The debut novel from Christopher Ransom,
The
Birthing House, is quite a blend
of tension, suspense, horror, and mystery. But mostly horror. For a debut
novel, it is quite good but, at times, difficult to follow.
Conrad Harrison heads out of Chicago,
travelling the wrong direction, and finds himself in Black Earth, Wisconsin.
It is there that he finds a stately old home that he absolutely must buy.
Without talking to his wife, he impulsively purchases the house and then
informs her of the purchase. The house feels right, as it was once a "birthing
house," where women would come from around the area to have their
babies. He sees this as a way to have a new beginning. Conrad proceeds
to move his wife and two dogs from California to Wisconsin. In addition
to dealing with the change in weather, recreational and entertainment opportunities,
and poor cell service, Conrad and Jo are trying to mend their relationship
and in his mind, this new house, this birthing house, will provide the
basis for a new beginning for the couple. That is made more difficult when
Jo accepts an eight week job in Detroit. Left alone, Conrad discovers that
the old house has some secrets - dark, terrible secrets. During his time
alone in his new home, Conrad comes to find that The Birthing House wants
something from him.
This is a very good debut novel from
Ransom. He builds the suspense like a seasoned author; Conrad keeps hearing
a newborn's cries, he sees shadowy figures in the house and in the yard,
and notices his wife in a photo album that came with the house. This is
a seriously creepy novel. Further, Ransom has created some very good characters,
and provides enough history for each that their motivations are plausible.
The novel moves quickly, drawing you into Conrad's world, which seems to
be bordering on madness. The early chapters are exceptional, however the
final few left me puzzled. While the novel seemed to be moving toward a
logical and satisfying conclusion, it left with me feeling as though I
missed something. Rereading the final chapters did not help, Ransom
seems to have purposely created a sleight of hand as I was left wondering
how the we came to that ending. It did not appear to make much sense. Even
with that, you can see that Ransom is an author that deserves your attention
and one that has a lot of potential.
A Dumb Thing That Gets Me Emotional - Marine Corps Advertising
Mon, Mar 15th 2010 4:00p Gregg Eldred For the most part, a lot of advertising just flows over me without eliciting a response. However, when I see an ad for the Marine Corps, there is a response, usually a very emotional one. Sitting in a semi-darkened movie theatre this weekend with family, Number One Son sitting next to me, this ad appeared on the screen:
Green Zone isn't supposed to be a tear jerker, but it started out that way. *sigh* [read] Keywords: application
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Selecting the Right Smartphone - Flowchart
Mon, Mar 15th 2010 11:50a Gregg Eldred After reading Guy Wakely's post concerning the selection of a new smartphone, I found this flowchart that may provide some assistance. Funny, but Palm is not represented. [read] Keywords:
150
ITWire: Big Lego Blackberry built
Sun, Mar 14th 2010 11:50a Gregg Eldred Lego artist/sculpter/genius Nathan Sawaya has created the ultimate in geek toys, a giant Lego RIM Blackberry Tour 9360 complete with working LCD screen. The 'artwork' stands at about 1.5 metres high and follows one of his previous projects, a similarly giant Lego iPhone. Clearly Sawaya has no particular loyalty to either.
More > The photo accompanying the article: [read] Keywords: blackberry
iphone
rim
IBM Whitepaper: Administering IBM Lotus Domino 8.5 servers for beginners
Thu, Mar 11th 2010 10:40p Gregg Eldred IBM Lotus has published a whitepaper on administering Domino 8.5. From the abstract:
This white paper provides a comprehensive overview of how to administer IBM Lotus® Domino®, explaining the fundamental components and terminology so that new administrators can feel familiar with the product. Specifically, we explain key features and functionalities such as the Notes.ini file, the Data Directory, IDs, server commands and documents, and server activities. Also included are discussions of [read] Keywords: admin
administration
domino
ibm
lotus
notes
server
Redbook: Best Practices for Building Web Applications for Domino 8.5.1
Tue, Mar 9th 2010 11:00p Gregg Eldred This IBM Redbooks wiki has the following objectives:
Provide guidance on Best Practices for Domino Web Development, with emphasis on the new XPages design element. This wiki introduces the key new features of XPages and discusses how and why these features are meaningful within the context of Domino Web Development.
Provide hands-on tutorials and sample code, which give you the opportunity to work with XPages and to understand the improvements in Domino 8.5 Web application development. As a fou [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
ldd
lotus
notes
xpages application
applications
development
wiki
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The Husband Store
Tue, Mar 9th 2010 10:10p Gregg Eldred A store that sells new husbands has opened in New York City , where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:
You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights. The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!
So, a woman goes to t [read] Keywords:
266
PCQuest: Preview: Lotus Notes/Domino vs MS Exchange/Outlook 2010
Mon, Mar 8th 2010 1:00p Gregg Eldred The first of several installments from PCQuest where they compare and contrast IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5 and Microsoft Exchange and Outlook 2010 has been published. The initial article looks at licensing and a high level view of features.
Email servers have evolved considerably over the years. From being basic solutions that send/receive emails, they've become full-fledged platforms that enable unified communication in an enterprise, allow social networking, and even enable workflow auto [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
notes
email
enterprise
exchange
exchange
microsoft
networking
outlook
server
