The Literate Kitty

A long time ago in an itty-bitty town far, far away… there lived a bookish little girl, who’d been saddled by her peers with a (to her way of thinking) less-than-ideal nickname.  No cutesy monikers flattering personality, energy, or looks for her; instead, what she got stuck with alluded to her undeniable geekiness (as though the oversized glasses and ever-present stack of books didn’t already make things clear enough). Times have changed a lot since then, though (and hoo-boy, thank the Quantum field for that ). Now, it’s actually cool to let your geek flag fly… to show off your knowledge of anything and everything, to sport nerdy (though rarely huge, thank you, fashion gods) spectacles, mismatched patterns, and thrift shop finds, and to revel in pursuits requiring brainpower instead of brawn. Oh, and, to convene in unbelievably-ginormous numbers at yearly mega-conventions—aka “cons”—to celebrate things now part of pop culture which used to be seen as geeky or weird, from...

While (not-so-valiantly) battling through one of those especially-nasty, lingering cold-and-flu thingies a few months ago, I thought--not for the first time--how awesome life would be if only someone were to finally come up with an effective cure for the accursed ailment... not another useless “remedy”, but something that would either stop the stupid virus in its tracks or plain render us immune. And then I remembered the zombies... and promptly squashed my little daydream dead. (Hiking up my big-girl panties and toughing it out suddenly gained a whole lot of appeal, even if it meant "sleeping" upright on the sofa for three weeks straight.) If you’re saying, “Wait... what? ”, right now, hie yourself on over to these two reviews before reading any further:  here  and  here . Otherwise, it’s time for the thrilling conclusion to acclaimed sci-fi author Mira Grant’s zombie-riffic “Newsflesh” trilogy, Blackout .  ☠ ~ ☠ ~ ☠ ~ ☠   When last we left...

If someone asked you to make a shortlist of the very worst things that could ever happen, chances are, your list would be similar to a lot of other people’s. (Partly because we’re just not that original, but mostly because we’ve been exposed to the same TV, movies, and books as everyone else.) We have some pretty vivid images embedded in our brains of the Bad Stuff that lies in wait for us--images we share. Natural disasters would no doubt place highly on the list--tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes strike terror into the bravest among us. Fire is another truly fearsome, destructive force. And of course, the thought of all sorts of transportation accidents--something like a horrible high-speed car crash or the dreaded mid-air disaster--hit most of us in the gut.  Illness and disease would likewise find their way onto a lot of lists. We have only to see the devastating effects of cancer or another debilitating disease, to have an unholy terror of it someday striking close to ho...

Sometimes, you’re just not prepared for something. It might be a movie you’d eagerly been anticipating, that you were so sure--judging by the trailers you’d been bombarded with for several months--would be one (awesomely-amazing) thing, only to find that it turned out to be something entirely different (in other words, a victim of major suckage).  Or, maybe you’d long fantasized about visiting a certain restaurant (store, country, etc.), only to find the experience nothing like you’d envisioned, at all. (Bad food, or service, or products, or maybe nasty people and poor sanitation. Eek!)  You get the idea, right? Whenever you’re let down by the anticipated whatever , the disappointment is awful.  Every once in awhile, though, something manages to exceed all your expectations, proving to be far better than you'd even hoped. So, with that in mind, let me start by saying that I was totally unprepared for Feed .  Not that there was ever any serious doubt that I’d get into...