Fortissimo

This is actually for my CSE course, supposed to 'Design and creat a web page to show a list of one of the following (I got Books checked on my list) You should have at least 5 items in your list.'

So. Here goes.

Just for the record, these 5 books I'm about to list and review are just off the top of my head, not like the all time best sellers or anything. Just stuff that I like.

Harry Potter Series
JK Rowling

So much controversy, but why? Probably because the Harry Potter series makes magic so real that we all start to believe in it. It can't be that far away when the hero of the story is a British teenage boy... right?

No not really.

From a 1+cm thick book for the first one, to an almost 4cm thick book for the latest, author JK Rowling undoubtedly put herself under pressure when the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire came out. Fans from then on expected a thicker book each time, and though Rowling refused to be pressured by that, fans were not disappointed with the thickness of the 6th book, only 20 or so pages less than the previous book.

It has been noted that compared to Book 4, Books 5 and 6 have become increasingly draggy in pace. However the action is still delivered with well packed punches, and we are anticipated the release of the 7th book in the summer of 2007 - one year from now.

Artemis Fowl
Eoin Colfer

Possible rival of the Harry Potter series, Artemis Fowl is a skillful combination of magic and technology. Devices such as sonic grenades and ear plugs that shut sound off only when it exceeds a certain decibel are not uncommon. Except of course, the main character is a teenage evil mastermind, who we all thinks turn good at the supposed end of the series (third book), but that ends with a cliffhanger where he plots revenge on whoever erased his memories (a fairy did at his request). The latest book, however, has generated negative comments. Poor author had alot to live up to.

The Giver
Lois Lowry

A Utopia book about a society where everyone has been standardized. No one has known color, nor war, nor happiness, nor snow, rain, or sun. No one except one, known as the Receiver. The Receiver is like a walking encyclopaedia, with all the memories of the Old World, things people will never experience. This novel is the story of the community picking a new Receiver, and the old Receiver now becoming the Giver, transferring his vast wealth of memories, both good and bad, to the new Receiver. And as the Receiver learns of the joys and grief of the Old World, he decides to run away in search of a better place to live.

The Chrysalids
John Wyndham

Another futuristic book, quite like a 1950s version of X-Men. Set in an implied aftermath of a nuclear blast (I don't remember it explicitly mentioned but it was mentioned that the grounds for a great radius was covered in black glass, which in turn one infers that it was melted sand from the immense heat of the blast.

Mutations were banished unforgivingly, because the new society was extremely religious and believed that mutations were evil. What the father of the protagonist doesn't know is that his own son was a mutant - not a physical one, but a telepathist. When his sister is born, it is discovered that she had psychic powers far beyond the capabilities of the protagonist or his psychic friends, and they use her strong signals to communicate with people in a nearby civilization to call for help as the anti-mutant task force closes in on them.

And Then There Were None (aka Ten Little Indians)
Agatha Christie

To me this book from the Queen of Crime is the epitome of her mastery of crime fiction. Eight guests are invited to spend a weekend at a mansion on a small island. After their first dinner there, a gramophone record is played, announcing to the eight guests and the two servants what crimes they were guilty of and got away with. Soon after, the ten people started dying one by one, each death a resemblance to the deaths described by a poem on the wall, entitled Ten Little Indians. And when all had died, who was the killer who drew them here? In a nailbiting climax, Agatha Christie simply pulls one bolt out, and lets logic come crashing down on you.