Soundtrack Feature: Stranger Things

Stranger Things is an embodiment of 80s nostalgia, with incredible acting, directing and presentation, told through a 2016 filmmaking style. It's been universally praised, for good reason: It's really good. The soundtrack, based on 80s synth, is critically acclaimed. It's a fantastic score showcasing a wide sense of emotions, ranging from joyful times to deep horror. Having the music evoke feelings of nostalgia is not uncommon.

The soundtrack to the first season of Stranger Things was released in two volumes. You can purchase them digitally from iTunes (Volume 1, Volume 2), or pre-order them physically from Amazon (V1, V2). You can also listen for free on Spotify (V1, V2) and YouTube (V1, V2). The second volume features a 5-minute extended edition of the show's critically-acclaimed main theme.

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My full Soundtrack of the Month series has gone on hiatus and for the time being has been replaced by much smaller soundtrack features, which I am simply calling Soundtrack Features. Yes, it's quite original.

Hittite Warrior by Joanne Williamson

In my years as a homeschooler, I had to read a lot of literature. I still do in high school, but it's very different. One book that I read in my middle school years was Hittite Warrior by Joanne Williamson. It's historical fiction from the time of the Bible's book of Judges. I loved it when I first read it, and I was excited to pick it up again when it was assigned in high school.

The story focuses on Uriah, a Hittite who has found himself homeless and without family due to his homeland, Great Hatti, being invaded by the "sea people." He must make his way to Canaan, and eventually, though his adventures, find himself in a war between Canaan and the tribes of the Hebrews. Having no real allegiance himself, his nation being gone forever, Uriah must ultimately decide which side he is to join, and in the name of which god, if any, he will fight.

Hittite Warrior is unique, both in story and in writing style. It focuses on a portion of history largely ignored by today's society, because it was so very long ago and hardly relevant to anything anymore; but that's part of what makes it a good story. Since the reader might not know very much about this entire era, it almost feels like it could be from another world's history, rather than our own. All in all, it's fascinating.

The writing style is unique because it often moves events along at a very quick pace, almost as if the narrator is summarizing the events, but at the same time it never leaves any details ambiguous. It doesn't spend paragraphs and paragraphs explaining something, but rather explains it quickly in a way that you fully understand. It doesn't make you feel any less for the characters or their emotions. It's quite unlike almost anything else I've read, and it's very well done.

My biggest complaint with the book is foreshadowing. A lot of details are bluntly foreshadowed, but it's actually somewhat appropriate due to the writing style. It does not make Hittie Warrior any less of a spectacular read.

Hittite Warrior is a decently short book, and it's very easy to read. It tells a brilliant story with characters that the reader will care about. Uriah Tarhund makes for a great main character and narrator, and his struggle is realistic and relatable. I would never want to be in his position at any point of the book.

Overall, you should read this book. It's worth the time.

Amelia's Last Secret by Eric Wilson

Amelia's Last Secret is a novella by bestselling author Eric Wilson about the fate of Amelia Earhart—one of the most prominent and well-respected women in the history of the world. It is available on Amazon for $2.99 exclusively as an ebook.

Everyone knows Amelia Earhart, and everyone has at least speculated about her mysterious disappearance in history. Leave it to somebody like Eric Wilson to take the facts as we know them and write a brilliant story from it. He took real people, events, and information, and put them all together in an intriguing and believable manner full of mystery and suspense.

The novella is split into four parts, taking place over the past seventy-five years:
Part One - July 1, 1937
Part Two - June 8, 1944
Part Three - May 17, 2012
Part Four - July 2, 1937

The first part begins from the point of view of Amelia Earhart, and ends with a cliffhanger, which is concluded in the final part. The two middle parts continue the story of how Ms. Earhart's fate was discovered. All four parts were extremely well-written and make you want to continue reading. The amount of research put into the story is astounding and truly adds life to the tale.

Eric Wilson is an amazing writer, and Amelia's Last Secret helps to prove it. The ending is a little sad—but you can't deny that the inevitable would happen. The novella could make a great movie, or at least a short film. Kudos to Mr. Wilson for writing such a masterpiece. It is well worth your reading time.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

If you ask anyone I know, they'll tell you I hate classics. This is not entirely true, as I love many classics. Though, of course, most of the ones I care to read are written by J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis or Isaac Asimov. There's just something about classics. They're hard to read, often uninteresting, and sometimes just stupid.

I was assigned A Tale of Two Cities to read for school. It was the first novel I'd read by Charles Dickens, and it started out seeming like any other classic that I'd read (other than the good ones): utterly hard to read, full of sentence fragments, full of random punctuation, and an overall boring feel to it. Now that I look back, the beginning shouldn't have been boring; I'd just been too dead set against classics to see the ingenuity.

In the end, A Tale of Two Cities is a great read full of unique characters, a story you'll never forget, and the markings of an awesome author. I now know why a certain friend of mine has been trying very hard to get me to read Dickens' books. There are important happenings and subtle hints to future parts of the story hidden all along the journey of this wonderful piece of historical and French Revolution novel that once you finish you just want to start over!

The character development is inspiring, the hidden Easter eggs are ingenious, and the ending is beautiful. If you can get through the long, long beginning and middle of the book (which I'm sure will be much better the second read through), A Tale of Two Cities is be a great book to pick up. I highly recommend it.

Reuben Horst

The Lightkeeper's Ball by Colleen Coble

It is the early twentieth century, and the Stewart family finds that they have been cut in a deal that economically changes their lives for the far better. It all depends on the marriage of Eleanor Stewart, a girl of twenty-some in the Stewart family, to Harrison Bennett, the son of Eleanor's late father's former business partner. All goes well, until Eleanor's body is found dead. Drowned. Eleanor's slightly older sister, Olivia, is next in line for the marriage, but she travels in disguise to the town of Mercy Falls, where the Bennetts live, in order to find out what really happened. She knew that Eleanor was afraid of water, and if she were to commit suicide, it would not be by drowning herself, and thus she suspected foul play. Before long, she is soon working with Harrison, of whom she suspects of assisting the possible murder, and of whom she is eventually supposed to marry, to reveal a much greater scheme than just one murder.

To tell the truth, the reason why I got this book, The Lightkeeper's Ball by Colleen Coble, was because it was for free. I just recently joined a website that is run by the publisher Thomas Nelson, which gives out free books for bloggers to review. I chose this book because it was one of the only fiction books available. It looked like a girly novel, sure, but it was fiction nonetheless. The thing is, though, once I started reading it, it was hard to put down.

I loved the story. This is truly a mystery novel, with elements of thriller and romance sprinkled in. Parts of the book were just downright creepy, and coming from a novel that is "officially" in the romance genre, that is just plain awesome. It is true, this was written by and for girls, but I enjoyed the whole trip through. I love thrillers, so the parts of the book that I would consider "thriller" almost made me visibly grin.

The Lightkeeper's Ball is many things. A story of finding truth, a murder mystery, a love story. I really recommend it to you if you're a girl. I would recommend it for boys, too, except I've learned from experience that it's awkward for a boy to walk around carrying a book that has a cover such as this one.

The Lightkeeper's Ball was publicly released on April 20, 2011.
This book was sent to me for free from Thomas Nelson Publishing. http://www.BookSneeze.com/

~Reuben/Arkatox~

Immanuel's Veins

Do you like action? Adventure? Romance? Supernaturalism? Awesomeness? Immanuel's Veins by Ted Dekker has a perfect blend of everything, and to top it all, it's historical fiction (one of my personal favorite genres).

It's a story of love, and a story of hate. The story follows a Russian warrior named Toma Nicolescu in 1772, AD, who works specifically for Catherine the Great, empress of Russia. Toma was assigned with his best friend to guard and protect the royal family of Moldavia, but not everything goes as plan. Strange occurrences happen, and Toma is suddenly thrown into the impossible world of the supernatural. Things happen that shouldn't, people die and come back to life, and he's stuck in the middle of it all. He will have to put his soul to the test if he is to defeat the evil and save those whom he loves.

This is a story of heroism, betrayal, and sacrifice. I know I said something similar about an earlier review, The Silver Branch (by Rosemary Sutcliff), but this time I mean it in a stronger way. This book grabs your soul and shakes it, and in the end it helps you remember just how powerful and awesome our God is.

But I must warn you, this book is officially rated PG-13 by the author. I would not exactly call it family friendly. As has been said of this book:

This book is for everyone, but not everyone is for this book.

If you love supernatural stories that rattle the soul, but still shows us the greatness of God, I'd recommend this novel. It is one of the best books I have read in my life.

~Reuben/Arkatox~

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Silver Branch

The Silver Branch, by Rosemary Sutcliff, is a historical fiction novel that takes place in Roman Britain at the end of the third century.

Much like it's prequel, The Eagle of the Ninth (film coming out in 2011, titled The Eagle), it is hard to read, but is a great story for any who enjoy epic stories. It is packed with plot twists and overall story changes. If you look at the story at the end, compared to how it was at the beginning, you'd see how much it changed.

The main protagonists are two cousins, Justin and Flavius, who are descendants of Marcus Aquila, the protagonist of The Eagle of the Ninth. They are thrown into a treasonous plot against the Roman-British Emperor, Carausius, which they are unable to stop. The adventure they partake in is long, and sacrifices must be made along the way.

I can say that The Silver Branch is a great book, but if you can't stand hard reading, this might not be for you. It took me one and a half to two hours to read the last two chapters, and afterward it almost completely took away my appetite for reading. I'll recover, of course, but the great writing ability of Sutcliff and the awesome story are what stopped me from quitting in the middle.

See ya around,
~Reuben/Arkatox~