FOREVER. We use that word so casually we tend to forget what it means. Forever, seems a long time coming, but tends to never last long enough. The Contract series is an ode to what that one word means. Richard and Katy embody the best of love at the most heartbreaking of moments. They were and will always be my favorite Melanie Moreland couple. The Amendment is a celebration of the healing power of love.

After things start going wrong on the planet Etaa, with a captured SG team and a failed rescue attempt, SG-1 are sent back to see what is going on.
In tow is a reporter, the son of a senator who has previously tried to shut SGC down.

Jack O'Neill and the team are reluctant to have him along, but events dictate otherwise.

Bit of a slow build up, giving background characters a bit more "screen time" than they'd have in a normal episode, but the main people act like you'd expect and are well written.

It's good when it gets going, introducing new alien species and a tense ending.
Slightly more sweary than a TV episode would be (only a few scattered around) which may not be to everyones liking.

Received a copy of 2nd Amendment Remedies (Scott Wolfe #2) by S.L. Shelton through the First Reads Giveaway in exchange for an honest review

"I've heard you call yourself a geek, a computer nerd, 'a skinny
kid', and a whole string of other descriptors that don't actually
describe you." She explained coarsely. "I've heard you call
yourself a crappy boyfriend and scared. But crappy boyfriends
don't fly to halfway around the world to rescue damsels in
distress. Skinny kids don't get into fights with mercenaries and
win. Computer nerd, though it may describe your talent with
automation, certainly isn't the best descriptor of a man who
throws himself out of an airplane strapped to a cargo container
full of hostages."

Scott Wolfe is on the lengthy path to mental, physical, and emotional rehabilitation. After an impromptu rescue mission in Amsterdam against international terrorists, his superficial wounds may seem extreme but his inner wounds run very deep. Physically speaking, Scott was abducted, tortured, and beaten, fought Bosnian Serbian mercenaries, stabbed, jumped out of an airplane, burned by a torch, nearly drowned, was shot twice, and died three times before he got back to Germany. For many woman Scott Wolfe would be what you call a white knight, but to him it is just a case of Scott being Scott. What is so hard to imagine of a man actually doing what is right for his moral self and the ones he loves the most? After rescuing his "girlfriend" Barb Whitney, her State Department Attorney father Robert and twenty-eight diplomats with the help of his partner Katherine Fuchs, Barb is more than willingly-indebted to Scott in ensuring his bodily recovery. Back home in Fairfax, Virginia Scott's psychologist Dr.Tebron as well as Barb and friend Sarah, Scott is slowly but surely getting back on his feet and anxious to get back to work, that is in fact if Barb will let him go.

Scott Wolfe is an average young man that happens to have a dark past. He is a computer programming genius that works for a travel technology and computer security company called TravTech. Scott is also an avid rock climber which helps his functional strength training and cardiovascular health. He is also haunted by memories of an abusive father who later died in a car accident and a mother that in conjunction was admitted to a psychological facility. Through all this Scott has been blaming the deconstruction of his family unit on a municipal well contamination. Before repairing his present state he must reconcile and make peace with the past.

Scott Wolfe is a real world super hero. With an eidetic memory, graceful psychological manipulation, a gorilla grip, Incredible Hulk-esque fits of rage, as well as being a great reader of micro-expressions. Combine that with a penchant for panic attacks and a case of schizophrenia and you have yourself a whole lot of trouble. Channeling his inner Clark Kent, with the apparent visage of a "techie" one wrong move and you'll find your nasal bone swiftly driven into your cerebellum.

In 2nd Amendment Remedies Scott is diligently working in his rehabilitation trying to get back to work. Out in the real world radical political parties are causing havoc in suburbia, government officials are running scared of being ousted and sent to jail, controversially-celebrated members of the media are being killed and the whereabouts of two nuclear warheads are unknown. Scott is doing his best to push aside the thought of being a figurehead for the CIA department he was appointed boss of by Robert Whitney so he can provide CIA operative John Temple on the job Intel into catching the people responsible for all of the trouble. But how does one accomplish this feat when the people you are hunting are one of your own?

There was a whole heck of a lot lot going on with this book. At times I feel like I lost a little perspective from not reading the first book in the series, on the other hand I blame myself for a lack of attention to detail. This book was very well executed and I recommend it to anyone that enjoys a fully put-together thriller with an intriguing protagonist and a deep plot. I don't recommend this book to people who have a difficult time staying focused, are easily distracted, and like their endings wrapped up and tied with a bow.

Years ago, he had worried that his time with the CIA had turned
him into a robot. One of the agency shrinks had encouraged him
to find something that did upset him and then use it as a gauge
of his emotional detachment. As long as his 'reality check'
thought was still upsetting, he was still 'human.' The reality
check he had come up with was his sister. Picturing her in trouble
was the only thing that caused him emotional distress.
He took a moment to visit his 'reality check' thought.
Tension instantly filled his gut and a pinch formed in his chest.
'Still human after all,' he thought."

I received a copy of this book for an honest review for my stop on the blog tour at Donnie Darko Girl. 

Ever think if women ruled the world it would be one big "Kumbaya?" Across the Wire gives a nightmarish look into one version of what that world could look like while also challenging the concepts of freedom and safety and what they really mean. I had a difficult time getting into the story at first - the beginning was a little slow for me - but once I began to see for myself what society was like in this parallel world, everything came alive vividly. 

Mia, a former Marine, rescues a man being beaten in an alley. He is grateful and asks for her help. She thinks she's going to a third world country but instead finds herself in a parallel world where women rule over men as their slaves. She is asked to help train a group of men in self defense so they can begin to liberate men from slavery. 

Mia was difficult for me to get to know. She has PTSD from serving in the military during war, which was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to read this book, but she was so closed off I didn't find out much about what she was like before the war. If I could have found out more about her, I think I would have been able to relate to her more. 

Once Eben, one of the slaves toiling away in a mine, begins telling the story from his point-of-view, I saw a different side of Mia and was pulled into the story more fully. I got to know Eben and felt for him and his situation. There was something about Eben that brought out a softer side in Mia, and I hoped for Mia to find some peace and healing. 

Across the Wire brought up a lot of questions about freedom and safety that had me thinking about those concepts in a new and different way. I love it when a book can do that for me, and these questions make me want to know what's going to happen next.

In 1983 Hustler magazine printed a parody of a Campari advertisement. The real ad was based on the slogan, "You'll never forget your first time." Flynt's parody showed Jerry Falwell in a reflective pose being interviewed about his first time and included such lines as, "I never really expected to make it with Mom, but then after she showed all the other guys in town such a good time. . . ." The pseudo-interview continued in similar bad taste. Falwell, understandably, and having no sense of humor, was incensed when one of his staff showed him the Hustler advertisement (it's unclear if this was regular reading material for the staff or not.)In any case, Falwell decided to sue (and not coincidentally use the incident as the foundation for a major fund-raising campaign.) Flynt, one of America's more repugnant byproducts, rested his case basically on the premise, "Can't you take a joke, Jerry?"

Smolla, a professor of Constitutional Law at the College of William and Mary, has written a fascinating account of the case, which raised all sorts of fundamental freedom of speech and freedom of religion issues. The book is delightfully entertaining, while presenting a clear and concise accounting of the case and some background on the evangelical movement with biographical sketches of the main players.

The Supreme Court decided, in a unanimous decision that Flynt, had every right to make a fool out of Jerry Falwell (and himself.)

The best comment I read about the case came from a book by Lewis Grizzard Don't Bend Over in the Garden, Granny, You Know Them Taters Got Eyes. It's too good not to quote:

"Who do yo pull for in something like that. It's like picking a favorite between cancer or heart attack, fat or ugly, Iraq or Iran.
It took me about three seconds to decide who I was for: Flynt.
Her's why: Give the book burners one little victory like Falwell over Flynt and those people can get red-eyed with determination to see everything but the Bible, Reader's Digest and Guns and Ammo flushed down the toilet. You've seen people like that. They have beady little eyes, the men wear Bermuda shorts and eat a lot of prunes and the women have mustaches and dowager's humps. They tend to speak partially through their noses.
They not only want to censor books and magazines, they would do away with anything that is fun, such as doing it with the lights on and drinking in the daytime.
These people have no sense of humor, keep plastic over their living room furniture, like Bob Barker, send money to television evangelists, buy velvet paintings of Jesus and/or bullfighters from people selling along the edge of the road, don;t like dogs, are pale, are still wearing polyester and haven't had a decent bowel movement in twenty years.
S.J. Perelman referred to such individuals as 'damp people.' I could add to that by saying they are the mushrooms of the human race.
Let them have a say in what we can read or watch or do and pretty soon, the rest of us will be just as bored as they are."