X-factor. Vol. 4, Heart of ice/ Peter David, Khoi Pham et al.

ISBN: 9780785123606
NLBsearchplus

We’re introduced to a new character called The Isolationist. Pretty mysterious. Appeared from nowhere and proposes a plan to lobby the government to recognise and treat mutants as an endangered species. We discover that seemingly random events are somehow linked: an assignment to retrieve a pair of children; a new companion for Layla.

Sub-plot development: love interest between Rictor and Rahne.

Wonder Woman. Love and murder/ Jodi Picoult, Drew Johnson [et al.]

ISBN: 9781401217082
NLBsearchplus

Written by Jodi Picoult.

Basic premise: Wonder Woman has to battle her mother, who has been raised from death and manipulated into a war with humans.

Cliffhanger intended, as Picoult explains in her introduction.

The ballad of Halo Jones/ Alan Moore & Ian Gibson

ISBN: 1401205909
NLBsearchplus

Collection of Halo Jones stories originally published in “2000 AD”, 1984 – 86.

Halo Jones is a young human girl (older teenager, it seems) living in a future earth which is occupied by aliens and humans. There is massive unemployment and social unrest happens like clockwork.

Halo Jones decides to seek her future elsewhere and ends up working on an interstellar cruise-ship, ferrying the super-rich. Sub-plot: she meets a group of mind-melded mice, and there are hints the mice are a prelude to something akin to germ warfare.

Fast-forward to nearer the end part of the series: Eventually Halo Jones signs up as a soldier in what seems like an all-women military force, led by an enigmatic General Cannibal.

We follow her military training (somewhat familiar and yet futuristic), her first experience of battle, and a military campaign in a world with immense gravity where soldiers have to fight in gravity-suits and experience time-dilation.

The series ends with Halo Jones surviving the war, and with her dispensing a little justice of her own (this is where the mind-melded rats, the plague-warfare and General Cannibal all makes the necessary connections). And her name passes into legend.

Knights of the old republic. Volume One, Commencement/ John Jackson Miller, Brian Ching and Travel Foreman, Michael Atiyeh, Michael Heisler, Travis Charest

ISBN: 1593076401
NLBsearchplus

Pre-dates the appearance of Anakin Skywalker (“thousands of years before Luke Skywalker”, about “3,964 years before the Battle of Yavin”). Aside: A yoda-like character is around, by the name of Master Vandar.

Protagonist: Zane Carrick. Seemingly inept Padawan. Discovers his fellow Padawans murdered by their own masters, all over a prophesy.

Fables. [2], Animal farm/ Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, Daniel Vozzo & Todd Klein

ISBN:
NLBsearchplus

The title is more literal than one thinks. Brilliant.

Not only does the title allude to George Orwell’s work of the same title, but it is also literally a farm containing all the Fables who cannot transform themselves to human form.

Basically the farm residents are in revolt. What is interesting are the revelation of the characters behind it. For instance, the Three Little Pigs aren’t as innocent as we think, and Goldilocks is a heck of a lot more conniving than the simpleminded girl that generations are used to.

Sub-plot: Snow (White) and Red (riding hood) reveal and address their feud.

Another brilliant one in the Fables series.

Courtney Crumrin and the fire thief’s tale/ Ted Naifeh & Steve Birch

ISBN: 1932664858
NLBsearchplus

A re-telling of the werewolf myth.

Courtney Crumrin is a young girl and sorcerer-apprentice to her uncle (a formidable warlock, apparently). In this tale, Courtney and her uncle travel to Romania for their vacation. The plot deepens when their host’s daughter (niece?) is about to be married to a local strong-arm but she is secretly in love with a handsome and mysterious gypsy. Very early on, we are given hints that the gypsy is a werewolf and the woman’s husband-to-be is after its life.

Courtney learns of the fire thief, one of a pair of Wolf-brotherhood. One wolf allows himself to be domesticated by man, while the other learns the black arts, learns to transform itself from wolf to man, and manages to steal fire from man.

The whole story culminates with Courtney attempting to save the werewolves from being persecuted, at risk to her own life.

Music theory for beginners/ Emma Danes

ISBN: 0746024169
NLBsearchplus

Music notation; different ways of writing music (covers historical development briefly); How instruments developed.

Intervals
Transposing
Phrases
Words and music
Chords
Cadences
Ornaments
Structure
Scale chart
Musical terms
Symbols

Listening to the future: Why it’s everybody’s business/ Daniel W. Rasmus with Rob Salkowitz

ISBN: 0470413441
NLBsearchplus

P182. On retail.
Reinventing the retail business

Co-creating the global marketplace (I suggest the library can be a workplace)

Evolving towards Next-Generation sales and service

P219. “No single individual, no one organisation, no nation or even group of nations can successfully navigate the changes ahead. This book intends to create a dialog with customers and policymakers about how to best apply our resources and capabilities to the challenges ahead. Organisations that succeed will find that listening to the future, and turning insight into action, truly is everybody’s business.”

Guerrilla home recording: How to get great sound from any studio (no matter how weird or cheap your gear is)/ Karl Coryat

ISBN: 0879308346
NLBsearchplus

Explains some concepts that we might have heard but not quite sure why. E.g. Why it might be better to mix a track (reverb, echo etc) vs the “professional” way of leaving everything clean until final mix.

There’s also audio principles and theory, explained in a non-technical way.

Chapter 2 covers basic audio principles, like dB (decibels) and dynamic range (difference between highest and lowest range; should not be too far), equipment and effects, signal chain, compression, equalization etc.

P55. Why we should try to record at the maximum level at source (because if we boost it later, any “noise” introduced later along the signal chain may get boosted as well).

Chpt 7 on recording drums, bass, clean electric/ distortion/ acoustic guitars.
P129. Typical pan settings for drums.

P184. Suggests that at mixing stage, also listen at lower sound levels. Gave example of how vocals may sound buried when the track is played loud but at lower vol if might sound OK (which can be confirmed by listening and checking). Also, headphones Vs speakers mixing.

P191. What is Mastering. “… process of making slight EQ adjustments to an entire mix, optimizing the dynamics for maximum impact, and making EQ and dynamics adjustments so your mixes are more uniform and balanced from one song to the next.”
Mastering for levels, EQ (he uses Steinberg’s Loudness Maximizer plug-in).

For more than Glory/ William C. Dietz

ISBN: 044102140
NLBsearchplus

Setting: Humans, clones and other alien species have formed a government called the Confederacy of Sentient Beings. The events in this story takes place after the novel “By Force of Arms” (third novel after, if I’m not mistaken).

This novel centres around a Legionnaire (a Confederacy military outfit), Lieutenant Santana. He is posted to the Independent planet of LaNor.

P149. Side story of how Synder became a ‘Trooper II’ (a mechanised cyborg, more like a tank, with a human brain. Cyborgs are classed as humans).

Santana meets his previous ex-CO and nemesis, a Ramanthian, and ends up being under his command again, when he’s sent as part of an armed detachment requested by the LaNorian Empress. LaNorians were styled after the Manchu imperial court and the Boxer rebellion.

Unknown to the Confederacy, the Ramanthians have hatched a plot with the Tro Wa, a breakaway faction led by Lak Saa, a eunuch at odds with the empress. The Tro Wa are intent on usurping the corrupt royal throne, and also throwing out the aliens (confederate forces).

The Tro Wa deploy brutal means to terrorise the citizens who do not subscribe to their causes. Santana is later sent to rescue an estranged missionary, who have been besieged by the Tro Wa. Along the way, he develops a love interest with a confederate diplomatic staff, Vanderveen.

The novel is interspersed with battle scenes involving the technologically superior but numerically inferior confederate forces, and the insurgents. The pace of the novel is excellent and the fighting scenes are also realistically portrayed without repeating themselves.