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    TradePatterns

    TradePatterns

    Finance and Business

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    Technical analysis chart patterns recognition app! Help to detect on the daily basis the most...

    World Of Navy Ships

    World Of Navy Ships

    Games and Entertainment

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    Go back in time to the 20th century, and be prepared to take on your enemies on the high seas, by...

The Dictator’s Muse
The Dictator’s Muse
Nigel Farndale | 2021 | Fiction & Poetry, Mystery
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This sounded like it was going to be solely about Leni Riefenstahl, but it’s not. This is a really enjoyable mystery set in Germany and England in the pre-war years, and the Berlin Olympics in particular.

Hitler is in power, and one of his most respected film makers, Leni Riefenstahl, has been tasked with filming the Berlin Olympics. She has to tread a fine line between the film-making she wants to create and that of the Nazi propaganda machine.

Meanwhile, back in England, Kit is training for the olympics whilst holding down a full time job and trying to impress his upper class girlfriend. He discovers he can get sponsorship through Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, even though he isn’t by any means a fascist.

Alun is a Welsh Communist, who has been tasked with infiltrating the Blackshirts.

Leni seems to be in a state of permanent dread, because even those who are staunch Nazis aren’t safe from being taken down by the SS.

There’s a lot going on in this book, and it sounds like it should be confusing. But it’s really not. It wasn’t fact, unputdownable.

There’s a great mystery threaded through this, introduced by a modern day character, an academic called Sigrun Meier.

Historical fiction AND a mystery - what’s not to like?!
  
PB
Pale Blue Scratch
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Full review can be found on: diaryofdifference.com/2018/06/18/pale-blue-scratch-jay-dinitto-book-review/

I was lucky enough to be approached by Jay DiNitto himself, and he sent me a copy of his first novel - Pale Blue Scratch in exchange for an honest review. This is a book unlike anything else I have ever read, and it left me impressed. I dearly enjoyed it, and maybe you will too.

As mentioned above, this is a book unlike any other that I have read. It is a great mix of fiction / action / fast-paced scenes / philosophy / psychology and a little bit of time-travelling.
Even though we have two main characters - Elizabeth and Vincent, this book focused more on Elizabeth, for various reasons.

<img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1455591169l/28919161.jpg"/>;

There were times when the scenes were slow, and somewhat a bit dull, but there were also times when there were fast-paced scenes that make me bite my nails. Though, as a whole, I found the story to not quite fit my taste. It felt like Elizabeth didn’t have a great or a strong enough reason to do this adventure.

Elizabeth’s character - now this is something quite amusing! I have never met a character like this - so twisted in a cute hippocrytical way. A nun with an adorable sense of humor, that goes around on a mission to make a time-travel machine, and happens to hurt people on her way… I loved her character in a very weird way (don’t judge!)

Now Vincent didn’t quite hit the mark. He seemed more of a plain character, like a little copy of someone else, somewhere, once upon a time. He gave the impression of a person that, unlike Elizabeth, didn’t quite knew where he belonged and what he’s doing. It felt like it didn’t bother him at all. And that’s alright. The moment when this started to hurt me was at the end - when he didn’t change a bit.
Even though a bit disappointed that I didn’t get to read much about time-travelling as I would want to, this book was quite amusing and it covered various random topics that I quite liked. I loved that variety when one moment you talk about religion, the other moment a great action scene happens, and then here we are again, discussing life philosophy.

All in all, to sum it all up - I greatly enjoyed this book! It was definitely unusual read, and unique in every single way. And if you love fiction / action / a bit of time-travelling / humor and philosophy, this might be easily your new favourite book!

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    PicsPlay Pro

    PicsPlay Pro

    Photo & Video

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    Spotlighted on Forbes as one of "Best Photo Apps For Tablets" by Amadou Diallo, July 3rd, 2013 ...

    vjay

    vjay

    Music and Photo & Video

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    Introducing vjay - the mashup machine for your music and videos. Includes over 15 exclusive, free...

    Ridge Racer Slipstream

    Ridge Racer Slipstream

    Games, Entertainment and Stickers

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    The ultimate arcade racing franchise brings the console experience to your iOS device! Slipstream...

Sgt. Pepper&#039;s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles
1967 | Pop, Psychedelic, Rock

"I originally chose the White Album, but then I thought, no, the White Album probably is my favourite Beatles record, but Sergeant Pepper is one of those records that everybody had and you heard it so many times that I didn't imagine I could ever possibly come back to it. But I have a librarian in me; some of the Wire things I've done I've made out of sources, to recreate something, and because EMI were so diligent about keeping all of the original material they were able to go back to the original 4-track tapes, put them all into Pro Tools sessions, get them all lined up and then start playing it back in a way that it was never played back. Because of the methodology of bouncing tracks- you'd record to a 4-track machine, then bounce it to another 4-track machine and whatever- by the time you'd gone seven or eight generations you're losing all of the top end on the original recordings. There isn't that kind of clarity there. There's clarity to Revolver that isn't in Sergeant Pepper because of all the layers of recording. And one of the remarkable things about the remaster of Sergeant Pepper is that clarity comes back with a vengeance. So the first thing that you can say about it is it actually sounds a lot more like Revolver than you ever imagined it did. And the second thing is they're right there in the room with you. It's completely present. The original recording was obviously really good. They were recording in Abbey Road with high end engineers. So what had sounded a bit mushy and indistinct is very clear. There are some things that I don't agree with. I don't like any of the tracks so much where they put the drums on one side because I hate that stereo picture, but they had their reasons for doing it. They tried to be as true as possible to the original mixes; that's the other thing, so you don't have a sense that this is a redo. You just have a sense that here's an ancient artefact that had been covered in grime and somebody's just cleaned all the grime off, and there you see the shiny thing in front of you."

Source
  
World War Z
World War Z
2018 | Action
While the cinematic follow up to the movie “World War Z” has been in developmental hell and likely not happening anytime soon with the recent cancellation of the proposed sequel; The developers at Saber Interactive have brought an exciting new chapter to the series.

Played from a third person perspective; teams of four players either human or A.I. battle hordes of undead as they attempt to survive and complete various tasks. The game is set in four chapters, New York, Jerusalem, Moscow, and Tokyo, and each segment allows players to select from four new characters to play during the various segments of each locale.

Players start with a primary and secondary weapon and will have the ability to pick up more along the way. Weapons include various machine guns, rifles, grenades, pistols, crossbows, and heavy weapons which have a limited use but pack a big punch.

Players also have bladed weapons which can be used to slash their way through hordes but this needs to be used sparingly as players can become overrun in no time.

Players can also find useful items such as machine gun emplacements, electrical traps, and other weapons which can be deployed in certain areas to help stem the onslaught of undead.

Missions often detail searching for items, activating or deactivating items, escorting an individual, and so on but do keep up the intensity and the highly detailed maps are very engaging.

The enemies consist of standard Zombies, a Bull Zombie who rushes and can do great amounts of damage, a Lurker that hides in the shadows and pounces. There is the Screamer who lets out tons of noise and attracts large crowds of Undead, and the Gasbag which releases a toxic gas when shot.

Players can use health kits to heal themselves and others and ammunition and supplies can be found in chests as well as Breaching Charges which allow players to enter locked areas.

The biggest issues with most of the enemies is that they have a similar look and tend to just mass and rush straight at you. It is funny that you will see characters looking like they are dressed for the New York Subway running around Tokyo, Jerusalem, and Moscow while the playable characters are clearly dressed for and specific to the locale they are in.

The game also features a multiplayer function but to me this was a real disappointment. Hit detection was bad as emptying a full clip in an another player seemed to do nothing yet they could kill you with a single shot. There were also numerous Spawn Campers who picked off players whenever they entered the map. I am sure it will be adjusted in time but I was so disappointed with it that I spent the majority of my time playing the campaign which to me was a far superior experience.

The game retails for $39.99 which makes it a real bargain and new content has been promised to arrive at a future date which will extend the enjoyment of the game.

While the gaming community eagerly hopes and awaits for a new Left 4 Dead game, World War Z is the closest to the fun and excitement of that series as getting your friends or being matched with others online to take down legions of Undead is a real thrill and one that this game has really captured where so many other recent efforts have failed.

http://sknr.net/2019/05/05/world-war-z-the-best-co-op-zombie-game-since-left-4-dead/