Ever since I started this website, I have been thinking of a way to make not only the reading list, but also the review process interesting for the visitors to read. I was milling it over one night while I was reading the Twilight Guy website (remember him ?) and I had a brainwave.

As opposed to writing a review on every book I read (…believe me you don’t want me to, there are too many), I will keep the mundane thoughts to myself and just keep you updated on what I am reading through the reading lists. Select books however, I will enter into my new segment; the Read-through review.

The Read-through review will be an on-going write-as-I-read reviewing process in which I will read a chapter and immediately post about that one chapter. Hopefully in this way, you as readers will follow me through the process. And credit where credit is due, this is the whole premise of the Twilight Guy website, only unlike him I will not restrict myself to one author and one series by that author.

Perhaps, as readers, you could pick the book up with me and see where I have different impression than you, or if you already have read the book, you might read my failing prognostications as they develop and pick up on the plot in the book that sends me amiss. Which is bound to happen often !

Anyway, I am planning to round-off any Read-through review with an interview with the corresponding author in case he or she is willing. Mostly, I will choose new or unread books by authors that I am already familiar with, so that I will have some context from previous work for the interview. But of course during the read I hope to pick up a lot of questions pertaining to the book under Read-through review to spice up the conversation.

When I start a review, I hope to post a chapter about every week running the length of the book. For longer books, I might post more often. For in the case of, say one of Ms. Meyer’s lengthy works, a chapter per week will result in one book a year. And that’s just a bit too hefty a time.

Well, the first up for Read-through…. you guessed it;
Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book !

PS. Have I plugged the Twilight Guy enough ?

What I had forgotten and should have known is that on the cover, the title of Bran Hambric is written with a crescent moon as the dash in the letter a of Bran. This is a nice complement to the crescent moon necklace that Bran is holding in his hand. I have commented the day before yesterday that the necklace is important, but now that I see the whole image I wonder whether the necklace is Bran’s or someone else’s. Mind you… I haven’t read the first four chapters of the book yet that Kaleb has made available on his site and the answer might just be in there. But the way Bran is holding the necklace suggests that either it isn’t his and he just took it from someone or somewhere, or the necklace is his, but he is afraid to lose it when he wears it around his neck or have it in his pocket. Either way, the necklace is important !

Then the surroundings. By the discolouration of green and orange, I still think Bran is at a warehouse, with big metal doors behind him. Although it might also be an artists’ impression of a big glass shop front. It is a fairly narrow alley, though, rather than a street and that is not the most typical place for a shop front.

Other than that, the pose in which Bran is standing we can now clearly see that he is trying to get away from the person in the background. The way Bran is angled towards the shape suggests that Bran is trying to correct for overbalancing while in movement. So either Bran ran into that alleyway and tries to turn the other direction when he sees the shape further down or he ended in that position of adjustment by jumping down off of or out of the building facing us and starts to move away when he lands on the pavement. Either way, very dynamic pose of Bran’s !

I really like the cover art for Bran Hambric’s first forage into the world and am very impressed with Brandon Dorman’s style. And although I hope Kaleb will be a TwiCrit forever, I can’t wait to see whether my analysis of Bran’s art corresponds to what awaits us inside the cover.

In comparison to yesterday’s snippet, this newly shown shard of cover artwork don’t spoil much more. Although I’m not expecting any major surprises, the rest of the artwork will be revealed tomorrow.

A while ago Kaleb told us that Brandon Dorman was going to be illustrating The Farfield Curse. Dorman is mostly known for his work on the Goosebumps series.

After showing us the first magnificent drawing by Dorman,

Kaleb today revealed the partially obscured cover art for The Farfield Curse;

I have the preview chapters that were graciously made available by Kaleb, but I haven’t read them yet, because I really would rather just sink in my comfy chair with the book when it comes out. Anticipation… it can kill. But the glimpse of cover art is a nice piece of the puzzle that is the novel waiting to be published.

When looking closely at the partially obscured cover art, my guess is – and it’s an obvious one – that the main eye catcher is Bran in front of a warehouse, probably the same warehouse he is waiting on top of at the start of the book. In this drawing, Bran is holding a crescent necklace. The same crescent that has been a teaser for the book ever since the start of Bran’s steps into the open. The crescent necklace is important.

In the back, there is also a hooded man in a trench coat or cape of some sort. If this art represents part of the opening sequence of the book, it could be the banker or the burglar. I would say burglar by the way he is dressed. So the question that this drawing raises is, is Bran chasing the man or running from him ? For the moment, I would say running… and that would make sense if it’s the burglar who is after Bran.

The burglar is walking towards two lights. Car headlights ? Is it the man’s car ? Or someone elses ? Is the man alone in the background or has someone in the car already spotted Bran ?

Looks like another gorgeous piece of artwork and a nice tantalising way to reveal it. Stay tuned for more artwork of Bran Hambric tomorrow.

Have you met Twilight Guy ?

Most important question I think is; do you even know what Twilight is ?

If you do you’re probably a teenage girl with an infatuation for Edward. Or a Twilight Mom happy to swoon back to her younger days…

I am in the second category.

Twilight Guy is Kaleb Nation. College undergrad, radio show host, writer, but most importantly a guy. A guy who at college was intrigued by the fact that all the girls seemed to hunger after Edward, whoever he may be. Every girl seemed to be convinced that boys like Edward aren’t made anymore and that their next boyfriend’d better sparkle.

Twilight Guy soon discovered the source of all the commotion, Twilight. Now he proclaims;

Attention: This is not really a Twilight fansite.

I cannot honestly be called a Twilighter yet. This site is about me reading the books for the first time. I am not a ‘Twi-hard’ or any other name for the fans of Stephenie Meyer. However, I am a reader. And I am a guy. I may be one of the first guys to read Twilight and actually admit it. But I’m only doing it as research and not because I’m curious.

At least, that’s my alibi.

- Kaleb

Well… we’ll see about that !

No, seriously. Kaleb has been sucked into the whole Twilight scene. He started in Twilight and is publicly reading the series for the first time. While he reads chapter by chapter and posts his (more often than not hilarious, due to his photoshop-ed commentary,) research conclusions on his blog, Kaleb also provides a soap box to other guys to proclaim their Twilight fandom. Naturally the soap box comes with option for anonymity if desired. And believe me there are some endearing stories of reluctant guys out there.

Kaleb would have held onto his credibility as an objective researcher if he’d stopped after Twilight. But no, he’s onto New Moon now.

What can we say…. I wish my guy was a Twilight Guy !

Now go read his blog, really…
it’s hilarious….

Now !