potter was now that it is all finished and dusted, and with the Twilight series still very much in the lime light.  But I needn’t have worried.  Not to mention that the quarter of people that voted for Twilight are probaby fourteen year old fangirls.

The human race.  I have faith in you yet.

Customers Are Never Right: The Woes of Working in Retail

As you may or may not know, I work in a library.  All in all, I like the job.  I am surrounded by books all day, the staff are really nice, and… on the whole the customers are kind of grand too.  But oh.  Whilst I spent my years studying for A Levels and eventually my degree I spent five years in retail, and there, I thought I had seen it all.  It’s not much, working in a  supermarket, but that’s what a majority of students do to get some money on the side.  But unless you have worked in retail, you will not understand the variation of people that you meet on the job.  I, for one, didn’t know that really stupid people actually existed until I worked in retail.

As I was saying, I thought I had seen it all.  Here are some examples:

Hayley Westenra’s “Treasure”

I cannot even begin to describe the amount of sweat and tears that went into trying to understand this album.  The amount of effort I put into this CD to try and like it.  I was waiting for some miracle, some revelation to appear out of thin air, as to why this album tends to be a favourite among Hayley Westenra fans.  Why it is so highly esteemed, why it is the pivot of discussion.  I am not so lucky this time.  I have failed.  I officially don’t get it.

Let me start with the postives.  I do enjoy two songs on this album and tellingly they are two songs that are co-written by Westenra herself.  ‘Let Me Lie’ and ‘Summer Rain’ are clear standout tracks from what is otherwise a highly predictable album.

Hayley Westenra’s “Prayer”

I am going to take a wild stab in the dark here and guess that no matter what type of music you listen to, that most Eastern country, Japan, has laughed in your face before when they received the coolest edition of that coolest album by the coolest artist.  Damn them.  Us Westerners are never content with our 12 track albums, we want the four bonus track edition that Japan or Taiwan have.  All the more reason to hop over CDJapan and make an account.  This beautiful album, Prayer, released only for the Japanese market is no exception.  It’s actually a goldmine what mouth-watering tracks for any Hayley Westenra fan.

This album basically has lots of tracks recorded by Westenra that are otherwise scattered all over the place.  To put this into perspective, if you want to buy all of these tracks without buying this album, you will have to buy up to twelve albums to make up the tracklisting.  You see how awesome this album is now? 

Hayley Westenra’s “Odyssey”

I have been putting off writing this review for a very long time.  Why?  The simple truth is that I could not quite decide how to review this album.  At first, I was quite content to review the first edition of Odyssey that I obtained, the one I know really well, but just out of curiousity, I picked the later edition up, the UK special edition, to see what the difference was.  I was struck stupid to realise that there’s a ten track difference.  You read that correctly. 

‘Well’, I thought, ‘this is stupid’.  Maybe I was too busy staring at paint and watching the sun rise and set to notice any commotion over at ‘TEAM HAYLEY WESTENRA‘ (i.e. the ever trustworthy HWI who have since told me that my original edition was never a UK edition) over this confusing blip in her discography, but I am on my own here, and I don’t quite know what to make of it.  It’s like I have had this hidden second album all this time without even realising it.  I don’t even know why I bought it, especially as I am quite strongly of the ‘SCREW YOUR MANY EDITIONS OF THE SAME ALBUM’ sentiment.

Okay, so if I could only let go of the fact that I basically have two different albums here under the same name, I could actually discuss the album(s).

Michael Ball’s “Centre Stage”

I do get tired of Michael Ball‘s albums. He basically spews out about three a year with the same songs over and over.  Especially from musicals, as he is a West End star and acts as such in the recording studio, never making any real concept albums.

To discuss Ball’s vocals is a bit of a moot point.  He’s a baritone.  He belts. He’s powerful.  He’s emotive. He’s over the top. You can pilot a plane through his vibrato, and so on.  He is very pleasent to listen to, has a beautiful tone and thus the material he records verges on tragic as it’s such a waste of a huge talent.  But there you are.  This is what we get from Michael Ball, and we have to make the most of it.