Varla Fiona’s Comments (group member since Mar 26, 2012)

Varla Fiona’s comments from the SA Book & Challenge Lovers group.

cool. Thanks Barbara. This looks awesome.

26/26

✔1. Initials JS - Silver: Return to Treasure Island
✔2. Nickname Lord Snow - Lord of Snow and Shadows
✔3. Age 14-17 - The Girl of Fire and Thorns
✔4. Gender male - How to Betray a Dragon's Hero
✔5. Hair colour dark brown - Ruby Red
✔6. Eye colour dark grey - Allegiant
✔7. # of siblings 3 brothers & 2 sisters - The Search for Truth
✔8. Place in birth order Bastard - Inside Out
✔9. # of children None - Charlie Bone and the Red Knight
✔10. Marital status Unmarried - The Angel Experiment
✔11. Sort of marriage Never marry - The Tournament
✔12. Colour of family crest Black - I Shall Wear Midnight
✔13. Animal of family crest Wolf - Curtsies & Conspiracies
✔14. Motto Night gathers & now my watch begins - Doctor Who: The Nightmare of Black Island
✔15. Religion Nature based - Enemy of the Fae
✔16. Profession Guard & leader of guards - Into the Wild
✔17. Hobbies fighting - Steel
✔18. Location Snowy, cold - In Shackleton's Footsteps: A Return to the Heart of the Antarctic
✔19. Travel urges Travel within set region - Uncharted
✔20. Transportation mode horses - All the Pretty Horses
✔21. Fifth in series - Trace Memory
✔22. Cover colour grey - Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
✔23. Object goblet - The Poisoned Goblet
✔24. Chapters 42 (40-44) - Leviathan
✔25. Four in series - The House of Hades
✔26. Recs from Arya & Bran - ✔Oryx and Crake or Earth Unaware

FINISHED

No worries, Lu. Hope its not too serious.

Reading about water quality in Montana and I just have to add my thoughts to the discussion. Firstly, I get so frustrated when there are water restrictions on due to a drought and everyone is happy using as much borehole water as they like. That is coming from the same source as the water from the dams in the long run.
Secondly it makes me sad to remember that the Redhouse River Mile which is the oldest Mile swim in the country is now swum in the Sundays River because the water at Redhouse is too toxic. The guys at the Aquarium tell me that I don't want to get access to their data or I would very quickly so my ocean swims.
Lastly I am just frustrated by how politics work. The people who ultimately make the decisions actually don't know what they are talking about. They claim to get info from scientists but I'm pretty sure they don't understand much of it. I work in the public sector so I have first hand knowledge of this. Our director was basically forced out by the unions. We got a replacement for a year ago had been deputy director with us a few years back before moving to another museum. He refused to stay after the year so they set us this guy who was apparently great because in his numerous years in the department he had worked in most of the sections. Head Office officials could not see that by staying in one section you can become an expert in that area. Instead we got someone who knows little to nothing about museums who must manage a large understaffed museum which incorporates two specialist zoos. Even for someone with museum experience that's a huge job. He is doing the best he can but the fact that he is all they could give us is unacceptable.

Oh, it doesn't have to be fiction for me to get annoyed. I can't watch anyone who is supposedly a snake handler and has a TV show. I know that there are times when they would rather not do something but the director calls the shots, but I still don't support that kind of interaction with deadly animals. Give me Attenborough style any day.

I read the first 50 pages yesterday. I will aim at 50 pages a day. I read your comments before I read the book and I think this is going to be an interesting discussion because of the different perspectives we come from. I have a Zoology background so we focused on wild not domesticated animals.

I don't have anything major to add from the first chapter of the book but the comments about farming were really interesting. I love the fact that the Eastern Cape has gone toward the game farm idea instead of domestic animals. It is so much better for the land to support animals that were historically there and there is an added benefit of the eco tourism side. The fact that it means game is easily available to eat instead of beef makes me very happy as well.

Of course, there are challenges behind the change but the ones I think about are the fact that you need to be careful to introduce only animals which historically occurred there or you can have problems (savannah warthog is a menace in the area as it is different to the extinct cape warthog). I used to be very anti hunting until I befriended a hunter and had done good deep chats about it. I think now that it can be a good thing as long as it is managed properly.

That suits me.

Awesome. I will skim over chapter 1 tomorrow.

when do you want to watch. I'm pretty flexible at the moment.

I got my computer to start again so at least I can copy everything to my hard drive before I attempt any reset.

No problem. whenever suits you. I have plenty to keep me busy with this month.

I have already read the first one but will read the second one with you and discuss the first if you want.

I'll watch Shawshank again.

I have the Under the Dome series but want to read the book first. Well, that and I tried to watch it and I had sound but no picture so I need to change settings or something.

I ordered How to Betray a Dragon's Hero and planned it into the various challenges starting today. Got the call to collect yesterday so it has been sitting in my room waiting patiently overnight. Off to read now...

If you haven't seen the How to Train your Dragon books, check them out, they are brilliant. The movie was not the same story although many of the characters were there. Toothless is a little dragon, but the best part is that Hiccup can talk Dragonese. The two have the most entertaining conversations.

Barbara, I can relate to computer problems. I can't even turn on my laptop at the moment. Looks like I might have to do a factory reset which means I lose everything since the last time I backed up and all my programs and settings and such like. At least I have my tablet to survive online in the meantime!

Looking forward to Thursday...

Congrats. I must admit I can't wait, even if it is just two days. I had to look for something else to read in the waiting period!

Sure. I have read about half of it before so will just skim those parts.

I haven't watched season 3 yet either. I can't seem to get into in. It might be that I have read all the books so know what is going to happen.

I'm in. Live in SA and don't mind send overseas or ebooks.

My wishlist

Achieving The Impossible: A Fearless Hero. A Fragile Earth
The Day of the Dreader or anything How to Train Your Dragon themed. I have all the other books including How to train your Viking and The Viking who was seasick.
Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves
Hover Car Racer This is the omnibus but I don't have any and am happy to collect it in pieces.
The Spy
The Race
The Thief
The Hobbit Somehow I appear to not own one...
Any pop up books

Yay, finally a challenge!!

✔A - All the Pretty Horses
A - Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
R - Railsea
D - Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
✔V - Steel by Carrie Vaughn
A - Allegiant
✔R - The House of Hades by Rick Riordan
✔K - Under the Dome by Stephen King