SPOILER ALERT

If you haven’t read the book yet, I do go into the ending in this piece so if you don’t want to know how Uglies ends, move along now.

Uglies is the first book in a four book series by Scott Westerfeld. It takes us into the future where society as we know it has disentegrated and our society as we live today is referred to as The Rusties.

Within this new world there are several divides. Ugly town, Pretty Town and the authoritative City which also encompasses Special Circumstances, a secret service of the new world.

The premise of the book is that when everyone turns sixteen they are given an operation which transforms them into a Pretty, someone who is of perfect dimension, based on their biology, so everyone is different, yet the same as they are given the exact proportions of what is determined to be pretty by the order of the City surgeons.

We meet Tally gate crashing a Pretty party to visit her newly Pretty childhood friend Peris. He has settled into life in Continue reading 'Uglies Scott Westerfeld'»

The time for Bella’s change into a vampire draws nearer with her graduation only a few weeks away. This news devastates Jacob, who has now imprinted on Bella as his life partner. (editors note this is what I thought while reading but was proved wrong later on in the series he is actually only madly in love with her) Edward will only change Bella if she is married to him.

Meanwhile, Victoria is still tracking Bella and the wereworlves and vampires have a nasty exchange in a border incident while both sides were trying to catch Victoria.

Seattle is now the scene of massacre as new vampires wreak havoc on the city, killing at random. The Cullens are watching this carefully and fear Volturi intervention.

A mysterious vampire visitor to Bella’s room has everyone on edge as it is a new scent. Someone is making more vampires without supervision and the problem is escallating.

Jacob and Bella’s relationship intensifies as she realises that she is also in love with him, but not as strongly as she is with Edward.

Alice finally has a vision of what is to come, a swarm of new vampires are coming to attack the town, led by Victoria, to kill Bella.  The Cullens are outnumbered and enter into an alliance with the werewolves whose pack numbers are now Continue reading 'Eclipse Stephanie Meyer Cliff Notes'»

Ralph Piggy and Jack are the key characters. A group of boys are left stranded on an island after a plane crash.The conch shellis used as a signal to call all survivors and becomes the symbol of control.

Ralph is made leader and the goal of the group is to have fun and keep a signal fire burning for rescue. They use Piggy’s glasses to light it.

Jack begins to hunt for food and forms another group of boys which eventually separate and form another tribe.

This is the group that becomes more savage and eventually kill another boy.

Jack’s tribe steal Piggy’s glasses to take control of fire, kill Piggy in an accident and capture the last two remaining members of Ralph’s tribe. They set the island alight with fire searching for Ralph to capture him and the fire is seen by a passing ship and the boys are rescued.

Lord of the Flies is a microcosm of society and man with the key themes being:
Conch represents law and order, smoke symbolises hope, glasses represent voice of reason.

Golding’s main theme was to trace the problems of society on the sins of man. Anarchy defeats order and this is the underlying belief that Golding had about society. Law and order is a tenuous calm at best.

Lord of the Flies is considered a classic in much the way that Shakespeare is, in that human nature has not changed, and in the Flies it reduces society onto a small island where all the issues that man faces were brought to the forefront.

It has been continually debated for nearly 60 years and is still studied in schools.

I’ve finished and I’m amazed.

Firstly I think Joel Comm has totally missed his calling and should just concentrate on writing.  He has a real gift and this book is an excellent story, intermingling facts with just enough story to create a rich text.

There is so much information jam packed within the stories of how famous internet marketers like John Reese, Rich Schefren, Rosalind Gardiner, Yanik Silver, Jay Abrahams and hundreds more, all got started and what they are most remembered for.

All of the marketer’s personal stories are overlayed upon the history of how the internet even came to be and what it actually began as and what it has evolved into, to date.

To date being the operative phrase and conclusion of the book as Joel Comm tries to look into the future to see where the next big thing will be.

He finishes off by profiling a story of an Iranian girl, Ladan Lashkari, borrowed from Eric Holmlund’s blog. The cliff note is she doesn’t have one advantage that we do but is still managing to earn $US6,300 a month.

The story from all of these marketers is that they laser focused on one thing or one niche or one topic that they knew and took it from there.  What they learned from their first experiences they took to their second and so on.

So even though what I know is not savory, I also know there’s a huge and growing market for it so I’m taking all the tips I learned and going forward with it.

History is important.  To know where something has come from, you can judge where it may lead.  Joel Comm has given an excellent, and relatively concise history of who, what, when and where and wrapped it in entertaining ditties about the personal struggles of the big guys.

Fantastic and highly recommended read for anyone, but EVERYONE who is even THINKING of starting an online business.

Joel, can we please have more books?  You are a fantastic writer. Well done mate.

Kath