Over Mount Fuji - As volcano erupts, Hot German guns won against Uruguay!!!

Hahaha...I just LOVE matches with >=4 goals ~ ~ They exceeded my expectations!! 3 goals to Germany and 2 goals to Uruguay!  Hot young german guns  held off Uruguayans, who also played exceptionally well in this tournament, to seal the third place of FIFA World Cup 2010. Forlan and King of Volleyball (Suarez) were dramatic too, and they almost forced the match into extra-time!! But thank you germany for producing such entertaining display in this tournament. *Clap clap clap* for both Germany and Uruguay .... and Paul the Octopus who predicted 100% correctly for the German's games.

Fellow Malaysians: this is a book written by one of our countrymen residing in Australia - but the setting is not Malaysia, he is too scared about being caught by ISA.

Instead he wrote about Japan - where the mystic Mount Fuji is located. You know Mount Fuji? Is it the place where Fuji Apples came from? No need to do research folks, because the kind me already helped you to do so:

(Source: Wikipedia)

"The Fuji apple is an apple clone developed by growers at the Tohoku Research Station (農林省園芸試験場東北支場) in Fujisaki, Aomori, Japan, in the late 1930s,[1] and brought to market in 1962. It originated as a cross between two American apple varieties, the Red Delicious and old Virginia Ralls Genet (sometimes cited as "Rawls Jennet") apples. It is named after "Fujisaki ([藤]崎)," Aomori Prefecture (青森県), but often mistakenly thought to be named after Mount Fuji (富士山)."

Unfortunately, the answer is No.

Nonetheless, it's good effort by first time novelist Joel Huan. Fictions are always difficult to write - I remember the narrative essays I wrote in primary and secondary schools. They can be summed up in one word: LOL.

Lame,  funny and ridiculous -->pretty good value huh? But my school teachers don't appreciate that type of qualities, so in the end I settled with writing argumentative essays instead.

If you are curious to have a quick look go to http://wulfstein.wordpress.com/, you can read for FREE! All there, if your eyes are strong enough to endure about 300 pages of reading on computer screen.

Bloop...Bloop...Bloop...what's that??? A Dragon? Water Bubbles? Mother Earth's "fart" maybe?

After today's football match, I'll say it must be King Octopus snoring!! Octopuses are set to become the next ruler of planet Earth after homo sapiens!! The whole human race, with thousands of football pundits, can't predict anywhere close to 50% as well as that little octopus Paul. OMG.

Life and Death have always been what human are struggling to comprehend - not just the science of it, but also the spiritual part. Where do we head to after death, or rather, is there anything left in us to make this question relevant? Is everything as simple as what science has put it: that you and I are temporary visitors to this world, and our existence, insignificant. Just like the dust on your furnitures, each of us, when the history of whole universe is looked at. *Blows* Gone! No marks, no legacy, not even memory.

Do heaven and hell exist? Or are they just spiritual inventions by us - to make the evils amongst us guard their behaviours, to exploit the fear amongst us for the good of the community. Everything around us, their existence, their smell, their taste, their touch are temporary - aka impermanent. What are maths, what are science, what are statistics, what are philosophy, what are money and numbers? They are really just creation by us, homo sapiens - the most intelligent creatures on planet earth. Strange enough, if you think about them individually, they don't add much value to life and survival - or do they? Perhaps they create power, authority, hierarchy in the society that are necessary for a species to prosper. We can't eat numbers, we can't eat laws of physics, but in a strange way, the creation of those allow human race to rise above the beasts. 

But can we beat Mother Nature? No.

Who is Mother Nature then? Just a planet formed by random particles during the Big Bang? Is there a force that regulates the happenings around us, aka God? If there is God, everything that seems random is predestined - your race, your gender, your wealth, your success or failure, survival or death. If there is predestination, theoretically time travelling is possible, since occurrences are 'lined-up' in  a preorganised fashion and therefore 'forwardable' or 'reversable'. Conversely if randomness is the force, time travelling is not possible because (as stats students know), a string of random numbers can never be reproduced or predicted exactly (with your limited lifetime).

Maybe there are cycles of life that we are yet to comprehend. The forces that wiped up Dinosaurs may be acting to wipe out Human, but we don't know when.

Volcano eruptions, tsunamis, severe storms, rising sea water - if there is such thing as an 'equilibrium' like how economists put it, what then explains the increased frequencies of those natural disasters? Human greed, you may argue. Human are too greedy and exploit nature too much. But why does greed exist in our blood (not just human, all other beasts as well)? Greed is essential for survival, leopards can't survive in the wild with limited food supply without the hunger to out-power the others. With greed, human/animals launch wars against one another, to destroy, to assume dominance. Terrorism in the homo sapien's world is akin to territorial intrusion in Safari. What's the difference? It might then be the case that greed is a double-edged sword, that ensures survival and the eventual extinction of living creatures.

Who is the Mighty Force that is smart enough to design such regularity that ensures no species is bound the rule planet Earth forever? We might never know the answer, because our intelligence and senses might be programmed in such a way that we would never find out. 

Shall we human then be proud of our achievements? We're the second ruler of planet Earth after Dinosaurs. Who is going to be next? (Answer: Octopus)

Okies, I am clearly not giving a book review here - but this book provokes the above thoughts. 

Now some suggestions to Joel the author (may contain spoiler, close the window immediately if you're planning to read the book!):

Overall Wulfstein and Eileen are the main characters - whether or not they fall in love (as in, develop romantic feelings for one another) is not clear. Byron and Nobuko are just supporting characters. I especially think you could have involve Byron more in the storyline, not just a detractor of his mentor for the most part of the book. Romance between Byron and Nobuko isn't very "smooth" - as in, I think you could have developed the feelings of both a little more before making them hold hands, kiss, hug and have sex. 

The part about Wulfstein being swipped away by a tornado is a bit too rushed - given that he's the main character you could have explored the feelings of him a little. E.g. what occurs in his mind when he realised that his end is near. To me, Wulfstein is clearly the main character, he's the one who drives the plot. LOL~actually it'd be good if you let Eileen and Wulfstein fall in love with one another (you might have, but it isn't real enough). You might have let them talk about things apart from tetonic plates, you know, about her marriage to Jerry, about her life thereafter. Maybe you could have made Wulfstein a divorcee after several failed marriages, because his wives couldn't stand his obsession with earthquakes. You know, things like that.

I have to be honest here - I haven't quite developed enough affections for your characters after reading the story, which are essential for me to cry or laugh when the characters cry or laugh. This comes with experience I suppose, I'm sure your second novel would be much better on this. For example, I'm sure you could think of alternative/creative ways to describe Wulfstein's obsession with science other than making him sweat, tremble and refuse to talk. Those are typical "nerdiness"- we readers love to read about "craziness" instead.

We chatted about dialogues last time, and yes you write far better dialogues than I do. Just would like to suggest, perhaps make the English sentences said by Japanese different from the Americans? You could argue that Nobuko grew up in US, but given how long she's been staying in Japan, the Japanese culture would have a greater influence on her speaking. By varying the tone of language a little, the conversations become more real.

Some other minor suggestions:

* Remove page numbers 1-4, you don't need them. Start page 1 with the prologue.
* page 75, 6th line from the bottom: now it is "on" the move.
* Use a wider variety of "swear words" - not just damn it, shit. LOL~ e.g. certain spots can be replaced by "oh my goodness" or "damnation" or "you must be kidding me". Just some suggestions.
* Think you could also have used some alternative to "nothing". ~Just my opinion, coz I realised that I read them a number of times.~
* A couple of diagrams, pictures in the book showing the archipelago, how the electromagnetic field spreads, how the "ambience" moved, the relics of shipwrecks would be effective at helping readers to understand what Wulfstein is talking about. This technique is not unusual in many books which explore ideas that aren't straightforward e.g. the Da Vinci Code.
* pg 260: "As Eileen rushed back to the deck, assiting survivors..." --> you mean, her leg has recovered? She just got injured on pg 258.