Welcome to my second Game of Thrones 3D puzzle! This time I'm constructing the Red Keep and I'm going to do more of a step by step set of posts to give you a better idea of how it goes together, as it is hard to explain clearly! I started by putting the base of the puzzle together yesterday.
This is the unpacking of the flat sheets that every part of the puzzle is on. Every bit here is clearly numbered and you just press each piece gently around all its edges and it pops out, ready to use.
Next I worked on each of the four parts of the base which when glued together form one large piece. This is the first part. The greenish ground print piece attaches to a thin brown rim piece, (which is seen when looking at the second photo) giving it the 3D shape for the base. On the underside of the base, I attach the support struts. You can see the strut fully in the second photo and the upper part (the tabs) slightly protruding on the first photo. This base feels pretty solid compared to Winterfell but I'll be using glue to give it that extra support.
I did the same for each of the other three parts and this is how they looked, front and back, after being constructed and glued.
Next it was time to join two of the parts together to form one half of the base, and join the other two parts together for the second piece which was pretty straightforward. You can clearly see the struts joining parts one and two for stability and the same with parts three and four. This leaves the two parts ready to join as one base.
I then quickly joined the two pieces together to complete the base. This part took seconds as it was easy to see where the attachments were. Now we have our completed base! In the second photo I tilted the base a bit to give the better idea of the 3D element to it.
There we have the completed base! I glued it for that added bit of stability but it feels pretty solid and I'm ready to start constructing the actual buildings now, which will be fun! I'll update again when I do the next bit, as I'm in no real hurry to finish the project and will work on it depending on time and mood!
We always love to try a new author especially in our favourite genres, don't we! Well over the last couple of years I've seen new horror, apocalypse, thriller, SF and urban fantasy authors being talked about and recommended, and it is way past time that I tried a few of them. I decided to put together this list of some of the newer authors I've heard about, and by the end of this year I hope to have tried at least a few of them.
Which book by each of these authors would you most recommend as a starting point for me? Which authors did you like or were disappointed by? Which books by the author did you like or dislike? Which are you also planning to try for the first time?
HORROR/THRILLER
1) Christopher Artinian
2) Russ Elliott
3) Michael Cole
4) John L Campbell
5) Stuart Kenyon
7) Gregory Bastianelli
8) Jonathan Janz
9) Grady Hendrix
10) TW Gallier
11) Jeff DeGordick
12) Ronald Malfi
13) Michael McBride
14) Michael Laimo
15) Edward J McFadden
16) Anthony J Melchiorri
17) David Meyer
18) Tim Miller
19) Lee Mountford
20) Jason Parent
21) Dan Padavona
22) Gord Rollo
23) Cameron Roubique
24) David A Simpson
MYSTERY/THRILLER/ADVENTURE
1) Mae Clair
2) MW Craven
3) Michael Dobbs
4) Lisa Jewell
5) Shari Lapena
6) Karen McManus
7) Gretchen McNeil
8) Richard Jay Parker
9) James Rollins
APOCALYPSE
1) Walt Browning
2) KM Fawkes
3) Rob Lopez
4) William Oday
5) Ryan Schow
6) AJ Sikes
7) Gene Skellig
8) Adrian J Smith
9) Nicole Stuart
10) Keith Taylor
11) Terry Tyler
12) Tony Urban
13) Ryan Westfield
14) John Winchester
SF/DYSTOPIA
1) Rob Boffard
2) Becky Chambers
3) RR Haywood
4) Mur Lafferty
URBAN FANTASY
1) Meg Collett
2) Stephanie Foxe
3) Ani Gonzalez
4) John P Logsdon
5) Annette Marie
6) Steve McHugh
FANTASY
1) Nicholas Eames
2) Victor Milan
3) Angus Watson
NON FICTION
1) Allie Brosh
2) Jenny Lawson
3) Michael Crick
4) Katie Nicholl
5) Penny Junor
6) Rosa Prince
7) Anthony Seldon
8) Tim Shipman
9) Sally Beddell Smith
10) Michael Wolff
STEAMPUNK/HISTORICAL
1) Heather Blackwood
2) Viola Carr
3) Theodora Goss
4) Dinah Lampitt
5) VE Lynne
5) Katherine Longshore
Let me introduce Dillon, who is ready for any pandemic coming! He's been watching the news with worry and I'm trying to calm my poor wee boy! It doesn't help him when I'm sneezing all over the place! Just a minor cold though, nothing serious and I'm feeling fine.
I've been watching with horror the ongoing drama on board that cruise ship Diamond Princess-a floating petri dish if ever I saw one. The passengers are all talking about the dreadful failure of quarantine, and crew spreading the infection around the ship. I was following the videos of that American couple Paul and Cheryl Molesky-does anyone know if they are ok? I last saw the couple on the evacuation flight but I've heard nothing since. There was a US man who was afraid to leave the ship because of the quarantine arrangements on the flight, an Australian man who tested positive hours before leaving and has been seperated from his wife now, Briton Alan Steele, who recovered from the virus and was released, and the British couples like David and Sally Abel, and Alan Sandford and his wife, who have been sharing their videos online. I feel like I know them all personally and hope they all get through this ok.
The quarantine is a joke. Watching the passengers stroll along the deck so close to each other with only a flimsy mask on, all touching the same ship's rail as they go. Seeing them all out on their balconies without masks. People coming into contact with those bringing the meals each day. It sounded like there was contact during the exchange of trays three times a day. Were the trays properly scrubbed? Were the crew regularly changing their gloves as they moved from cabin to cabin? What precautions were those making the food taking? Were utensils, plates and trays being scrubbed before re-use? Were the crew using a hand sanitiser? Were the passengers issued any? Were the crew regularly tested? Are the testers following the quarantine or spreading it? I was pretty concerned by what I saw and my dad and I agreed that this would become a disaster and it has.
Having read all these prepper and apocalypse books I have my own idea of what quarantine should be. First, if the cabins have kettles, I'd be bringing the passengers things like packet pasta, MREs, pot noodles, packet soup, extra tea and coffee sachets, energy drinks, boil in the bag meals-things they can prepare themselves in their cabin for safety, along with bottled water and food pre-wrapped before coming onto the ship that can have the packaging wiped down ie pre-wrapped fruit, bottles of water, biscuits and crackers, wax wrapped cheese, chocolate bars, you get the idea? If the rooms have microwaves it would be a supply of ready meals. Empty trays should be put outside the cabin for collection and taken away without contact. Trays with food should be properly scrubbed, staff changing gloves for each cabin, and food left outside the cabin for the passengers to collect and take inside. If I was on that ship, I would be refusing all but essential human contact and I would be staying in my cabin and avoiding all other passengers and crew to give myself the best chance of being safe.
My other concern is the haphazard end of the quarantine. Nations are rescuing their people and taking them back to a proper quarantine so there should be no further spread amongst those people back in the USA, Australia, UK etc. Several US citizens on their rescue flight home developed coronavirus symptoms as they travelled-so yesterday I watched in alarm as the Japanese were just released from the ship with no two week proper quarantine following like other countries, to make their own way home on public transport! That is very worrying for anyone out and about in Japan! If any of those people caught the virus AFTER their final testing, in the several days waiting for the results, they may have spread that virus everywhere in the area upon their release. And the media had no masks on when interviewing these people! I was watching pretty much in horror!
I do have a few questions. Why were there no WHO experts directing operations on the ship to ensure full successful quarantine instead of untrained crew doing it? Why did these rescue flights not extract passengers home when there were only a couple of cases on the ship, like the rescue flights from Wuhan? During this window, most people were not infected and it would have been better to get them home for quarantine or treatment rather than let them wait and catch the virus as quarantine failed.
Watching this drama unfold, it makes me want to avoid any kind of holiday on a confined ship or river boat! Get well soon everyone.
As part of the Puppy Love Challenge, Barb over at http://bookertsfarm.blogspot.com/ has set up a fictional dog related book tag for everyone to take part in. You don't need to do the challenge to take part in the tag!
1) Clifford-The longest book you've read
I'm pretty sure that my longest book read was the full copy of The Stand! I first read this in my student days and re-read it a few times. It's been many years since I read it though.
2) Scooby Doo-Favourite mystery book/series
I'm not really one for crime or mystery books but I really enjoyed the first two Lincoln Rhyme books. They were different from the usual police procedure books I'd read and I really want to read the rest of the series.
3) Peabody-Favourite non fiction book
I do enjoy a lot of non fiction so picking one is really tough.I love so many but I'm narrowing it down into three categories of non fiction that I love-mountain disasters, political and true life memoirs.
4) Astro-Favourite science fiction book
I don't read a ton of SF books but there are a few that I've really enjoyed. Murderbot, Ready Player One, Future Shock, Wolf by Wolf, The Testing, Luna, Jurassic Park...but I have to go with this.
5) Snoopy-Favourite graphic novel
I don't read graphic books due to price and barely having room for the books I have, never mind branching out into other types of reading materials. I'm going to go with the only book I kept from my childhood which is a picture book for kids.
6) Goofy-Book or characters that annoy you
I'm really annoyed by whiny, crying, bitching, useless, pathetic female MC's, arrogant, violent, sexist, macho male MC's, racist or moronic small town cops, mean schoolkids, characters that are cruel to animals, alcoholic and junkie MC's, religious cults, teenage soulmates, characters who spend the whole book jumping into bed with everyone in sight, paedophiles, idiots...so you can see why I'm not selecting any particular book!
7) Jake-Favourite childhood book
I was a big fan of Enid Blyton and Judy Blume as a kid and also read a lot of horse related stories like The Black Stallion.
8) Odie-Favourite sidekick
Again, there are lots! I like a book with a sidekick or group of people with different skills helping the MC. These are a few of my favourites.
9) Bolt-A fast read
I'm a fast reader anyway so I tend to read everything at speed! I like a good thrilling creature feature book that I can get through in a night, unputdownable apocalypse reads and pageturning horror.
10) Max-Favourite holiday read
I don't have specific holiday reads. I just read what I want when I feel like it, based purely on my mood.
There was absolutely
nothing special about Scott. He was just an ordinary guy living in the
suburbs with a typical family and a dog named Duke. If anything set Scott
apart from everybody else, it was his extraordinary luck. It was that
luck that helped him stumble across the cryptic notes of a mysterious
missing professor. The discovery haunted
Scott, and drove him to stake everything he had on building a safe place
to go when disaster struck. And on the day solar storms destroyed all
technology on earth, he was ready. His group of six assembled and
evacuated the chaotic city of San Antonio, and moved ninety miles away.
They thought they were safe. But the world was different now. And
nothing was certain anymore.
Book two, “After the
Dust Settled,” finds the group struggling with a new reality in a vastly
changed world. Nothing about the new world was going to be easy.
Despite their best planning, life keeps throwing them curveballs. Their
number has grown. And some of the group has secrets they’re keeping. The world is now a vicious and dangerous place. The city of San Antonio is slowly dying. The once proud jewel of South
Texas becomes a city of abandoned cars and piles of bones. And a plague.
But San Antonio keeps calling them back. And each time is a dangerous new adventure.
My Review:
The group are relieved to have made it safely to the compound without incident but now the work has to begin. Security cameras must be set up, security watches established, seeds planted in the fields, getting the rabbits breeding for food, and unpacking all the equipment that they had protected from the solar flare. It is hard work but it needs to be done before refugees start heading their way from San Antonio when the food supplies run out. Everyone is expected to pitch in and do their bit to get the compound fully functional and protected.
Scott is concerned about their neighbour Tom living on his own at his farm and tries to persuade him to come and live in the safety of the compound with the group. Tom is reluctant to give up his independence but a run in with some bad guys while he is on a supply run could change matters. Scott also makes contact with a cop in San Antonio and tries to help John with advice on how to get some of the cars up and running again, allowing John and his fellow officers to start getting some law and order back onto the streets again. John's group are struggling to provide food for all the survivors in the city and Scott wants to grow an extra crop to send to his new friend but getting the food to them could mean a dangerous supply run into the city which could put them at risk.
Another problem is soon about to hit San Antonio and cause problems for John's group and his attempts to get the city back on it's feet. The high number of dead bodies in the streets and houses makes it hard to safely dispose of them. Now disease is starting to claim the lives of survivors and medicine is becoming hard to come by. Tom knows of a pharmacy in a nearby town and decides to go on a one man mission to try and trade food for medicine but will the people in the town decide to shoot first and ask questions later or could this be a new set of allies? And if Tom can get the medicine, how is he going to get it safely to San Antonio when more and more people are moving out of the city looking for food and supplies? The prospect of two dangerous trips out of the compound has everyone on edge.
Things at the compound fall into a routine but nothing was ever going to be easy. The work on the crop planting and harvesting is backbreaking as it has to mostly be done by hand, and everyone is suffering. Jordan decides to break the rules and his parent's trust by sleeping with Sara when their attention is elsewhere. Linda and Tom develop their own relationship while Zach moans that he is the only one without a partner. Sara decides it is time to tell everyone her secret after Scott and Tom decide to try and look for her parents to bring them back to the compound. However it is the other secret that she now has which is going to be more difficult to deal with and help may be required.
On the dog side of things, Duke arrives at the compound with his human family to discover that he now has Duchess for company and it isn't long before puppies are on the agenda. I can confirm that Duke and Duchess and their puppies all survive this book, safe and healthy. Tom's dog also survives the book ok though his name has changed from Red in book one, to Blue in book two which is a bit annoying!
Overall this was another solid story as the group settle down into their new routine and deal with a few teething problems. I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next to all of the characters and I hope the dogs continue to be safe!
Read February 2020
4 stars.
