Night of the Living Trekkies

Night of the Living Trekkies is about a man named Jim who is burned out after two tours of fighting in Afghanistan. He works a normally low-stress job at a hotel, which one weekend a year hosts a Star Trek Convention. Jim was really into Star Trek before his war experiences made him not care about things or want any responsibility anymore.

Anyway, at the beginning of the convention, which Jim's sister and her friends are attending, Jim notices people are getting bit, then acting strangely, then disappearing. It turns out Houston, TX is being taken over by zombies. Jim must take charge of his sister's group, along with a few other survivors, and get them out of Houston before the secret government branch that's been hiding the zombies decides to drop a nuke to erase all evidence.

I thought this was a pretty good zombie book. I do think that how people become zombies in the first place is a little bit of a cop out, since the authors came up with a plausible reason instead of the true reanimation of a corpse, but it still made for good reading. The authors are also both major Star Trek fans, and I loved all the trivia they inserted into the book. I finished the book in about two days, so it's a quick read at only 253 pages. It's also fairly new, since it just came out in 2010.

Inheritance Cycle

The fourth book in the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini finally came out in November 2011, completing the series. Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, and Inheritance have each come out three years apart, so after I began the third one and realized it wasn't the end, I stopped reading and decided to wait until the last one came out. I began rereading Eragon over Christmas break and finally finished Inheritance about two weeks ago.

The basic story line follows Eragon, a teenage boy in the fantasy world of Alagaesia, after he finds a dragon's egg in the woods, which subsequently hatches for him. His years-long quest to become a dragonrider brings about the deaths of many close to him, dramatically changes the lives of his cousin and fellow townspeople, and leads him on adventures and experiences he never could have imagined. It's interesting to watch Eragon grow into his role and learn the impacts of his decisions, although the reader never forgets he's sixteen throughout most of the series.

I thought the ending of the series was as good as it could be. There were a few potentials ways it could have gone, and I was worried it would be one of the ways that would cause certain characters to act out-of-character, but that didn't happen, and I think the way it ended worked better than any other way. Paolini did a nice job of leaving several doors open, and he's said he may choose to write another book about characters in Alagaesia, but not about Eragon.