Steven’s Comments (group member since Nov 30, 2019)

Steven’s comments from the Mount TBR 2020 group.

Thank you all.

Flag finally planted a couple of feet over Olympus, with 152 books read out of the various TBR piles, the last with nine minutes to spare.

Honestly, I feel I should have been further along than my overall 210 total for the year, but I had unaccountable slowdowns, including one when I was in hospital last January (I spent my time catching up on TV.)

#152 - The League of Regrettable Sidekicks: Heroic Helpers from Comic Book History by Jon Morris

One of a series of books covering unfortunate comics characters, this slightly silly (slightly?) book covers goofy and stupid sidekick characters from early comics to just a few years ago. Morris provides cogent text pieces covering them characters origins and how they ended, and provides example panels and pages.

It’s a fun read, though best delved into periodically rather than read cover to cover in a couple of sittings.

#151 - A Vintage Year for Scoundrels by Guy Adams

Guy Adams updates the 1966 BBC TV series and takes it hearing off in new directions. Adam Adamant is a man out of time, an adventurer with Crown connections who was ambushed by his greatest enemy, injected with a drug to put him into suspended animation, and encased in ice in 1902. A demolition project in 1966 brings him back, leaving him a fish out of water in an unfamiliar world (though scenes of him panicking over an escalator in the Underground were inadvertently hilarious as those existed in 1902.) Being the man he is, he resumes his career, aided by a young woman and a failed actor turned valet.

Adams obfuscates Adamant’s origins — there was a Crown agent of that name who vanished in 1902, but in 1966 the man claiming to be Adam Adamant comes stumbling into the street out of nowhere. Not only that, but his mortal enemy, The Face, appears to be living in his head, suggesting Adam is mentally ill. The stories take a decidedly different turn, too, though they do rather retain the 1960s British adventure tone. All good fun.

This ends in a bit of a cliffhanger. I must go on with it, then!

Leslie wrote: "Woo hoo, you've reached the summit! Amazing job!"

Thank you! I was worried I wasn’t getting there.

#150 - Callan: Volume One by James Mitchell & Peter Mitchell

Adaptations and expansions of Callan short stories by James Mitchell. I’m impressed with how well done these are, both capturing the gritty late-sixties ambience and deepening the characters. Sadly Edward Woodward isn’t around to participate, but the results are highly satisfying.

#149 - The Zapple Diaries: The Rise and Fall of the Last Beatles Label by Barry Miles

Miles weaves the story of his association with the Beatles and observation of their split and the crash of Apple in with the story of how his connection with Paul McCartney at the Indica bookstore turned into the development of the experimental Zapple label, intended as a home for a potpourri of projects including experimental Beatles work, new classical works, and spoken word. The latter was a focus for Miles, who set out to record a variety of mostly American authors, including Allen Ginsberg, Charles Olsen, Richard Brautigan, and Charles Bukowski. As he did so, Apple was falling apart in London, and the predatory Allen Klein was about to move in and destroy everything...including the Beatles.

It’s a flat narrative, but interesting, and it avoids overextending. Ultimately nothing that Miles did came out on Zapple, but most did get released, if quite belatedly in Bukowski’s case.

#148 - Justice League of America: The Last Survivors of Earth! by Dennis O’Neill, Robert Kanigher, Mike Friedrich, Dick Dillin, etc

Issues 77-95 of the original Justice League book, plunging us hard Inyo the socially conscious period of the book. The League gets to face the great ills of the world and as often as not they have bleak wins. It’s heavy-handed, stilted stuff, occasionally godawful (the story that turns Harlan Ellison into a bad guy) and once in a while just creepy. The book is just over 400 pages long, but it was a slog to get through.

#147 - Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

Also known as The Golden Compass, though that latter title is misnomer as the Alethiometer isn’t a compass but a divining device, active and generally accurate in the hands of a properly attuned user. Like all such tools, of course, it;s not as helpful as it might appear.

The first of a trilogy (and, like The Lord of the Rings, essentially a separated part of a single book) this follows 11 year old Lyra Belacqua, seemingly an orphan who’s been allowed to live at Jordan College in Oxford in an alternate England. In this reality all is ruled by the Magisterium, the Christian church writ large. Everybody has a daemon that accompanies them — essentially their soul in animal form. Lyra stumbles on an attempt to murder Lord Asriel, a controversial explorer who has proven the existence of “Dust,” a substance he believes is responsible for aging and death — while the Magisterium thinks it’s original sin made manifest. Asriel also believes he’s found a way to reach and destroy the source of Dust.

Meanwhile children are disappearing from London and elsewhere, taken by the seemingly mythical Gobblers. The Gyptian community, boat-going Romani, have decided to find them...and Lyra, who falls into the care of the charismatic Mrs. Coulter, is their key to tracking them, a journey that will take Lyra to the far north and unexpected discoveries.

It’s a fascinating book, if sometimes a bit random in characters and settings, and with a lot of pulp influence (Lee Scoresby, cowboy aeronaut, is right out of dime novels) and it does have an agenda. I went with the full cast audiobook, narrated by Pullman, though the voicing for Lyra was a tad irritating.

The second and third books are on deck for the coming year. As I enjoy alternate world stories I’m looking forward to this.

Quirkyreader wrote: "Steven,

4 to go🐝🐸"

3 after the next post.

#146 - Mike Hammer: The Night I Died by Max Allan Collins, Mickey Spillane and others

On the one hand it’s pretty much standard Mike Hammer — bullets, broads, bad guys — on the other it’s an interesting way of doing it: the time period is a mix, literally changing from the 1930s to the 1950s from one panel to the next; in other spots it’s the 1940s, then the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s. Unfortunately, while the art is up to this, the overall look is very plastic and stuff.

This being a Mike Hammer story it’s violently misanthropic and almost nobody comes out well, particularly Hammer himself.

The book is rounded out with a pair of short stories by Spillane, neither of which is a Hammer story.

#145 - The Green Lantern, Vol. 2: The Day The Stars Fell by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp

When last we saw Hal Jordan, he’d seemingly been blown up by the catastrophic Un-Bomb. Vol.2 thus starts off in a fairytale, a mysterious place of terror and strange. As it turns out, Hal is inside his power ring, and then it’s a race against time. After that it’s into battle against the horrific Qwa-Man and a multiversal adventure with the Bat-Lantern, Flashlight, Abin Sur, and the grooviest Lantern of them all, Magic Lantern (who works for the Cosmic Gurus.) After dealing with situation at hand Hal is again up against Qwa-Man...only to find himself again pulled into the grasp of the Blackstars.

It’s Morrisonian daffiness throughout. You’ll never be sure if where it’s going, but you’ll certainly get a hell of a ride regardless.

CinCO wrote: "Steven wrote: "#144 - Simon's Cat vs. the World by Simon Tofield

I love Simon's Cat too, didn't know there was a book..."

There’s several! This is #4 of the series. Well worth a look.

#144 - Simon's Cat vs. the World by Simon Tofield

A selection of Simon’s Cat, plus a drawing lesson from Tofield. I love Simon’s Cat, a fuzzball that’s as hapless at times as his owner, always in conflict with the birds, in cahoots with the bunnies, and 50-50 with the hedgehogs.

#143 - The Character of Physical Law: Feynman's Classic on Scientific Laws by Richard P. Feynman

An introduction to physics, relatively basic but covering considerable ground, though it might be considered somewhat dated by now.

#142 - The Green Lantern, Vol. 1: Intergalactic Lawman by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp

Green Lantern gets another bit of an overhaul as the focus is turned on the Corps’ primary function as interstellar lawmen. It’s a lot of fun, and would make a good template for the upcoming TV series (though likely to blow up the budget.)

#141 - The Golden Compass Graphic Novel, Complete Edition by Stéphane Melchior-Durand, Philip Pullman, Clément Oubrerie

I’m quite surprised, I admit — this adaptation of Northern Lights by Philip Pullman is a bit deeper and darker than expected. The theological elements aren’t overly pronounced, but the spiritual and magical parts are. It’s by turns charming and gritty, and the art and design here are captivating — I found myself going back and examining panels for interesting and curious details.

Quirkyreader wrote: "Yea, 10 more till the top.

Q"

Down to 9 now.

#140 - The Coming Storm by Michael Lewis

A look into the way that the National Weather Service and NOAA have been affected and influenced by business being accommodated by government — particularly since Trump installed his incompetent yes-men in government positions. Made me glad, certainly, that I’ve deleted Accuweather from my devices.

#139 - The Seven Geases by Clark Ashton Smith

The unfortunate Lord Ralibar Vooz, Royal hunter in a lost ancient time, sets out on a final hunt that brings him face to face with an underworld filled with horror and death. Full of stupendously flowery language that succeeds into turning the story into a florid tale of myth.