The 2014 Nightly Reading Revelry

[R.CAllen]

14. Human Target by Peter Milligan and the late Edvin Biukovic. A re-read. Still a favourite.

 

15. Human Target : Final Cut by Peter Milligan and Javier Pulido. A re-read. I remembered the resolution to the dangling mystery of the first mini-series (Who hired the assassin to kill Christopher Chance?) as being more satisfying than it feels now upon years later review. And the ending to this was somewhat repeated in the ongoing series finale with the ambiguous open question to the reader whether person or impersonator survived.

 

16. Human Target : Strike Zones by Peter Milligan and Javier Pulido. A re-read. Again, amazing work.

 

17. Human Target : Living In Amerika by Peter Milligan and Cliff Chiang. A re-read. A little bit going back to the well with having him be a priest again. The 60s radicals story is probably still the highlight of the Milligan Human Target for me. The remaining eleven issues in the Vertigo series are uncollected because DC.

 

18. Nemo : The Roses of Berlin by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. The daughter of Jules Verne's Captain Nemo takes husband Broad Arrow Jack (an obscure creation of the relatively-popular-in-his-day yet now nearly forgotten author Edwin Harcourt Burrage) on a rescue mission into Fritz Lang's Metropolis (the 1927 cinema classic suitably Nazified for early 40s Germany and lightly sprinkled with an assortment of mad manipulative teutonic masterminds appropriate to the era) for the sake of their captured daughter. I do not get what this was or why this is a story Moore chose to tell or if there's a real point here to what's being said. Immortality in life bad, immortality of stories good? Change better than not-change?

 

19. The Falling Astronauts by Barry N. Malzberg. Superb Mundane SF from 1971.

 

20. Crazy Town : The Rob Ford Story by Robyn Doolittle. Well done. There's something else here nestled among the bio and the gossip and the background; the question of how reporters who witness things with their own eyes take being called liars again and again when they report what they know to be truth. That alone is worthwhile to tell, that alone is more than enough for outrage. Everything else (and there's a lot of the everything else in here, even for a me who once thought I more or less had a handle on what Rob Ford is and how he came to be) is, as was said, gravy.

 

I started but was unable to finish or continue with the following : Eyes of Amber by Joan Vinge, Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad, William Petty by Ted McCormick.

[Marc DuQuesne]

Currently reading - Lord of the Rings

 

Completed books

 

The Hobbit - Tolkien

The Song of Ice and Fire series 1-5 - Martin

Prince of Mercenaries - Jerry Pournelle

Go Tell the Spartans - Jerry Pournelle, S.M. Stirling.

Prince of Sparta - Jerry Pournelle, S.M. Stirling

Cauldron of Ghosts - David Weber, Eric Flint

The Sea Without a Shore - David Drake

Genellan: Planetfall - Scott Gier

Grand Central Arena - Ryk E. Spoor

Spheres of Influence - Ryk E. Spoor

Blood of the Isle - Loren L. Coleman

Rainbow Six - Tom Clancy

Come and Take Them - Tom Kratman

Agent of Change - Sharon Lee, Steve Miller

Conflict of Honors - Sharon Lee, Steve Miller

Carpe Diem - Sharon Lee, Steve Miller

Plan B - Sharon Lee, Steve Miller

I Dare - Sharon Lee, Steve Miller

Fledgling - Sharon Lee, Steve Miller

Saltation - Sharon Lee, Steve Miller

Ghost Ship - Sharon Lee, Steve Miller

Dragon Ship - Sharon Lee, Steve Miller

[Cashmere]

Thanks for popping in, Marc. I hope you'll continue to come back with updates!

[Cashmere]

20. Playing for Pizza by John Grisham

This book is about a mediocre pro football player who ends up playing in a minor league in Italy. I liked it more than I though I was going to.

21. The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom

Mitch Albom has been recommended to me a number of times, and I have liked his stuff in the past. I loved this one. It had interested characters in intersecting story lines.

22. Look Again by Lisa Scottoline

In this book a reporter discovers that her adopted son may have been kidnapped. Action, stalking, and love story ensue. I enjoyed it a lot.

23. The Candidate's Daughter by Catherine Lea

Borrowed this for free on Kindle. Another kidnapping story that takes place as the kidnapping occurs and as the ransom timeline ticks down. I liked the pacing and the characters. I also thought the ending was very satisfying.

[Darth Krawlie]

10. Sandman: Endless Nights, by Neil Gaiman

11. The Sword in the Stone, by TH White

 

I decided to split the Once and Future King into its four books and take breaks in between to read other things. I've got a few comics I'd like to read, and probably another Lovecraft before moving onto the next one.

Oh I also got a coupon for two free months of Audible. I should probably check it out and make sure it doesn't expire or anything...

[Darth Krawlie]

12. Hellblazer: Reasons to be Cheerful, by Mike Carey

13. Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon, by Matt Fraction

14. The Shadow Over Innsmouth, by HP Lovecraft

[R.CAllen]

21. Fortune’s Pawn by Rachel Bach. Well done space opera (albeit of the somewhat predictable and paint-by-numbers variety) told in the first person voice of a pretty cool character. The book mostly feels like set-up for the two sequels where I assume the real action and answers will be delivered. But it’s enjoyable set-up that moves at a quick enough pace.

 

22. Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann and translated by Anthea Bell. A flock of sheep must try and solve the murder of their shepherd. Perhaps a little too Watership Down-y but, if anything, it exceeds the hype and any facile comparison to that sort of story (Animal Farm, Babe, whatever) falls short of capturing what’s special here. It feels like the sort of book to be reread over and over again for years to come.

 

23. The Human Division by John Scalzi. Operations clandestine, diplomatic, and farcical are conducted and investigated among civilizations on the brink of war. The book’s format is of strung together short stories and vignettes that, one assumes for some readers, come together into a larger whole. I’m not sure if something really subtle is going on around here (is Scalzi making a claim that the simple verities of your usual Captain Spaceman Solves A Space Problem story can, if unpacked, be about far more than they’re usually about?) and I’m missing it or if this is just a fun adventure with the unanswered aspects to be resolved in a later book. The book’s last story, an extra piece added for the print release, seems absolutely crucial to it if the subtle-y stuff is real and not just an apophenic mirage. There’s also a neat trick where the more cinematic elements of the book’s finale are excusable as being a deliberately orchestrated outcome for maximum dramatic impact by whoever’s responsible for all the shenanigans that form the bulk of the book. It’s not Scalzi twisting things and stretching credibility to the breaking point, honest, it’s the shadowy conspirators who have been manipulating the main characters from day one! Well, I thought it was neat, at least.

 

24. The Last Weekend by Nick Mamatas. A bitter sadsack drunk (with braaaaaiiiins enough to justify the precision of his first person narrative mode) takes a lowly civil service job killing the undead while trying to deal with what passes for girl troubles in a zombified San Francisco. But is this zombie apocalypse or zombie apocrypha? U-DECIDE!

 

25. The Coffin by Phil Hester and Mike Huddleston. An old Oni Press miniseries about a cold scientist coming back to life and love once he’s already dead. My copy misprints the second issue twice so I can’t really judge. It’d be nice to see this in colour.

 

26. The Nightmare Factory based on the stories of Thomas Ligotti adapted by Stuart Moore and Joe Harris with art by Colleen Doran, Ben Templesmith, Ted McKeever, and Michael Gaydos. Horror’s always been kind of an iffy thing for comics (how do you really surprise/shock someone in that medium the way you can with the unwilling immediacy of film or with the immersive quality of prose?) and I don’t think Ligotti’s work is suited to adaptation. Still, a good effort.

 

27. The Broccoli Agenda by David Yurkovich. A little piece of his quirky foodiehero universe. Again, it’s a shame that the budget for a lot of indie stuff doesn’t seem to allow for colour.

 

28. Flex Mentallo by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. Never expected to be able to hold this one in my hands. The recolouring choices for some bits here are a real departure from the lurid and dayglow tone seen in the original issues but the overall effect of the book as a whole remains the same. Perhaps my favourite superhero story of all time.

 

29. Three by Kieron Gillen and Ryan Kelly. Helot slaves of Sparta on the run. Gillen’s strongest standalone creator-owned work so far. Surprised to see no thinkpieces out there on the comics internet comparing the sincere humanism of this work with the ludicrous excesses of the Miller movie sequel.

 

30. Goliath by Tom Gauld. A fun if slight reworking of the classic story. Sometimes the big men of myth are just regular working joes. I liked this way more than I expected to, actually.

 

31. Flannery O’Connor : The Cartoons edited by Kelly Gerald. Student work collected, annotated, and analyzed. The thing that made my day about this here is the reference to her appearance at the age of 5 years old in a newsreel and managing to find the clip among the recently YouTubed archives of British Pathé.

 

32. American Romantic by Ward Just. The life and loves of a career diplomat. Feels like an improvement in comparison to his last couple of books but, really, the number of unamazing novels he’s done can barely be counted on one hand (there’s one out and out pointless one and his first three are arguable [well, really, his first one only]) and he may very well be the best living American male author.

 

33. The Wife of Martin Guerre by Janet Lewis. A woman’s husband disappears. Lives up to the hype. No. Exceeds the hype. No. The hype does it a disservice, the hype makes it seems like it belongs in the category of hyped novels when it really deserves to be engraved on the face of the Voyager II plaque so untold eons from now when we are all dust something of worth and beauty will survive in the universe.

 

34. Dungeons & Dragons : Fell’s Five by John Rogers and (mostly) Andrea Di Vito. This is still some of my favourite comics (“My wife is the shapeshifter! She is newly affectionate!” and “I am being disemboweled HORRIBLY!” never fail to make me laugh) and it’s a shame more of it won’t see the light of day.

 

35. “An Almost Theatrical Innocence” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Fiction by John T. Irwin. Clarity and personal insight, well delivered, as always.

 

36. Hitler’s Furies : German Women In The Nazi Killing Fields by Wendy Lower. Of all the horror here what stays with me is the outdoor picnicking and banqueting and the musicians who would put down their instruments, pick up guns, and shoot Jews.

 

37. The Viewer’s Complete Tale by Andrew Rilstone. A kickstartered collection of his blog posts on Doctor Who. A chunk of the third season seems to go unremarked upon (did he never blog about it? Did he blog about it and forget to put it in here? Did he say he was going to go back and cover the stuff he missed on original airing? I forget) but otherwise a satisfying compilation. Reading it, I felt I should underline particularly good bits of relevance to anyone’s relationship to any story but didn’t at the time so now I guess if I ever want to employ his arguments to best effect I’m sotl. Still, the searchable digital version is also on my computer so I could take a look there if needed. Made me want to revisit some episodes like the Moffat two-parter from the first season, The Satan Pit two-parter, Midnight, Turn Left, The Waters of Mars. And to see some of the Sarah Jane Adventures, too.

 

I started but was unable to finish or continue with the following : Sanctuary by William Faulkner, Vicious by V.E. Schwab, Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement, The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D.G. Compton

[Cashmere]

Wowzer, you read a lot, RC!

24. The Misremembered Man by Christina McKenna

This was a free book on Amazon Prime. It wasn't anything overly special but I liked it well enough as a change of pace. It's about a lonely bachelor and his search for love.

25. At Night we Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcon

I listened to this audiobook for the reading challenge to fill the category of a book that takes place in a culture other than your own. Overall, the subject matter was not overly interesting. A young man joins a traveling theater production and travels around an unnamed South American country performing the play. It's written in a unique way, in that the narrator is interveiwing people who played a part in the main character's life. I was sucked in quite thoroughly wanting to find out what happened.

26. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

This book is kind of depressing, but still very good. It's about a 15 year old social misfit and his older friends.

27. The Woods by Harlan Coben

This was a perfect murder mystery in that it kept twisting and turning and kept me interested.

[NumberSix]

12. Ransom Riggs, Hollow City: the Second Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children. In which present-day Jacob Portman and the time-displaced students continue fleeing from the bad guys while trying to find a solution to Miss Peregrine's ongoing predicament, meeting a few new peculiars in unusual places and times, and running and running and running. The vibe is the same and I'm annoyed that I didn't see the climactic unhappy twist coming, but I'm intrigued by the implications of the very last twist, and yet the final bit of dialogue is such a blatant, movie-ready kiss-off line that I had to LOL. Ultimately, worth it.

 

13. Max Collins and Terry Beatty, Return to Perdition. You may or may not remember the movie Road to Perdition starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, and a surly Daniel Craig. It was based on a graphic novel. This is, I think, its fourth sequel, and focuses on the sins of 1970s Hollywood as lived through by Tom Hanks' grandson, who's taken the family troublemaker legacy in a very different direction in his employment as a sort of black-ops specialist. This would mean more if I'd read it years ago and had't skipped one or two of the previous sequel. I bought my copy from Terry Beatty himself when he appeared at the 2012 Superman Celebration, so that was keen.

 

14. Jeremy Dale, Skyward, vol. 1: Into the Woods. Fantasy series about a young boy on the run with his dog after he sees his father murdered by former peers. Looks great for a comics newcomer, surprised me in a couple of spot, and has a heart thiiiiis big. A pleasant surprise picked up from the creator, one of the few highlights of the largely disastrous inaugural Indiana Comic Con.

 

15. Greg Pak, Ariel Olivetti, Giuseppe Comuncoli, et al, Incredible Hulk: Son of Banner.

16. Greg Pak, Ron Garney, and Jackson Guice, Skaar, Son of Hulk.

17. Greg Pak, Brian Reed, Tom Raney, Brian Ching, Barry Kitson, et al, Incredible Hulks: Dark Son.

 

A while back I decided to catch up on several years' worth of Hulk comics that I'd missed. In the years after the not-bad "Planet Hulk" arc, all involved really loved dwelling on Hulk's son Skaar, and one volume even tosses in his other long-lost son as a villain. But maybe I should've read these years ago instead of letting them sit for so long, because it turns out I really, really can't stand Skaar and had to force myself to finish Son of Hulk. But I didn't pay American money for it just to skim it, though in retrospect I wish I would've been more permissive with myself.

[R.CAllen]

It's been a little while but I remember the Skaar : King of the Savage Land miniseries by Rob Williams and Ben Ching as an enjoyable (and recommended) romp.

Wowzer, you read a lot, RC!

Thanks? I guess? I'm sure this horrible habit instilled into me at an early age by LeVar Burton, Wishbone, and the local lending library at the Chabad Lubavitch Community Center will pay off real big for me any day now you bet.

[NumberSix]

I could read oodles more books if I wrote less and maybe cut off our internet. Sigh.

34. Dungeons & Dragons : Fell’s Five by John Rogers and (mostly) Andrea Di Vito. This is still some of my favourite comics (“My wife is the shapeshifter! She is newly affectionate!” and “I am being disemboweled HORRIBLY!” never fail to make me laugh) and it’s a shame more of it won’t see the light of day.

Totally agree with this lamentation, and with your appreciation of Peter Milligan's underappreciated Human Target.

[Darth Krawlie]

15. The Queen of Air and Darkness, by TH White

16. Y: The Last Man Vol 1: Unmanned, by Brian K Vaughn

17. Y: The Last Man Vol 2: Cycles, by Brian K Vaughn

18. Y: The Last Man Vol 3: One Small Step, by Brian K Vaughn

19. The Ill Made Knight, by TH White

[Cashmere]

Thanks for your review of the next Miss Peregrine book, NumberSix. Now that I've finished the first one, I was thinking about picking up the next one.

 

 

28. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

I was going to listen to this for the reading challenge, but I ended up getting another one that filled its criteria, so I just listened for fun. I really enjoyed it, although the ending wasn't as satisfying as I was hoping. Gotta leave room for the sequel, I suppose.

29. An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon

Since the new book comes out today, I figured I should get caught up on this series. It's been so long since I read the last installment that it took me awhile to get back into it. I also thought the first half of the book dragged a bit. I was also disappointed that there was no real ending. The action just kind of stopped. I thought that the previous installments at least had definitive endings. Still, I'm looking forward to the next one!

30. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

I picked this up on a whim not knowing much about it, except that it was by J.K. Rowling, of course. I spent most of the book not knowing where things were going. It's basically about a bunch of self absorbed jerks living their lives in a small town. Most have dirty secrets and all make many stupid choices. Some of the reviews I read criticized the book for having scenes just for the shock value. I didn't get that vibe so much. Still, If you would like to feel horrible about the state of humanity, pick it up.

[Guest]

I'm really bad at updating lists.

 

42. Saints and Social Justice: A Guide To Changing The World by Brandon Vogt

A great summary of Catholic social teaching for the masses. Focuses on specific examples of different aspects of Catholic social teaching, and has a lot of great stuff explained very simply. Not as specific as more scholarly writings on the subject, but one of the few to truly try to take horribly misunderstood teachings and offer them to those who aren't going to read something more in depth. It would've benefited more from focusing more on the tension between solidarity and subsidiarity, but generally well done.

[Cashmere]

You're not that bad at it since the above is in fact an update. How long was your latest read? I always think I should read books that teach me something, but I'm not sure I could stay awake for something long and dry. Since I'm not catholic that probably wouldn't be my choice anyway, but I'm just curious.

[Guest]

It's not very long, only 192 pages.

 

The reason I'm not good is that I have 20+ books to add.

[Cashmere]

Well, in that case you are the worst.

 

192 pages is totally doable for an educational book.

[Darth Virul]

I have one book to complete on the challenge before I'll update

[David]

hey, i gotta start somewhere right?

 

 

#1. The Atlantis Gene by A.G. Riddle

 

First of all, i recently just got a kindle paperwhite. i've really been itching to get back into reading. so i thought if i invested in a peripheral for reading, it would kickstart something. it's been quite sometime since i actually sat down and read a book. a few years.

 

Anyways, back to the book. i found it on one of the lists on my kindle reader, i picked it out because i didn't really know where to start, the synopsis sounded great and the title was neat. and i'm glad i did. it touches topics about terrorist attacks, prehistoric times, history, world war 1 and 2, autism(which is interesting), conspiracy theories, evolution and of course, the city of atlantis. just a terrific, mind bending thriller. it was kind of an overwhelming read for me, just because it had been so long since i had really sat down and read a book, the depth and everything that went on was at times confusing. but i love the authors writing style. out of 470 pages or so, there's 150 or so chapters. i really just enjoyed the way he broke the book down. it was fun. i bought the 2nd book in the series, The Atlantis Plague and just started it last night.

[Cashmere]

That sound right up my alley. I will have to check it out! Be sure to let us know how you like #2. Happy Reading on your new Kindle!

[R.CAllen]

38. Engineering Infinity edited by Jonathan Strahan. Fourteen hard-sf stories. At a distance of some weeks I can recall the details of (plus, liking!) the ones by Peter Watts, Karl Schroeder, Hannu Rajaniemi, Charles Stross, Gwyneth Jones, and John Barnes. Did I forget the other ones? Skip them? I can somewhat summon a vague few hints of what the David Moles one was about but I’m drawing a blank on the rest. Maybe they need to be titled better? Maybe I need a better mind.

 

39. Edge of Infinity edited by Jonathan Strahan. Thirteen hard-sf stories. A grand total of three stand out here for me : the Pat Cadigan one, the Hannu Rajaniemi one, and the Bruce Sterling one. Again, I can only remember the ones I liked? Or maybe I only like the ones I remember? Actually factually, I must have really really skipped a lot here because what the hey three stories out of thirteen that is a not good ratio.

 

40. The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton. I’m told there’s a sort of game they play in other parts of the world (the British parts … the parts where there are British people doing British things) called Top Trumps where you take things and compare them and decide which one is better than the other. Is there a better book than this one? Can it be topped/trumped?

 

41. Warlock : The Complete Collection by Jim Starlin. Born to be Earth’s man of the future, then forced to abandon his native planet because of his alien ways, he wanders the stars seeking LIFE! Gifted with ultra-strength, paranormal reflexes and perceptions, the power of levitation and the curse of a vampire soul-gem, he stands uniquely ALONE among the heavens. Collecting Strange Tales #178-181, Warlock #9-15, The Avengers Annual #7, and Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2. Man, these comics. They do not make them this way anymore. They no longer spend a substantial portion of each issue recapping (and, sometimes, subtly eliding key details of) what happened before and how everyone got where they are now. They no longer put two pages worth of nine-panel grids where a troll lies about his secret origin in order to get a chance at sexing a captive blue space princess next to a full page splash of a golden space jesus sitting on an asteroid and really hamletting it up before all the stars in the universe disappear a mere third of the way through the next page.

 

42. The Mouse That Roared by Leonard Wibberley. Ruritanian realpolitiksatire. Always a pleasure.

 

I started but was unable to finish or continue with the following : A Mania For Sentences by D.J. Enright, Man Is An Onion by D.J. Enright, Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi, Good And Real by Gary L. Drescher, Waiting For The Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee, Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, Four Great Classic Novels by Jane Austen (in fairness only bailed during ­Emma but that was after finishing the still mostly boring Sense and Sensibility and the still enjoyable Pride and Prejudice).

[Darth Krawlie]

20. Y: The Last Man volume 4: Safeword, by Brian K Vaughn

21. Y: The Last Man volume 5: Ring of Truth, by Brian K Vaughn

22. Y: The Last Man volume 6: Girl on Girl, by Brian K Vaughn

23. Y: The Last Man volume 7: Paper Dolls, by Brian K Vaughn

24. Y: The Last Man volume 8: Kimono Dragons, by Brian K Vaughn

25. Y: The Last Man volume 9: Motherland, by Brian K Vaughn

26. Y: The Last Man volume 10: Whys and Wherefores, by Brian K Vaughn

27. Hellblazer: The Gift, by Mike Carey

28. The Immortal Iron Fist: The Last Iron Fist Story, by Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction

29. Captain America: Two Americas, by Ed Brubaker

 

Been going a little comic crazy lately. Gearing up for Comic Con!

[Cashmere]

31. The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta

I grabbed this randomly from the library to listen to while running. I thought it was going to be boring, but it was actually pretty good. I liked the characters and situations that developed as the book went. Sadly, I didn't like that the book just ended at a random spot with no climax or resolution. Just a clear, "eh, guess I'll stop writing now" from the author. Could have been good but ended up sucking.

32. Betrayal in Death (In Death #12) by J.D. Robb

I read this one for the challenge. I'm still enjoying this series well enough, although there's nothing too new or groundbreaking going on. I'll pick up the next one when I get to a lull.

[R.CAllen]

43. Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein. A ham actor of tomorrow takes on the role of a lifetime. One of my favourites among the Heinlein juveniles, I was surprised to find myself unable to continue reading it, overcome with a sense of disgust at how he’s lying, they’re lying, they’re all lying. Starting over from the beginning helped that feeling go away but it started to resurge for me towards the end what with the protagonist speechifying about the moral rules of the universe and the need to treat other alien races as we would ourselves like to be treated. Maybe the irony’s intended. Probably not.

 

44. A Treatise On The Novel by Robert Lidell. Very clear, very quotable. Read twice with some underlining and bookmarking the second time through. Confirms that I really should give the work of Ivy Compton-Burnett a second try.

 

45. The Rhesus Chart by Charles Stross. A civil servant deals with the noxious interplay between capital and the state with bloody consequences ensuing. This felt even more padded than the last one (deliberately so, possibly, given that the narrator may very well be in a questionable set of circumstances once he’s writing this book) but it at least leaves things in a very interesting place for the rest of the series to follow up on.

 

46. Arts & Entertainment by Christopher Beha. An acting teacher releases a sex tape of his now-famous girlfriend. Couldn’t put it down, very well written. The twenty-second chapter especially good.

 

47. Honor’s Knight by Rachel Bach. The second in the three-part series. It might be interesting to go back and carefully check through the first one to see what parts of the worldbuilding were obliquely referenced in the first part before they’re played up here. Answers what feels like all the questions; not really excited to read the next one and can’t seem to get past its opening prologue.

 

48. Reach For Infinity by Jonathan Strahan. Fourteen stories. It’s the funny ones that stick in the memory here, the Adam Roberts one and the Alastair Reynolds one. There’s a nice Italo Calvino tribute by Hannu Rajaniemi and the Pat Cadigan one and the Peter Watts capper is good.

 

49. The Trial of Sören Qvist by Janet Lewis. An account of the Parson of Vejlby’s death. I can not think of a better portrayal of the feeling of anger in fiction.

 

50. The League Of Extraordinary Gentlement by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill. I just reread all of it again from the first volume to the recent Nemo one from a couple of months ago. I don’t really know what to think. It becomes more and more obvious that Moore did his big bit of research for the second volume’s Almanac back-up sections and continually mines those established fictional connections between places and peoples for the rest of the books - either outright like with some of the filler in the Black Dossier and the initial sections of the first Nemo book or just in terms of pattern like how he twice reveals the lurid grown-up fates of the cohorts of schoolboys from children’s stories (one group spies, another rock’n’roll musicians) or becomes delighted with collapsing together suitably sparse fictional environments (Mars, the Moon, Antarctica) into a storyless morass. Then again, there’s stuff that happens later on which is either intentionally or luckily foreshadowed from the beginning (Rosamund Coote inviting Mina to visit again, for example, and I think when they see Mary Poppins in the Black Dossier she’s on her way to deal with the HarryPotterAntiChrist in the third part of Volume III) and the whole package remains a favourite even now though I do miss the classic nine-panel grids now that they appear to be gone forever from Moore’s toolkit.

 

51. Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 by Francine Prose. Life and love and death in Paris from different viewpoints. Eh. Disappointingly fractured, so much so that it’s a tough read for me until the Nazis show up and then things proceed easily enough from there. Will probably re-read in the future.

 

I started but was unable to finish or continue with the following : Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (still, can’t seem to manage to stick with it for more than a chapter at a time), Good And Real by Gary L. Drescher (continues to be a tough slog in the math-y parts), The Shocks Of Adversity by William Leisner, Heaven’s Queen by Rachel Bach.

[NumberSix]

18. Tom Bancroft, Opposite Forces. A not-quite-romantic super-hero comedy. SHE is a hot, successful lawyer. HE is a short, chubby website designer. When a freak accident involving a pompous Superman analogue robs him of his powers and splits them between these two completely opposite neighbors, hilarity ensues! Bancroft is a thin, major-studio animator with a wife and four kids, so this isn't the Mary Sue fantasy I was worried it would be. The animation-style art is clean and top-notch, many of the jokes are funny, and it doesn't end with "And then the geek got the girl, and THE GEEK WAS YOU! Yay happy ending!" Well done.

19. Ken Krekeler, Westward, vol. 1. Present-day steampunk corporate thriller about a vain, snobby, untalented male model who awakens after a ten-year coma to find numerous radical changes around and in him. An indie written and drawn obviously in the style of pre-Marvel Brian Michael Bendis, but I'm not overdosed on either steampunk or old Bendis, so I'm pretty cool with it so far. One of the best blind convention purchases I've made from any Artists Alley so far this year.

20. Greg Pak, Jonathan Coulton, Takeshi Miyazawa, Code Monkey Save World. Charles monkey. Charles have day job. Charles not know supervisor super-villain. Other villain kidnap cute coworker. Charles and supervisor go rescue. Fun action based on songs by Jonathan Coulton, whoever that is. Greg Pak co-write amazing Incredible Hercules. Code Monkey just as funny. Maybe go listen to Jonathan Coulton songs now.

21. Michael May, Jason Copland, Kill All Monsters! vol. 1: Ruins of Paris. What if Pacific Rim had smarter mecha drivers? What if the monsters had more variety? What if there were also people-sized monsters for mysterious reasons? What if the mecha makers had deep dark secrets? Kaiju fans should get a kick out of this. Best scene: one paraplegic driver misses an entire battle scene because the elevator up to his mecha cockpit is old and slow. So there's something I hadn't seen before.

22. Bob Mould, See a Little Light: the Trail of Rage and Melody. The influential hardcore/power-pop rocker who fronted Hüsker Dü, found his biggest success in Sugar, and has been a solo act for years finally sat down and told his story -- his troubled home life in upstate New York, his Minneapolis punk-scene days, his record-company blues, his bitter band breakups, his creative and financial struggles (until he wrote the them to The Daily Show, which cured much of the latter), and the one time he became a WCW writer and annoyed Hulk Hogan. Threaded throughout all that are chronicles of his life as a homosexual, unknowingly closeted at first, embracing it later in life. TBH I was here more for the music history, which was utterly fascinating, but I suspect the rest is kind of groundbreaking.

23, 24, 25. Jim Butcher: Storm Front; Fool Moon; Grave Peril. I bought a three-in-one SFBC collection after Copper kept recommending this series, but I just now got around to reading it because Butcher is appearing here in Indy at GenCon in three weeks, so I thought it might be nice to read some of his work before getting an autograph. Each book was better than the one before it, so hopefully I'll have time to continue with the series at some point, up until I get to the parts that y'all were complaining about over in the Skin Deep thread. Yeah, I peeked. It'll be years before I get to that one anyway, if ever, so no worries.

26. Jeremy Dale, Skyward, vol. 2: Strange Creatures. Volume 1 was #14 on this list. It's entertaining light fantasy, but they're only collecting three issues at a time, so it's not moving forward very quickly for me.

27. Warren Ellis and Mike McKone, Avengers: Endless Wartime. In which Earth's Mightiest Heroes stand around and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and eventually they punch some half-Nazi half-Norse monsters while talking and talking and talking and SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP