Unleashed by Hitler in 1942, the German Tiger tank was by far the most powerful tank ever built at the time. The 60-ton monster could destroy any Allied tank from more than a mile away, and it soon became the most feared tank in the world. Desperate to discover the secret technology used in the Tiger’s manufacture, Winston Churchill close a brilliant young army engineer, Major Doug Lidderdale, as his special agent. In a late-night briefing in the subterranean War Rooms under Whitehall he ordered him: ‘Go catch me a tiger’. Doug did not hesitate and by February 1943 was facing Rommel’s desert army. After several unsuccessful and hair-raising efforts to bag a Tiger on the battlefields of Tunisia, Doug and his team put their lives on the line in a terrifying, close-hand shoot-out with the five-man crew of a Tiger, capturing the tank intact. The morale boost to the Allies was such that both Churchill and King George VI flew to Tunis to examine the Tiger first hand. But the Germans were not finished with Doug. They did not want the secrets of the Tiger benefitting the Allies’ sabotage attempts, and constant attacks by the Luftwaffe and U-boats pursued Doug and his men on every step of the journey back to England. But eventually, by October 1943, the Tiger – number 131 – was delivered to London and gifted to Churchill, who had it placed on London’s Horse Guards Parade. Lidderdale went on to use some of the Tiger technology to develop war machines for the D-Day landings and was promoted to Colonel. Tiger 131 is now kept at Bovington Tank Museum and is the only working Tiger in the world.

If you have the option to do so, use a business card as your baggage tag to avoid revealing your personal information. Many unscrupulous people out there are looking for opportunities for theft or other devious schemes. Knowing you are going on a trip means that gaining your personal info from baggage offers a potentially empty home.Calling a family or friend when you leave and arrive on a trip isn\’t just for kids. It is a clever way to put them at ease, and also to make sure that if something goes wrong on your vacation, someone will know about it quicker. If you\’ve not called by a certain time, and they cannot reach you, this person will be able to take appropriate actions to find you or find out what happened.

When traveling outside the country you should leave a copy of all itinerary and passports with someone you trust back home. You should not put yourself in a position where you are alone far away from home with no one knowing where you are. Make photocopies of tickets and reservations so that you can be found.Try packing with reusable compression bags to save space when packing. If you travel often, reusable compression bags might be a smart investment. You can find them in most retailers that have a housewares section. They are usually sold for storage use, but work greatly well in relation to packing baggage.

If you are arriving in a new city and don\’t yet feel comfortable there, consider asking if your hotel provides an airport pickup service. This will allow you to avoid the pitfalls of luggage porters and taxi lines which trap many first time travelers. It also ensures you don\’t get lost in the city and go straight to the hotel.Save your personal finance agenda by booking flights as far in advance as possible. When you purchase tickets 2 months or more in advance, airline companies will offer you the right deals. If you\’re planning on going on a holiday travel this can prove to be extremely cost effective, as this is the most popular travel time.

If you are traveling within country, consider options such as the train or bus. These transportation services have come a long way in their service and quality. Trains can be satisfying and pleasurable and buses can offer comfort that you may have underestimated. With the cost of flying going up these options can make your holiday affordable in the end.When you book a hotel online,(especially when you don\’t book directly through the hotel\’s own website), it is necessary to call the hotel directly to confirm your reservation. Calling ahead will prevent you from arriving at the hotel, exhausted and ready to sleep, and finding out that they have no record of your reservation.

When traveling, avoid crowded places where pickpockets might frequent. This includes subways, elevators, train stations, tourism attractions, market festivals, and poor neighborhoods. In case you are forced to visit one of these places, make sure your valuables are secured in inside pockets or a bag with a shoulder strap, and check them frequently.

Edward Merrill makes it easy for you to maintain your newest travel news. Sign up for the free newsletter at Resorts in Tjeldsund for more info regarding Tjeldsund.

Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This book is a story of: a girl; an accordionist; some fanatical Germans; a Jewish fist

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Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder – and that the killer is a member of his own

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Thirty-six years after publication this much-loved classic is still as popular as ever. Ingenious die-cut holes bring this much-loved nursery rhyme to life, and Pam Adams’s illustrations lend humour and vibrancy to the

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Poor old Glokta plays a major part in this episode. Sent by Arch Lector Sult on an independant command to hold a distant city at all costs. Without money supplies or reinforment Glokta must muddle thru no matter the opposition. The Gurkish come North. The Northmen come South. In the middle nothing but treachery and the usual backstabbing. Can Glokta survive his latest promotion. It comes as no surprise when he does but it’s the way it happens that maintains interest in the story.

Amazon (A. Whitehead “Werthead” (Colchester, Essex United Kingdom) ) has this to say about Before They Are Hanged

Before They Are Hanged is the second book in The First Law Trilogy and the sequel to The Blade Itself. In this middle volume of the sequence, Before They Are Hanged picks up the storylines left dangling from the first novel and develops them further. As with the first book, this volume often feels like a ‘standard’ fantasy novel with lots of standard tropes in use, but Abercrombie successfully continues to put a subversive spin on events which keeps things fresh and interesting.

There are three main plot threads in the book. In the Northlands, the Union Army prepares to face the forces under Beothed. They have enlisted the aid of Threetrees and his band of cutthroats and warriors, but Marshal Burr and Colonel West find their hands full with just keeping their feuding generals from each others throats and babysitting the preening, useless Prince Ladisla.

Meanwhile, in the South, the city of Dagoska falls under siege from the army of the Gurkhal Empire. Inquisitor Glokta, in the city to investigate the disappearance of his predecessor, finds himself orchestrating the defence of the city against a vast and powerful foe, but is also forced into making alliances with suspect agents in order to ensure the city’s survival.

In the West, Bayaz and his band of unlikely companions continue their journey to the edge of the Circle of the World, to recover a weapon of tremendous power. Their journey will take them through the fallen remnants of the Old Empire, an ancient city and a towering mountain range before their goal can be achieved.

Abercrombie’s story rattles along at a fair old pace. With the characters introduced, there is no more need for scene-setting and the plot explodes with vigour. More happens in this 450-page novel than some writers struggle to squeeze into an 800-page tome, and it’s all invigorating, page-turning stuff. There’s a lightness of touch and plenty of humour in the writing which makes reading the book all the more pleasurable. The characters become more interesting, with Glokta particularly becoming a morally ambiguous person whom the author gives real character to, his decisive ruthlessness coming as quite a shock in some parts of the book. Meanwhile, in other parts of the story other characters undertake unexpected transformations. Meeting other people who know Bayaz from earlier in the world’s history forces the reader to reconsider their opinion of him, whilst another character undergoes a startling personality transformation which is kept quietly in the background, hinting at some darker force moving in the storyline which will be explored further in the final book of the series.

All in all a trilogy to live for:
The Blade Itself
Before They Are Hanged
and the last of this series
Last Argument Of Kingsmore on that next

Philip
P.S. Don’t forget to have a look at Singles Seek Singles

The Blade Itself – Joe Abercrombie

When a blurb starts with “Logan Ninefingers” you know you are about to enter the relms of fantasy or your local Loony Bin. This is an epic, sweeping story about several unique and unforgettable characters which is told from differing perspectives; yesterday, now, as fiction, fable, history, mythology, geography, culture, intrigue and romance (failed). It’s not a quick read. You don’t want to simply skim through paragraphs or descriptions because you really might miss something of interest to the sadistical frame of mind.

Above all, a journey. A journey of history, friendship, laughter, love, violence, sadness, and finally the wait for Book Two to arrive.

If you love a good fight scene don’t miss the one between the girl, Logan Ninefingers and the twenty enforcers.

The Guardian ( A rag only read by its own journalists teachers and social workers ) calls it ‘Delightfully twisted and evil’ A question. How is it possible to be ‘Delightfully evil’. Still I digress.

Did I enjoy it. Yes I did. It took three or four sessions in the end as I had other things to do. I will be ordering up the second and third versions as soon as possible. (Hint… Feel free to send me yours)

Until then I leave you with the comments of the great Steve (Walker of Worlds)

Joe Abercrombie was recommended to me by a friend who has also been reading fantasy for a long time. He knew I was a huge fan of David Gemmell and said there were some similarities between his and Abercrombie’s work; a certain level of grittiness, grey characters and an unpredictable plot. If Brent Weeks writes dark fantasy or crime fantasy, then Abercrombie’s is definitely gritty fantasy or maybe blunt force trauma fantasy. Marketing people love labels, and sometimes they can be annoying, but in this case it tells you exactly what to expect. A shock to the system that will leave you reeling and bloody afterwards.

At first you might think The Blade Itself is a Me Too book as two of the characters are a battered warrior and a cranky old wizard. However, another main character is a torturer, someone who was himself a victim of torture, so much so that he is now crippled and in constant pain. And if someone were to kill him it would almost be a relief, because there would be an end to his daily suffering. Glokta was a former golden boy, a swordsman of renown who was captured by the enemy and broken in their cells. He didn’t slaughter an army single-handed and fight his way home. If that’s the kind of fantasy story you’re expecting then look elsewhere. What emerged from the enemy cells not only looked different but inside Glokta was a new, very twisted man. This bitterness might sound depressing but in fact Glokta’s dark sense of humour and internal monologue is some of the funniest material in the series. In any good book, no matter the genre, if it’s dark you need some comedy or an undercurrent of black comedy to make it less depressing and Glokta delivers this.

What emerged for me throughout this book is how human Abercrombie makes his characters. All are flawed in some way, emotionally or sometimes mentally, and while some have previously achieved greatness, they have also stumbled since those heady days and turned down darker paths. His characters have texture and are perfectly formed in the mind of the reader. A hero might have won a great battle, but what does he do afterwards? Marry a princess and walk off into the sunset to live happily ever after? Well, there isn’t such an animal in this book, although you can find this sort of thing in some fantasy that is more fairytale and less realistic. That’s not to say there are no happy endings, but each person has their own version of that concept, and likewise each character in the story does as well. A happy ending for one person might be an end to physical pain, or revenge, or glory on the battlefield. It’s very much a personal thing.

After reading only one chapter I realised this is not a typical fantasy series. Abercrombie might use some familiar tropes, but he takes them and remoulds them to create something unique. We are given hints throughout the trilogy of a momentous past full of great deeds carried out by wizards who are almost god-like beings, disciples to Juvens, the greatest of them all. But all of that is gone. They are a part of history that few remember. Remnants and bits and pieces remain, but this story is not about giants reshaping the world with their bare hands. The story is what comes after, but we are also given glimpses of other forces at work that are pulling the strings behind the curtain.

One of the three main characters is Logen Ninefingers, a warrior from the North, a Named Man, and someone well known and respected. He is also feared, and rightly so, for his past is incredibly bloody and unpleasant. The second is Jezel, a foppish turd who has no real aspirations who I found incredibly unpleasant and difficult to like, throughout the trilogy in fact. But of course I don’t believe we’re supposed to like him very much, not at first anyway. And the third is Glokta, who through his work begins to realise that a conflict seems to be brewing between the Union and the North. There is also a third political power whose influence is felt more acutely in the next books in the trilogy but I won’t spoil any details.

The plot is full of twists and turns where characters bludgeon, torture and blackmail their way towards answers, and by the end of this first book you are deeply immersed in the world and the fate of the characters. The fight scenes are brutal, detailed without being over the top, and Abercrombie does a good job of painting both the world and the characters without it clogging up the story and making you read pages of tedious description. This was his debut book and it immediately caught my attention and I couldn’t wait to read the next two books in the trilogy. I can also see why this book was nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award for fantasy, because Abercrombie’s no nonsense style of writing shares elements of Gemmell’s style of digging into areas of fantasy others wouldn’t dare to go. There is magic, and mystery and elements of the supernatural in the story, but none of it is done overtly.

A minor complaint I’ve heard from a couple of people is the lack of a map. I can see why someone might want one, but I don’t think it’s really necessary since the whole story and all of the characters are effectively conjured in your head through the text. If any writer has done a good job then you can clearly see the cities and the characters, and you can navigate around without being led by the nose. I’m not against maps, and if there is one then great, but I don’t spend time flicking back and forth to it as I read any book. But some people expect it in every fantasy book and seemed genuinely put out by what is a minor issue at best. To me at least, it seems like another fantasy trope, and this book, and indeed the series, does the unexpected which makes some people uncomfortable.

If you want a fantasy book that isn’t safe, that is full of gritty, violent and fascinating characters in a well thought out world, with a story that is often surprising, then this is the book for you. Abercrombie is an exciting new voice in the genre and his blunt force trauma fantasy novels certainly leave an impression (and a mark) on you after reading them.