Monthly Archives: marraskuu 2013

The last spin is a short story by Evan Hunter.It is a story of two young guys ,who play a russian roulette in a small basement room. They are members of the gang. They have to solve a gang fight to playing the russian roulette. Boys  spin a cylinder alternately and wait nervously, which kill your self first. Along a game they speak a lot of deep thinks.Example : fututre plans , girl friend and moms. Finally they plan the sunday boat trip together.

Protagonitsts of story are Tigo and Danny who are young  guys and new persons in gangs . When story start Danny thinks that Tigo is enemy,but later both know that death come today and both become more frendly each other.

Story narrator is omniscient for she know ,what boys thinking. The story make a headway fine and logigally. Story have dialogue when boys  are speaking each other and narrator speaking.

The short story is really compelling and intresting to read. But sometimes i feel ,that story proceed too slow. Story have littlebit too much replay , example: words :”The cylinder whirled” ,replay too many times.

Rhyme is really sad,but every good stories stop sadly.

An analysis of ”Medal of Honor”
”Medal of Honor” (Chris Ryan) is a book, that’s for certain, but it’s hard to define if it’s a novel or just a short story, it’s something much more, it’s a story, a story of life and death.

The book takes the reader into a SAS soldier Jock’s head. He is the protagonist of the book and also plays the part of the narrator, which in this case is a first person narrator. Jock is tough but can keep his head calm, the perfect traits of a special force soldier. Jock learns a lot about his squadmates during the story and they become good friends. The antogonist of the book is not just Jock’s enemy but also the enemy of the UK and the USA. His name is Al-Zaranj. He is a terrorist leader of the Al Qaeda in Afganistan.

The reader is brought into 21st-century Afganistan and its harsh and unforgiving nature where everything varies from one extreme to another. Afganistan plays a very important role in the book. The characters of the book have come to Afganistan to fight against terrorism and to revenge the WTC attacks. This is the conflict that the whole book is based on. The soldiers end their quest by destroying an enemy base in the mountains near a small village called Pajay. Al-Zaranj is also eliminated in this succesful operation.

The first thing the reader notices from the book is that its theme is obviously warfare. But when examining more closely the reader begins to see other things in the storyline. It is about learning to trust the right people and the ability to forget other’s mistakes and even forgive them.

The book uses a lot of technical terms along with some similes for example: ”-like a Christmas tree.” The technical terms make the book seem more convincing.

The Notebook is a 1996 romantic novel by Nicholas Sparks and it is based on a true story. The novel tells a story of Allie Hamilton and Noah Calhoun, the couple who has been together fifty years, in spite of all the setbacks. The last setback is Allies Alzheimer’s: now she can’t even remember who she is. Even if doctors keep telling Noah that Allies memories are not coming back, he’s not losing hope. He keeps reading the story of their life to Allie over and over again and sometimes, despite the Alzheimer’s, Allie remembers, but only for a moment.

The novel contains two stories: the main story, which is telling about present day and the storie that Noah reads to Allie. The perspective from which the storie is told changes depending on which of the story is told. The main story is told by first person and the narrator of this story is Noah. The storie that Noah reads for Allie, on the other hand, is told by third person omniscient.

Theme of the novel is simple: love conquers all. It may sound a bit cliché, but no matter how many setbacks Allie and Noah faced, their love brought them back together. Even when Allie doesn’t remember Noah, he loves her. After all, the most important thing the novel taught us is that true love never dies.

The novel Galaxy in flames written by Ben Counter is the third book of a series called Horus Heresy. The heresy consists of about 25 books each varying in length, the author also varies. Galaxy in flames was published in 2006 by Black Library which is a part of Games Workshop, inventors of the Warhammer 40 000 universe.

Early in the 31st millennium, the main ”scene” of  Galaxy in flames is set around Isstvan system in space where the legions about to betray the emperor of mankind are assembling and preparing to get rid of their loyalist marines, who are sent to the surface of Isstvan III to purge the rebelling world of heretics. One marine, Saul Tarvitz of the Emperor’s Children finds out about the plans to exterminate the planet with a conveniently named exterminatus bombardment, which involves virus bombing, burning of the atmosphere and blowing up everything that is left to stand and proceeds to enter the planet to warn his brothers, and Garviel Loken, the main figure so far whose tale doesn’t end too well, sadly enough.  A lot of other things happen before the loyalists get sent down to Isstvan III and while they are there. The storytelling jumps from the planet back into the fleet in orbit and what is happening there.

The story advances quite slowly in each book, mainly because the books are rather short and at least in the first three books there have been three or four different story lines each being connected in some way. The depiction of the environment, characters and everything included in the story worthy of an image is great, you can very easily get a picture of what’s happening and how it might look like. The theme of this book has clearly been betrayal, there’s no way around it. Brothers turned against each other and the Warmaster, tainted by Chaos, begins his march against the Imperium of Mankind, and even more, his creator, the allegedly god-emperor of mankind.

A certain feel of sadness landed on me once I finished reading the last chapter, the deaths of my favorite characters wasn’t a pleasant experience but yet I have the urge to pick up the fourth book and continue reading. I found that once you read the two first books you can get attached to some of the characters in which case Galaxy in flames is bound to bring up some emotions, it was a joy to read. Even though it’s a science-fantasy series, the language is not that difficult to understand if your vocabulary is refined enough. Unless you’re a die-hard fan of WH40k or science-fiction in general, I wouldn’t really touch these books. It’s not a simple universe to sink in.

The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of Shattered Rock Star is an autobiography, written by Nikki Sixx and Ian Gittins. The book is about Nikki’s restless life and it was released six years ago. Nikki is a bassist of the rock band Mötley Crüe.

While reading this autobiography, there was one thing I kept wondering. Could this really have happened, could this really be based on true story? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. The book was convincing and it didn’t embellish the events. It’s been written like a diary and it’s based on year 1987 in Nikki’s life. When the story is told from the drug user’s point of view, it sure is a raw story.

The book is oppressive. Everything that Nikki does, he does, because he needs heroine. That’s the only thing he’s interested in. Friends, music and sex doesn’t bring any joy in his life anymore. It’s hard to imagine, how he has felt at the time. The theme of this book is definitely decline in the famous man’s life. Nice thing in this book, is that there are comments from Nikki himself and from his close friends. They are telling their opinion about Nikki’s tough junkie lifestyle back then.

The vocabulary in this book is unilateral. The author used again and again the same words, when he narrated the story. For example, words ”hustler” and ”hanky-panky”.

The story of The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of Shattered Rock Star is quite easy to understand and in some level you can identify with it. It is an integranted entity. You don’t have to be a Mötley Crüe -fan to like this book. You just need to be curious and attracted to different kind of true stories. This book will astonish you.

”Medal of honor” is a war related book based on the latest ”Medal of honor” game. The book is written by a former British SAS soldier, Chris Ryan, who is known as the only survivor of the mission ”Bravo Two Zero” during Gulf war.

The book takes place in Pajay, a small village in the Middle East, where American soldiers, Voodoo, Dusty, Rabbit and British Jock are orderd to find an Afghan informant, Malouf, who has intel about Al-Zaranj, a terrorist. The mission goes almost as planned and they call an airstrike to take Al-Zaranj down and then they head back to the base.

The protagonist and the narrator of the book is Jock. He is a British SAS soldier and a part of the squad as a battle casuality replacement. He is very skillful, tough and calm, like all the other professional soldiers. The story is told from his perspective.

The antagonist of the story is Al-Zaranj. The story only tells that he is marked as a high value target due to connections to Al-Qaeda, which was involved in terrorist attacks in USA.

The main conflict of the story is USA getting people who were involved in terrorist attacks to pay. In this book, it is Voodoo, Dusty, Rabbit and Jock who are taking down Al-Zaranj. The conflict is resolved by the professional soldiers using the intel which an afghan informant Malouf gives to the squad, although it is incorrect first.

There are three main themes, which all come out clearly: ”getting revenge”, ”who to trust” and ”reputation is everything”. Because the plot is so fast-developing, there isn’t much foreshadowing. Also the use of figurative language is very limited.

After all, the book was easy and interesting to read but as soon as I started to read, I was already at the end and everything had happend.