Saturday, 2 September 2017

Chuckles Weekend Roundup


Welcome to my new feature Chuckles Weekend Roundup where I will be looking at what books I've received, anything interesting I've done or bought or watched and other random stuff. I'll be taking a look back at what happened in my blogging world too, sort of like The Sunday Post that some of you do! 

Please note that I'll be visiting your STS/SP as normal, but I don't follow or leave comments on blogs run by Google Plus, or DISQUS as I refuse to join something just to leave comments, and I won't allow DISQUS to follow new people, update my profile or post tweets 'on my behalf'. I am the only one who does that on my social media! I won't comment on any blog that makes me sign in using another account. Sometimes, I have problems leaving messages on blogs hosted by Wordpress-they try to block me because I deleted my account with them but I will persevere as it only happens the odd time!
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 Welcome to autumn at The Book Cave! I love it when we reach September as the kids are well back at school, the weather starts cooling down and Winter is Coming! I just love these teo seasons as it means less things to do outside and more reading, blogging, TV watching and slothing! This week has been great for reading as I finish my Deep Blue Terror reads and get on to apocalypses! 4 short stories and 3 full length books isn't bad at all and I enjoyed every one of them which is a bonus! Mike Kraus is becoming a favourite, Rick Chesler writes good creature feature stories and I discovered good new authors in Jamie Hutchison and TR Schumer! I plan to keep watching shark, croc and sea monster films over the weekends of this month as I have a pile still to get through and I'm enjoying it! This will be Sharknado weekend!

 This was a restrained week for book buying but I have ordered a few of the books I've read recently in paperback. I expect them to come next week. I am getting a few books downloaded ready for horror month in October though! I've also downloaded a few parts of the Mike Kraus serial novels which I've enjoyed so now I need to patiently wait for the omnibuses being published! This week, trying new ones by authors I've liked along with horror grabs!

DOWNLOADS:





Chuckles Blogging World:
On the blogging side of things I'm getting annoyed with myself for my lack of effort. I'm late replying to comments, I'm not visiting as much as I'd like, no time for Pinterest, trying to do more on Twitter for booky things and still not getting my book reviews done. I managed one this week which is really bad so I need to get motivated to write and post them. Authors need my reviews! I'm doing well with film reviews though! As always, a link is provided for each blog post from last week to take you straight to anything you missed. Comments are moderated so it might take a day or two to see it on the blog! Check out my Next Week section to see what is coming next at the Book Cave...

Book Reviews: 
This week I really need to get my arse in gear and get some reviews done! I know I say it every week but I have lots of them to share and want to post them!

Sonya Bateman-Wrong Side Of Hell

Regular Features:
This week on Cover Love I featured Amber Garr, I brought you the best of the bloggyverse in Around The Blogs With Chuckles. Top Ten Tuesday continued with Hidden Gem Apocalypse Reads, Can't Wait Wednesday featured The Winds of Winter. No Chuckles Goes Sampling this week as I had no samples to fit my current Deep Blue Terror theme.

Chuckles Cover Love-Amber Garr

Around The Blogs With Chuckles

Top Ten Tuesday-Hidden Gems in Apocalypse Genre

Can't Wait Wednesday-The Winds of Winter

Discussion Posts: 
  Chuckles Chat looked at Author Newsletters, while my Game of Thrones Gossip looked at Samwell Tarly. I reviewed episode seven of Game of Thrones Season Seven-and the season is over!!! *SOBS*

Chuckles Chat-Author Newsletters

Game of Thrones Gossip-Samwell Tarly

Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 7

Film Reviews:
Finally I am getting time and motivation to sit down and get some films watched! My Deep Blue Terror viewing so far has been all about the sharks, crocodiles, piranha and alligators. Have you seen the films? Stop by and share your thoughts!

Jurassic Shark

Open Water

Open Water 2

Raiders of the Lost Shark

Sand Sharks

Special Features: 

Unique Blogger Award

Book Tags: 
 Four London Book Tag
 
 Book Title Book Tag

Book Challenge Updates:

Deep Blue Terror Update  
Sky Is Falling September!

My Goodreads Challenge total currently stands at 177/250. 

TBR total of books I own but haven't read yet stands at 822. *grimaces* My total went up as I bought a few books by authors I like and a few horror downloads for Horror Month in October. Not happy with myself for my total going up but I have to say the books look great!

Currently Reading/Next Up:  
I read the three books I planned to read-Sawfish, Red Swarm and Death Catch and liked them all! Then I read the first two parts in two serial novels. These are what I plan to read next:


Next Week On The Blog? 
Chuckles Cover Love features A & E Kirk, Top Ten Tuesday features DNFs this year, Can't Wait Wednesday features Nicholas Sansbury Smith, Game of Thrones Gossip features The Stark Bannermen, Chuckles Chat looks at Ads on Bought DVDs. There will also be a Game of Thrones special post reviewing Season 7 to enjoy, and some more blog posts I've enjoyed this week on my travels online! I'm hoping to have film and book reviews.

That's all for this week! Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to visit my blog and leave comments. You guys are great! 

 
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Book Title Book Tag


I found this book tag on Metaphors & Moonlight http://blog.kristenburns.com/book-title-book-tag/  and thought I'd give it a try. Originally posted by ReadingRealm on YouTube. You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUM4Ph0DnXI&feature=youtu.be


1) Title That's The Story Of Your Life
Adulthood is a myth. I never did grow up me!

2) Title That Describes Your Perfect Weekend
Big Mushy Happy Lump. That's me lying in my bed before the alarm goes off! I couldn't find a book called 'scoff a kebab' as that is my favourite part of the weekend!

 3) Title Of An Adventure You'd Like To Go On
Everest. I'd love to visit Base Camp on the south side then photograph Everest from the north! I'd love to do the same with K2 but it's a lot more dangerous to be near.

 4) Title You Want To Name Your Child
I hate kids and never wanted any so I'll go with dogs here. Woof. Always wanted to call a dog that but to give it that foreign exotic sounding name, I'd go for Woofski. I doubt I'll find THAT as a book title!!!

5) Title Of Your Ideal Job
The Godfather. I have such plans for The New Republic of Chuckles! Children will be made to have leads and muzzles on in public like dogs, cats will not get to shit in other people's gardens, yobs of every age will get locked up forever, people who park across your driveway will be tasered by the home owner, people holding up queues in supermarkets will be hog tied and returned to their cars, anyone breaking into your home can be clubbed over the head with The World of Ice & Fire or similar skull breaking book and anyone writing in the book margins/folding corners/breaking spines or other book abuse will have their books taken into (my) care! Kneel at my feet bitches!!!

6) Title Of A Place You'd Like To Visit
Jurassic World! Before the dinosaurs eat you of course!Also The Great Zoo of China could be interesting!

 7) Title Of Your Love Life
Dead as a Doornail. And I'm happy that way! I just can't be bothered with men getting in the way of my reading, blogging, Game of Thrones watching...

 8) Questions You Ask Yourself
The questions I ask myself are never going to be book titles! How about the 'Why should I bother...' books? It kind of sums up Sloth Chuckles.

 9) Title of A Kingdom You Want To Rule Or Name
The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros. See? I found a title with Westeros in it! Now I shall rule from the Iron Throne though I'll put a nice couple of Batwing cushions to soften it up. Maybe I could rule in a Laz-y-Boy? Hmmm, I'll do a post about my Kingdom!

 10) Title You'd Name Your Band
Swamp Monster Massacre. Crypto Squad. Planet Sasquatch.

Want to join in? You're tagged!
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Friday, 1 September 2017

Film Review: Sand Sharks


My first Deep Blue Terror weekend was a huge success with 7 films watched and 3 books! Last weekend I looked at five films. This weekend so far I've watched another three and plan the same for tonight. Here I share with you my thoughts on another one I looked at.

Starring Corin Nemec, Brooke Hogan, Vanessa Evigan, Gina Holden
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1844770/?ref_=nv_sr_1 

The local Mayor and his son are planning a Spring Break music festival to revamp the town fortunes but a family of sand sharks are attacking anyone who venture into the water or on the sand dunes.

Having watched Jurassic Shark and Raiders of the Lost Shark, I figured I'd seen the worst in the shark film genre but I hadn't. Sand Sharks may well be the worst film I have ever seen. Lets put aside the idea of sharks swimming through sand as obviously that is never going to happen but the issues with the film itself go way beyond suspending your disbelief.

The acting is super dire. I liked Corin Nemec in Stargate SG1 so I have no idea what possessed him to do this film. His character Jimmy is the most appalling ever and is so over the top manic moronic sexist that I wanted to kill him myself. The tech guy is that over-enthusiastic child at a birthday party type, the intern is the bimbo there to be Jimmy's sexual toy, we have the cliche bitch investor and the dumb Mayor and the grizzled shark hunter. The only real acting was done by the underrated Brooke Hogan who was also the shining light in 2 headed shark attack. Sadly she was more or less alone other than Vanessa Evigan who was decent enough. Everyone else sucked.

Then it goes into the dumb parody of Jaws with the angry residents upset about closing the beach, the Mayor saying only 24 hours, the Sheriff not agreeing to that and the grizzled fisherman offering to kill the shark. We get the Sheriff running down the beach with a gun to tackle a false alarm just like Jaws 2. We get the two men going out in the boat at night to get the bounty, the shark expert saying the shark caught was a shark not the shark, Jimmy screaming Jaws lines and those from other films for no reason...if it was meant to be funny in any way it just failed and if it was meant as a shout out to classic films it just looked pathetic. Oh and Jimmy lying on the beach doing sand angels as the sharks close in? Yeah great film.
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Chuckles Chat #32 Author Newsletters

Welcome to Chuckles Chat where great blogging minds unite to discuss the topics of the day mainly in the book and blogging world. I'll be sharing my thoughts on a topic and then inviting you all to share your thoughts. It's ok to disagree but PLEASE be respectful of each other's views! All of the comments on my blog are moderated and offensive posts ie racist, bigoted will not be published! 

This week I'm looking at author newsletters.

What is good about author newsletters? Well, if you choose to follow certain authors, you get first news about new releases, new series coming, publication dates, cover reveals and when their books are on a special offer on Amazon. But of course the main advantage is the free exclusive short stories for subscribers and the free books to welcome you!

My first experience of author newsletters was taking part in a few multi-author giveaways at the start of this year where you got free books from every author even if you didn't win the big prizes. My eyeballs lit up like flashing neon signs at the though of all these freebies if I just agreed to let the authors email me with news and gifts a few times a month. I figured it was just a few emails after all. Yeah but being crap at maths meant I vastly underestimated just how many emails would be coming! When the competition ended, the emails were coming up to ten a day with links to free books online and a welcome from countless authors, most who I had never heard of except seeing a book rec on Amazon for them maybe.

Freebies! GREAT! I was downloading everything offered, figuring I'd sort through it all later to see what I wanted to read but the emails kept coming! I'd get three from the same author in a week, offering MORE freebies! Links to bargain books in similar genres. Ads for places like Instafreebie and Genre Reader where there are piles of free books and samples! Urk! I was drowning in the things! It was good though and I knew I'd have to look through and delete the books I wasn't interested in reading ie some authors handed out free books in contemporary and urban fantasy. I love UF but the books that were contemporary, romance or YA with tropes I just deleted. I kept what I wanted to try.

Now, here are the down sides to that freebie fest. Firstly, just days after receiving the start of the emails from the authors in the giveaways, a second email from those authors arrived, saying they hope I enjoyed the book and could I please review. OK, Impatient Author People, how am I meant to read about 90 freebies in a week from all of you, huh? This impatience really did my nut in! These authors knew that they were part of a huge book giveaway yet a fair number expected you to have read and reviewed their book in days. Give me a chance already!!! Two even sent another reminder after a week to review it and they were unsubscribed from right away. I really hate authors who expect you to drop everything to read their stuff when they know other authors have sent you stuff too!

The next issue was finding time to start reading them. I selected the short prequels first to give me an idea of the author's storytelling, plot and character skills to see which series I would read on in and which for whatever reason were just not my thing. I found a few gems like Sarah Dalton's Mary Hades prequel-'My Daylight Monsters' which I really enjoyed. Others were not to my taste and I unsubscribed. 

The next down side became the frequency of emails from those I hadn't had a chance to read yet. I was getting 2 or 3 a week from a couple of authors, without freebies, just asking me to buy full price stuff on Amazon or telling me what they are doing this week. I got quickly bored by hearing about someones cats, children or dead relatives. Yes that got old real fast. Look Author Person, I signed up to be told news of your latest releases, the odd freebie...I don't care about your kids smearing chocolate on their face or something cute your cat did!!! I didn't sign up for that! I got one a few weeks back about a relative dying and under that were ads for books I might want to buy. Now that is tacky! There is also the fact that I signed up to YOUR newsletter. I expect to receive details of your books not constant ad emails for a pile of other authors who don't even write the same genre but I 'might like'. NO! That is junk mail! If I'm following a UF writer, I don't mind much if she recommends a few cheap UF books by other writers but I do object to a UF writer advertising romance, contemporary, erotica and other irrelevant stuff!   

Through newsletters and GenreReader/Instafreebie I stumbled across some authors that I want to read more of-Sarah Dalton, MV Stott, Mike Kraus, RL Blalock, Simone Pond, LC Hibbett, JA Cipriano, David Bussell...and a lot I haven't read yet that look good! Overall I think the newsletters are a good thing but authors need to reduce the amount of junk in what they send or they will lose subscribers. If an author gets the balance right, it can be a great thing for them and the reader!

Do you subscribe to author newsletters? What do you think of the content? Do you unsubscribe if the content isn't relevant or the emails are too frequent? 
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Sky Is Falling September!


Well, perhaps not literally! Anyone who spends time at my blog knows how much I love apocalypse and prepper fiction...and that is the theme for this month! EMPs, solar flares, zombies, flu pandemic, mutated monsters, terrorist attacks, natural disasters...I'm all over that stuff and I'll be reading lots of it this month! I'm selecting a pile of reads in different categories like series catchups (Franklin Horton, Matthew D Mark, JD McKenna), and new-to-me authors that have been on my shelf for a while. I expect to DNF a few as this genre can have some bad books so if that happens I might squeeze in a few more! Anyone else doing some apocalypse stuff?

These are some of the tempting sounding books on my list and I hope to read as many as I possibly can. I can't remember the length of the books I've chosen and couldn't be bothered checking but some might be shorter than usual which allows me to pack more in! And if I like a first in a series book, I might be tempted to read on...

1) Matthew D Mark-Dark Days Troubled Times
2) JD McKenna-Winterhaven #2
3) JD McKenna-Fractioned People #3
4) Robert Boren-The Plan
5) Nicholas Erik-Paradise
6) Bob Howard-Alive For Now
7) Kody Boye-First Light
8) KW Callahan-Downfall
9) WR Benton-Premonition of Death
10) EE Isherwood-Officer Down
11) Wilson Harp-EMP
12) CT Horner-Bug Out
13) Ralph V Gregorio-Live Free or Die Fighting
14) Murray McDonald-Trial
15) Ben Reeder-Inferno
16) Ben Reeder-Odyssey
17) Nevil Shute-On The Beach
18) Mike Kraus-Final Dawn
19) Mike Kraus-Archangel Rising
20) Mike Kraus-Surviving the Fall
21) Franklin Horton-Ashes of the Unspeakable #2
22) Franklin Horton-Legion of Despair #3
23) Franklin Horton-No Time for Mourning #4
24) Franklin Horton-Valley of Vengeance #5
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