A Dog's Journey

This book starts out with us meeting Buddy. He is a self proclaimed good dog. His previous master Ethan has died. He takes a liking to Ethan's granddaughter Clarity, who goes by the nickname CJ. Unfortunately Buddy dies before CJ grows up.

Miraculously, Buddy is reborn into another puppy's body. It is a different breed of dog. Somehow he is able to find CJ and become one of her pets. CJ has a lot of problems. She has an abusive mother. She seems to date all the wrong boys, which causes problems with the law.

Buddy dies a few more times in this book. However he keeps finding a way to reunite with CJ in his reincarnated puppy bodies. Eventually CJ gets old, sick, and dies herself. Buddy goes on. He has found his purpose. He is there to help people (and be a good dog).

This novel is by W. Bruce Cameron, who happens to be the author for the Repo Man series of books I like.

The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man

I picked up this book at a bargain bin in a bookstore. I think I had read a free intro on Kindle before. This book is about two characters. First we have Ruddy. He is a repo man. He is also a bouncer at his sister's bar and grill. Then we have Alan. Alan dies in the prologue of the book. He then proceeds to be a voice in Ruddy's brain.

Ruddy used to be a promising football star. Everyone though he would make it big. Then a car accident and the death of a girl in his car changed everything. He served time in prison, during which his parents died. Now he lives a simple life.

Ruddy's best friend Jimmy has some checks mysteriously mailed to him. Since Jimmy is a simpleton, he tries to cash the checks. Of course they bounce. Ruddy takes on the case to figure out who would be sending Jimmy bad checks. Ruddy also gets involved in solving Alan's murder.

Along the way, Ruddy meets a girl he likes who, unbeknownst to Ruddy, is Alan's daughter. Ruddy's sister gets involved with Kermit, who devises a plan to get the bar back into a profitable state. You know this plan backfires. The future of the bar is in peril. Ruddy is caught in between.

Highly entertaining book. I have already ordered the sequel. I also just bought another book by this author. I will post a review on it when I am done.

The Dog Stars

I could not get into this book. The main character lives out in the sticks. Most of the world dies in the apocalypse. He has one neighbor that he is on relatively good terms with. He also has a plane that he keeps to fly around and watch out for perpetrators.

They have some way to create electricity. He keeps the lights on in his house at night. But he does not sleep in the house. Once in a while, some perpetrator(s) will come for him. Luckily they get tricked into thinking he is at home. Our guy can shoot pretty well.

There is a group of people that live somewhat nearby. He helps them out sometimes, although his neighbor is suspicious. Like I said, I just could not get into this book, which is weird because I like dystopian future books. Only made is a little beyond 10% of the way through before giving up. Life is just too short to read books you don't like.

The Tracker

The Tracker is the story of fictional character Sam Callahan. Sam is an orphan who bounced around between the orphanage and many bad foster homes. He initially went down the path of crime. Became a car thief. But once he got caught and served some time, he was ready to be reformed. He had some help from a local pastor that helped pave the path to success at college.

After college, Sam finally found his biological mother. Mom had cancer and a lot of bills. So Sam takes a job being a tracker. He follows a politician on his campaign trail to pick up any newsworthy details or scandals. Sam does not know what he is in for. He gets an anonymous tip that leads him to witness and video tape a murder by the politician he is covering. What follows is a chase where more people are killed, with Sam being framed as the prime suspect.

This book is the debut release from author Chad Zunker. Very exciting. Lots of mystery. It seems like this is the first book in a series about the lead character Sam. I know I am going to be tuning in for the sequel. I consider this a must read book and author.

Red to Black: The Making of Rogue Legacy

I am a huge fan of Roguelike games. Not a big fan of this book. This book documents the path taken to produce Rogue Legacy. It was developed by two brothers. One of them kept a side job to pay the bills. The other programmed the game full time. They had previously made smaller Flash games..

This book did cover a bunch of details. An example is the story of how they hired musicians to produce the music for the game. But interesting details were missing. Game development itself is not such an exciting subject. I was hoping the author could make it exciting.

I can say that I have never played Rogue Legacy. This book did not make me want to run out and download the game. Too bad. I am working extra hard to choose a better book to read next time.

The Making of Prince of Persia

This book chronicles Jordan Mechner's life, through the time he made and helped market his game Prince of Persia. Jordan had made a game for the Apple called Karateka. His follow up was Prince of Persia. Surprisingly, he made the game for Broderbund, but his compensation was a percentage of sale. He was not an employee.

Prince of Persia was something special because Jordan used a video camera to capture how a real life person looks while running, jumping, and doing other Prince of Persia acrobatics. He developed the game near the end of the era for any demand for Apple II computer games. Of course there were ports to other systems like Nintendo and the PC.

The book goes on to follow Jordan after he finishes the game, as he pursues learning how to shoot movies, and also his consulting on Prince of Persia 2. By the end we find out that he forms his own game development company. Quite a thrilling read. Makes you want to run out and develop some video games.

#Girlboss

This book tells the story of Sophia Amoruso, CEO and founder of Nasty Gal Vintage Clothing. She started out reselling vintage clothes on eBay. Then she moved on to selling the clothes on her own website. This was pretty amazing as she barely made it through high school, and quit or was fired from a myriad of jobs.

Sophia does also introduce you to her outlook on life. The book is somewhat geared towards young girls who might grow up to be girl bosses themselves. I really wanted to read this book because, in the end, Sophia's company went bankrupt. This book was written when her company was near it's highs.

I would tell anyone to read this book for enjoyment. There are some annoying bits. But it is written well.