Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling.

The fourth novel in the Harry Potter series, one of the first thing you will noticed about the book is how much thick it is compare to the earlier books in the series. But is bigger better? Not really.

The book starts off with a murder of a nobody caretaker by Lord Voldemort and Wormtail. It then showcase Harry's annual escape from the his uncle. The better part of the early going take place at the Quidditch World Cup. Following the finals, a group of Death Eaters, Lord Voldemort's servants, storm the venue, creating panic and mayhem. Then the Dark Mark, Lord Voldemort's sign, shot into the night sky. Upon investigating, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Barty Crouch's house elf Winky, is accused of conjuring the mark. Crouch is furious and fires Winky on the spot.

During the Welcoming Feast, Professor Dumbledore announced that Hogwarts will host the recently revived Triwizard Tournament. The tournament involves three difficult tasks which the competitors must complete. The competitors are chosen by The Goblet of Fire. A magical goblet that will chooses one student from each competing school. Only students 17 years old and above are allowed to enter. Cedric Diggory is chosen as Hogwarts' champion, Fleur Delacour is selected for Beauxbatons Academy and Durmstrang Institute is represented by Viktor Krum. As expected, The Goblet unexpectedly selects a fourth champion, Harry Potter.

Harry is helped throughout the tournament by Professor Alastor Moody, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. In the first task, the champions must retrieve a golden egg from a dragon. With advice from Hagrid and Moody, Harry decided to use his broom and outfly the dragon. The second task requires retrieving something important to each champion that is hidden in Hogwarts' lake. Dobby the house-elf gave Harry gillyweed so he can breathe underwater. Harry rescued Ron. He however waits for Fleur to show up and save her little sister Gabrielle, but when she does not, Harry rescues Gabrielle, losing time but awarding him additional points for "moral fiber". For the third task, the champions must navigate through a large maze filled with dangerous obstacles. Shortly before the event, Harry and Viktor Krum are startled when a dishevelled Mr. Crouch emerges from the forest, demanding to see Dumbledore. Harry runs for help, but when he returns with Dumbledore, they find Krum unconscious and Crouch missing. While waiting in Dumbledore's office, Harry peers inside a pensieve containing the professor's memories. In one, Harry sees a wizarding trial in which Barty Crouch, Jr., a Death Eater, is sentenced to Azkaban by his father, Crouch Sr. Harry also hears testimony that Severus Snape was once a Death Eater.

During the third task, Harry and Cedric successfully navigate the maze and, because they had helped each other earlier, they agreed to grab the Cup simultaneously. Unknown to them, the Cup is actually a portkey. Awaiting them is Peter Pettigrew carrying what appears to be a deformed infant, but is actually Lord Voldemort who orders Pettigrew to "kill the spare". Pettigrew kills Diggory with the Avada Kedavra curse and then ties Harry to a tombstone. He then uses Harry's blood, a bone from Voldemort's long-dead father, and his own severed hand in a bizarre ritual that restores Lord Voldemort to his full body and power. Voldemort now carries Harry's blood within him and is no longer affected by the magic that has protected the boy since infancy. Voldemort then reveals that his servant at Hogwarts ensured Harry would win the tournament and be brought to the graveyard. As their spells interlock, a Magic effect occurs, causing the spirit echoes of Voldemort's victims, including Cedric Diggory, James and Lily Potter, and others to spill out from his wand. The echoes momentarily distracted Voldemort, allowing Harry to grab the portkey and escape to Hogwarts with Diggory's body.

After Harry returns to the school grounds through the portkey, Moody takes Harry to his office immediately. He reveals that he was the servant the Dark Lord was talking about and had been helping Harry throughout all of the tournament's events. After the explanation, Mad-Eye attempts to attack Harry but is stopped by Dumbledore, Snape and Minerva McGonagall. When Snape feeds Moody a bottle of Veritaserum, Moody is exposed as Barty Crouch, Jr. who escaped Azkaban and used a Polyjuice Potion to impersonate the real Alastor Moody, trapped in a magical trunk. Crouch Jr. murdered his father and entered Harry's name into the Goblet of Fire, covertly ensuring that Harry completed each task. Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, arrives at Hogwarts accompanied by a Dementor. Fudge denies Dumbledore's claim that Voldemort has returned and before Crouch can repeat his confession his soul is sucked out by the Dementor.

At the end, Dumbledore urgently revives the Order of the Phoenix and against the Ministry's orders, tells students the truth about Cedric's death and that Voldemort has returned. Harry was crowned the Triwizard Tournament champion but felt that Cedric should have been champion. He then gave the one-thousand Galleons prize to Ron's twin brothers, Fred and George, telling them to use it to open their own joke shop, their life-long ambition.

Yes a lot of things happened in this book. However bigger is not better. When you need to set aside a whole chapter at the end for the villain to explain all that has happened, usually that's not good. Another thing is that the main villain came out of left field. Rowling likes to give us red herrings in the books, but overdid it this time. There were like 4-5 different people who could be the main villain, but none of them were it. I also find the Quidditch World Cup overly long and a tad unnecessary. The great thing was the fact that Rowling expanded the world Harry is in. Small little things that were dropped here and there (flying carpets trade disagreement) were most fun to read.

I can't help but think that a good editor is needed for this book. Parts of it work, other don't; usually because they went on too long. A good editor would and should have cut off parts of the book. The book could lose about 50-100 pages and would have been better off for it. Reports say that Rowling admitted that the fourth book was the most difficult to write as she noticed a giant plot hole half-way through writing. She rewrote the ninth chapter 13 times. It showed.

Review of Stardust

There are fanboys who worship at the alter of Neil Gaiman. I loved the man's work on the classic Sandman series, but I am NOT one of them!

Although I love Sandman; to me the series seems a one-off for Neil Gaiman. A fluke if you will. Nothing he has done before or since has quite reached the amazing bar Sandman has set. There have been a few close calls (American Gods coming to mind), but while Gaiman's stories has loads of imagination, lack of execution has been his fatal flaw at times. At times it almost seems that he has too much imagination for his own good.

The movie Stardust is based on a novel Neil Gaiman wrote, and...it does NOT have this problem. For this, thank God for Matthew Vaughn. The British film producer-turned-director might be better known as Mr Claudia Schiffer, but does the man have talent or what!

Vaughn streamlines the book to give off a charming movie that's both funny and fun. The casting director need a pay raise as well because the film is amazing well-casted. How the hell did he managed to get Robert De Niro (having a ball of a time), Michelle Pfeiffer, Claire Danes and Sienna Miller all into Stardust? Whoever he is, the pay raise is richly deserved.

I won't go into detail about the movie as I probably won't be able to do it justice, let just say that I understand why the film remind people of The Princess Bride. Like that classic film, Stardust is destined for classic status. DO NOT READ THE BOOK FIRST! The film is good in that you are never quite sure what's going to happen next.

Also, Charlie Cox is a breakout star as the main character Tristan Thorne. Cox is believable as the bumbling, naive boy as the start of the movie; and is believable as the heroic man at the end. A superb performance!

Take a look at Stardust; it's one of the best film of the year!

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

Confusing! That's what I thought after reading the third Harry Potter book. That's the main trouble with time travel. If you want to have a time travel story, you need to make sure everything make sense while the action is happening and in the end.

That's the main problem with the time travel parts of this book. It makes sense in the end...only if you are willing to make a leap of faith in the midst of the story.

To be fair, the story was pretty good till the time travel started. J.K. Rowling's third book in the Harry Potter series opens with Harry Potter enduring yet another unhappy summer at the Dursleys'. Then Uncle Vernon's visiting sister, Marge, viciously insults Harry, Harry's anger snap and magically causes her to inflate and float to the ceiling. Harry runs away but the Knight Bus soon find him and takes him to the Leaky Cauldron.

During the trip, Harry learns that a supporter of Lord Voldemort, Sirius Black, has escaped from the magic prison of Azkaban. Black murdered thirteen people with one curse and is a strong supporter of Lord Voldemort. Harry met with the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, who surprising told Harry that he will NOT be expelled from Hogwarts for using under-age magic. While staying at the Leaky Cauldron, Harry hears Mr. and Mrs. Weasley arguing over whether he should be warned about Black.

As Harry begins his third year, there are two new wizards joining the staff: Professor Remus J. Lupin for Defence Against the Dark Arts and Rubeus Hagrid for Care of Magical Creatures. While Lupin's lessons are enjoyable, Hagrid's soon become dreary. The hippogriff Buckbeak, a half-horse, half-bird creature, was provoked into attacking Draco Malfoy whose father, Lucius Malfoy, immediately files a complaint against Hagrid.

Because Black is still at large, Dementors, the inhuman Azkaban prison guards now patrol the school. Dementors drain happiness from anything they approach and Harry find that he is particularly affected by them. Shortly before Christmas, the Weasley twins give Harry their Marauder's Map, a magical document that shows every person's location within Hogwarts as well as secret passageways in and out of the castle. Harry uses a tunnel to sneak into Hogsmeade village where he overhears a disturbing conversation that Black was his parents' best friend and is his godfather and legal guardian. He was also the one who betrayed the Potters whereabouts to Lord Voldemort and murdered their friend Peter Pettigrew.

A large dog then attacks Ron and drags him and his rat Scabbers into a hole at the base of Whomping Willow. Harry and Hermione follow, finding a tunnel leading to the Shrieking Shack. Inside, Harry confronts Sirius Black, who is an Animagus, a mage who can transform into an animal at will. Lupin suddenly bursts in and embraces his old friend Black. Confronted by Hermione, Lupin admits to being a werewolf and also the Map's creator, along with Black, Pettigrew, and James Potter. Lupin and Black explain that Scabbers is actually Peter Pettigrew in his Animagus form. He is Voldemort's servant, and he betrayed the Potters, framing Black for the crimes. Harry is skeptical until Black and Lupin force Pettigrew back into his human form. Black explains he discovered that Pettigrew was still alive and escaped Azkaban to seek revenge.

As the group heads back, the full moon rises, causing Lupin to turn into a werewolf. During the ensuing commotion, Pettigrew escapes. Black turns into his dog form to protect the others from Werewolf Lupin. Lupin flees, leaving Black badly injured. As Dementors move in to attack Black, Harry and Hermione see a mysterious figure in the distance cast a powerful stag-shaped Patronus, a guardian spirit spell. The stag scattered the Dementors. Black is then captured and taken to the castle where the Dementors intend to suck out his soul.

Hermione then reveals to Harry that she was entrusted with a time-traveling device. Prompted by Headmaster Dumbledore, she and Harry travel three hours into the past, watching themselves go through the night's previous events.

This is where the story start losing sense. Harry and Hermione set Buckbeak free and return to the Whomping Willow. As the dementors are about to attack the "other" Harry and Black, Harry realises that the mysterious figure he saw earlier was actually himself. He casts the powerful Patronus that repels the dementors. Harry and Hermione free Black, who escapes on Buckbeak as the timeline restores itself to normal.

Does the last part make sense to you? It sure didn't to me as I was reading it. Hermione just happen to be entrusted with a time travel device, which is a big thing in the magic world. Harry just happen to learn the Patronus spell which save Black. They then managed to free Buckbeak who flies Black to safety.

Coincidence? No such thing, magic time travel! A good book that tries so hard to find a good ending, it suffers. That's my view.