Level 8: Mt. Olympus (150+): Over The Top And Back Again with Brian! Blessed!

[Steven]

#103 - Endangered Species by Nevada Barr

The fifth Anna Pigeon book (and the first I've read) finds Park Ranger Pigeon temporarily assigned as a member of a fire suppression team on an island, a job that's pretty much about anything but fire -- when the book opens, Anna is hip deep in the ocean, trying to manhandle a giant turtle over a sand barrier so she can lay her eggs on the beach. Meanwhile, her erstwhile boyfriend, Frederick, is off in New York, trying to help Anna's sister Molly to figure out who's sending her death threats -- an assignment that will not go right in the right ways for Frederick.

Anna soon finds herself distracted by the crash of a drug interdiction plane, an apparent accident that kills both crew members. Of course, it's not that simple -- the plane was sabotaged. It's up to Anna and her team to start unraveling things, and of course it's *never* that easy....

It's lightweight stuff, overall, not quite a cozy in terms of the mystery set-up (there's a lot of swearing, and a lot of damage gets dealt, much of it to Anna) but fascinating in the National Park Service lore and minutiae that Barr gets in there.

[Steven]

#104 - Dead Beat by Jim Butcher

Read in audio form, and, my God, is this one endless. It just keeps going and going and going, or at least it feels like it. The shenanigans revolve around the Book Of Kemmler, a tome that will allow the release of the Erlking, and the assumption of minor godhood by whoever's using it. The side-effects...mass death and destruction. Harry Dresden, of course, is front and center in getting hold of the book, and trying to prevent the calamities to come.

Unfortunately, the story feels unduly padded, with complication after complication, and a slow stumble to a climax that seems to have been written with a film in mind.

I'll give the next one a try, but I may be in for a sad time.

[Steven]

#105 - Marvel Masterworks: The Black Panther, Vol. 1 by Don McGregor, Billy Graham, Rich Buckler, etc
+ Black Panther Epic Collection: Panther's Rage by above, plus Stan Lee, Jack Kirby

Reading these stories in 2017, the tendency is to gloss over what an event they were in terms of comics in the early 1970s, and focus instead on the rather over-abundant and sometimes sledgehammer-subtle writing from McGregor. What gets missed is that these were amazing comics for the time, part of a fringe of writers and artists who managed to up-end things even while constrained by the comics code.

McGregor, for his part, immediately took the Panther back to Wakanda, and while doing that (creating a comic that essentially had almost no reference to white people) not only did an amazing job of worldbuilding, but created an intricate twelve-part story around the battle between Erik Killmonger and T'Challa for rule over Wakanda (this is going to be the root of the upcoming movie, too.)

Is it perfect? No, it's not. There are regular artist shifts before and after Billy Graham delivers some excellent pencil work, and there's a lot of bombast and a fair bit of pretension. Also, McGregor's run on the book was abruptly terminated, partly because of low sales, and partly because Jack Kirby wanted to tak the character back and do it his way (i.e., over the top and full of Kirby dots and Kirby Krackle.) That abrupt cancellation left McGregor's second story, a sprawling tale of racism in the US South, unfinished, as the Panther faces off against the mysterious Wind Eagle (pencil layouts for the first pages of the next issue are included at the end.)

The Epic Collection includes the two issues of Fantastic Four that introduce the Panther, plus some additional material. The Masterworks volume includes an afterword by the late Dwayne McDuffie, who recounts the effect discovering McGregor's story had on him.

[Steven]

#106 - Doctor Who Unbound: A Storm of Angels by Marc Platt

The Doctor has finally made up his mind to leave the stifling halls of Gallifrey, and, with his granddaughter Susan, head off for a life of adventure across time and space. All well and good, you say...we know this already!

This, however, isn't the First Doctor we know of old. This is a different man, one who chose to stay on Gallifrey for a long time rather than fleeing in a faulty Type 40 TARDIS. There are no other companions, the adventures are different (even when they've been to some of the same places), they have lethal pursuit dogging their heels in the form of Time Agent Zeuro, Susan is dying from a mysterious illness, and the Doctor is a lot more lax about their effect on time than his mainline counterpart is.

Which is why he encounters Sir Francis Drake in deep space, bringing back booty for the benefit of Queen Gloriana. There's space-going Aztecs, too, as well as an even stranger alien threat in the form of the Angels, and a mystery regarding Susan's illness and just who is really after them.

It's a Marc Platt story, so it twists and turns and gets very strange at times. I did enjoy the bittersweet ending, though.

[Steven]

#107 - Supergirl Vol. 2 Breaking The Chain by Joe Kelly, et al
#108 - Supergirl: Beyond Good and Evil by Kelley Puckett, Kurt Busiek, Ian Churchil, et al
#109 - Supergirl: Way of the World by Kelley Puckett, et al

Continuing my wander through the history of the pre-New52 Supergirl, and, oh boy, is this ever cause for confusion -- in the course of this series she gets several variations rung on her origin story, complete with the most turgid, drawn-out, and thunderously bad retcon that frees her of most of the earlier baggage (all of the "we're sending you to Earth to kill your cousin" stuff) although it does leave the reader uncertain as to whether or not Kara killed Cassandra Cain, or if that was all a false reality set up by...oh, never mind, a Monitor did it.

By this point the series was going through so many artists that Kara's design changed from issue to issue, as did her outfit. There was also a crossover with Countdown To Infinite Crisis, and another with Amazons Attack! (a truly terrible event), and, not to be left out, the really awful "Kara tries to save a kid with brain cancer" story, which sees Superman flying out to meet her so he can tell her, "The boy died." Great bedside manner there, Supes.

These are easy enough reads, and the art often makes things more entertaining than they really are, but if your best version of Kara is a super-powered teenager with amped-up angst and a tendency to not think before she acts...well, here you are.

[Steven]

#110 - Supergirl: Who is Superwoman? by Sterling Gates, Jamal Igle, etc
#111 - Supergirl: Friends and Fugitives by Sterling Gates, Greg Rucka, Jamal Igle, etc
#112 - Supergirl: Death and the Family by Sterling Gates, etc

Further into the Supergirl saga, as the series plunged into the throes of the two-year long New Krypton saga, something that does these trade compilations no good whatsoever because great chunks of the story go missing (the majority of Chris Kent's story, and the Nightwing & Flamebird arc, are told elsewhere, for instance) and the narrative has a tendency to suddenly leap forward.

On top of that, Supergirl's characterization remains inconsistent -- sometimes she thinks things through, and then the next second she's an angry teenager. I'm a little surprised that I feel this is such a mess, as I read the original comics years ago when they first came out and remember rather liking Sterling Gates' writing.

[Steven]

#113 - Supergirl: Bizarrogirl by Sterling Gates, Jamal Igle, etc
#114 - Supergirl: Good Looking Corpse by James Peaty, Kelly-Sue DeConnick, etc

Sterling Gates' last outing on the Supergirl book was a bit of an improvement over his earlier work, perhaps because it wasn't complicated and distracted by endless crossovers. This run focuses mainly on the plight of Bizarrogirl, a flawed Supergirl clone rocketed from the weird Bizarroworld as catastrophe hits. Supergirl races off to solve the problem, and examine her own issues (again, bit apparently for good this time.)

The final run is much more upbeat, wrapping up with DeConnick's three-part story set at Stanhope University where the action is, despite the dark edges, about as goofy and bubbly as one might want. A fun way for the series to end.

[Steven]

#115 - Superman: New Krypton, Vol. 1 by James Robinson, Geoff Johns, Renato Guedes, et al

To my surprise, I discovered this sitting on my shelf where I'd forgotten it after picking the hardcover up for a few bucks last year. So, in the spirit of completing things, I cracked it open and read it. It's a bit of a curate's egg, as this volume essentially starts the bulk of the New Krypton arc, with Kandor expanded and sitting in the Antarctic, 100,000 Kryptonians loose on Earth, and the Sooper-Sekrit 7734 Project run by General Lane and designed to kill Superman, and all of the other Kryptonians too.

However, before we get to that part of the story, we have a long visit with Jimmy Olsen, who has a big story in his hands and the drive to chase it down, which takes him out to the remains of Cadmus, where he talks to the dying Dubbilex, and then to Warpath, Arizona, the original Vigilante (yee-ha!), and the clone of Jim Harper, the Guardian, all the while dodging Codename: Assassin (yes, really.)

This first volume (of four) is a fairly complex farrago of moving parts that altogether acts as the extended prelude to the main story. It might actually be possible to skip it entirely, and pick up from clues and recaps in the second volume, but it's entertaining enough.

[Steven]

#116 - Galactica: 1980 by Marc Guggenheim, etc

Guggenheim takes a shot at overhauling the Galactica 1980 concept, basically takes it down the grim and gritty path of the 2003 reboot, with Galactica's arrival sparking a nuclear war on Earth even before the Cylons show up and start killing everybody.

[Steven]

#117 - The Great British Dream Factory: The Strange History of Our National Imagination by Dominic Sandbrook

I picked this up without realizing that Sandbrook is a Daily Mail columnist, and a flaming unrepentant Thatcherite Tory, and was unprepared for the rather bent approach to talking about the creative life of Great Britain. There's some unusual angles taken -- he's very detailed about Catherine Cookson and Agatha Christie, for instance, and positive ecstatic in discussing Billy Elliot, but the Thatcherite thing keeps creeping in, along with a tendency to shiv various super-successes (the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and J.K. Rowling come in for a kicking at various points, though Elton John is treated kindly, and Andrew Lloyd-Webber gets mildly rebuked for shoddy music, but as he's a Tory he gets let off with a stern warning.)

Getting through this porridge was, I'm afraid, rather more like hard labour than it had any reason to be.

[Steven]

#118 - Saucer by Stephen Coonts

Oh dear me. Lightweight science fiction written by someone whose usual output is military techno-thrillers. This reads like an attempt at YA writing by someone whose idea of young adult books mostly congealed in 1965.

Basics: a young engineer named Rip Cantrell discovers a flying saucer in the Libyan desert, word gets out, various teams are sent in, and Rip absconds with the 140,000 year old machine with the help of test pilot Charlotte "Charley" Pine. Much of the rest of the story is about the effect of the reveal on the world (not much of anything aside from endless news cycles), the chaos in the White House, and the attempts of an Australian billionaire to get hold of the thing so he can resell it to the highest bidder, which results in the Aussie's giant cattle station getting blown to bits (though that doesn't end the story, sadly.)

The prose is lumpen, leaden, and in effective, and the characters cardboard cutouts. Coonts tries to leaven this by adding in ham-fisted comedy, but it doesn't help.

I'm going to try and get through the other two books in the trilogy. Aside from clearing the decks, I'm not quite sure *why*.

[Steven]

#119 - Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli, with Christie Scheel and an assist from Denny O'Neill

I'm way overdue for reading this, as it's supposed to be more or less the definitive Daredevil story, and it's certainly set the template for Daredevil being essentially Matt Murdock In Hell.

The first story, which features the return of the Gladiator, is relatively lightweight, easing the transition from Denny O'Neill's run to Miller's second run (Miller had had a lengthy run where he remade the series as a violent crime thriller.) Melvin Potter, the Gladiator, is trying to gather money to save his girlfriend from kidnappers, and the effort is playing havoc with his mind.

After that, the main arc kicks in, as Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson's former secretary is found in Mexico, a strung-out junkie and former porn actress (all of the Miller tropes show up here.) Karen knows who Daredevil is...information she sells for a fix. The information makes its way to the Kingpin, in New York, who sets out to make Matt's life a living hell.

As Matt is *already* on the edge of nutterdom, the Kingpin's efforts -- screwing up his finances, his employment possibilities, framing him for conspiracy to commit perjury, getting him disbarred, and then blowing up his home -- push Matt over the edge, leaving him sending a few weeks as a paranoid wreck. As that isn't quite enough, the Kingpin sets things up so that Matt comes after him -- only to be beaten to a bloody pulp and dumped in the East River, in a way that makes it look like he killed a cab driver, stole the cab, ad ran it into the water, drowning as a result.

Matt escapes, of course, but his ordeal is far from over. Meanwhile, Karen makes it back to New York, and Bugle reporter Ben Urich is pursuing the truth about the Kingpin -- something that nearly kills him.

There's a lot to recommend about the book, to be honest. Aside from his particular tropes, Miller's writing is tight, and on point, and just fluid noir, complemented by Mazzucheli's clean art and Christie Scheele's semi-muted colours. There are some magnificent moments, too -- the sequence with Ben Urich sitting in a Bugle bullpen full of bickering editors, managers, and others while stuck on a desperately-needed puff piece ratchets up the tension...and then Urich gets a phone call from the hospital where a misguided cop (who's been badly injured to prevent him from talking) is laid up, a call that starts with the cop trying to tell Urich what he needs to know...only to be murdered horribly, with Urich hearing everything. It's a brilliant sequence, true horror indeed.

The Kingpin, of course, overreaches repeatedly, as that's part of his style. Unfortunately, so does Miller, as the last third of the story bellyflops with the introduction of corrupted, crazy super-soldier Nuke, who drops into Hell's Kitchen and starts wrecking the joint with the aid of a helicopter and a handler. The Avengers show up to take Nuke away, and then it turns into a Captain America story. It's a disappointing end to a tense, mean, and very tight crime thriller.

[Steven]

#120 - Deadpool: World's Greatest, Volume 3: Deadpool vs. Sabretooth by Gerry Duggan, et al

Another slim volume. As it says on the tin, it's mostly to do with Deadpool trying to kill Sabretooth for the murder of his parents, one crime Sabretooth isn't guilty of but is willing to take the blame for. Four issues of that, plus additional shenanigans in the supporting cast, and then a Deadpool 2099 story.

Overall, succeeds in being dull and unfunny and pointless.

[Steven]

#121 - Deadpool: World's Greatest, Volume 2: End of an Error by Gerry Duggan, etc

Includes the giant-sized issue 7, the Deadpool 2099 story of #6, and the Spanish-language Masacre story that was #3.1.

I came, I read, I went away again.

[Steven]

#122 - Deadpool Team-Up, Volume 2: Special Relationship by Rob Williams, David Lapham, and a whole gang of people

Last year, driven by an impulse I still can;t clearly explain, I bought a couple of Deadpool omnibuses from a fellow in Chico, CA, along with several other books. This turned out to be a bad idea, for reasons too boring to enter into, but in the shoddy package he sent, he also included some extras -- a whole bunch of Deadpool collections. I can see why he wanted to foist them off on *somebody*.

This was one of them. Deadpool teams up with various C-list characters for shenanigans and bad artwork, and the book is rounded out with some sketch pages, and what amounts to the Deadpool edition of The Marvel Handbook.

This is all assembled into an oversized hardcover. Trust me, it ain't worth bothering with.

[Steven]

#123 - Deadpool: Minibus, Vol. 1 by Cullen Bunn and divers hands

Compiles a series of limited series written by Cullen Bunn, most of which involved Deadpool unleashing mayhem on variants of the Marvel Universe, the literary underverse, and himself. It gets rather weird, very convoluted, and ultimately just sort of stops. For my taste, the storyline really doesn't go far enough in the crazy/surreal stakes.

Following that, there's a four-issue story featuring Deadpool versus Carnage, which is pretty much what you'd expect -- Carnage is a thoroughly unappealing character, one of many spat out during the course of the 90s, and his symbiote-powered spree killer shtick was designed for people who thought Venom was too subtle and understated.

"Night Of The Living Deadpool" closes this mid-sized omnibus. It's a cute conceit -- Deadpool wakes up from a food coma and discovers that the world has turned black and white and been overrun by slow zombies (most of whom are upset about their turn to flesh-eating ghoul behaviour.) From there it's a laid-back romp through little parodies of The Walking Dead, The Crazies, Night Of The Living Dead, and so on, until an amusing ending that plays with the miniseries title.

[Steven]

#124 - Doctor Who: The Last by Gary Hopkins

"This is the way thw world ends...not with a bang, but a reset."

Well, essentially. There's a bang, too, as the Doctor sets off a bomb, killing himself. Only it doesn't. Or maybe it does, but...you know what, never mind.

The Doctor, Charlie, and C'rizz exit the Interzone, coming into a world at war with itself, ruled over by a mad, murderous dictator named Excelsior. However, it's all very strange...where do the people keep going? Why can C'rizz see people who aren't there?

The problem here is that it's all so *dull*. As is the Doctor, who sleepwalks through everything.

An excellent soporific, but not a very good Doctor Who story.

[Jessika]

Welcome back, was wondering where you were lately!

[Steven]

Jessika wrote: "Welcome back, was wondering where you were lately!"

Thank you! I've been a bit distracted by life, mainly.

[Jessika]

Steven wrote: "Thank you! I've been a bit distracted by life, mainly."

Good things, I hope. Anyway, only a couple months left and I'm behind in my challenge, so I better go read!

[Steven]

Jessika wrote: "Steven wrote: "Thank you! I've been a bit distracted by life, mainly."

Good things, I hope. Anyway, only a couple months left and I'm behind in my challenge, so I better go read!"

Alas, not so much, and no excuse of spending all my time recording either (that's about to start, though.) I *did* read through a number of non-TBR books, however (and am doing that again, with Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier.)

I think I can make it to the end, though!

[Steven]

#125 - Gallifrey: Weapon of Choice by Alan Barnes

President Romanadvortrelundar of Gallifrey is under pressure from all sides as she tries to negotiate a temporal treaty, and if her day wasn't complicated enough...there's a dire threat from the direction of Gryben, the planet that Gallifrey uses as a dumping ground for refugees, ne're-do-wells, and assorted would-be time travelers. The solution: bring in Leela of the Sevateem, former companion to the Doctor, the robot dog K9 (one of them , anyway), and Time Lord Commander Torvald to track down and eliminate the threat.

Of course, when the initial source of information is a drunk scoundrel....

A fairly basic story that presages further stories, but serviceable. It really depends whether or not the petty politics of Gallifrey interest you at all.

[Steven]

Quirkyreader wrote: "Yea, only 25 more to go. Time for audio and more comics to fill the void.

Good luck."

Thanks. I'm working through some straight prose right now. Plus, finishing uo an omnibus, and some audiobooks.

[Steven]

#126 - Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man - Volume 5 by Stan Lee and John Romita

More madcap action in the Mighty Marvel Manner, yadda yadda...which means, pretty much, soap opera between fights with outlandish villains. Peter moves into an apartment with Harry Osborne, the forty year old alcoholic ad executive playing a twnety year old college student, girls confuse ol' Petey, and Stan Lee's awful slang attempts cause mass cringing, Daddy-O.

This volume's better than average in a lot of ways, particularly as it includes issues 49 and 50, which cover Peter giving up his life as Spider-Man, only to have an epiphany that he really can't...it would be selfish, plus there's the abiding guilt.

Aunt May is still bloody horrible, though.

[Steven]

#127 - Hellboy and the B.P.R.D., Vol. 1: 1952 by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, Alex Maleev

Being the recounting of the growing Hellboy's first field mission, as he and a four person team are sent to investigate mysterious deaths in Brazil. This being a Mike Mignola outing, what they actually turn up involves Nazis, psychotic head in a jar von Klempt, uplifted apes, and Frankensteinian supersoldiers. Oh, and something inexplicable and otherworldly in the basement of an old prison. Plus there's the Russian demon Varvarya who has a fondness for Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, who runs the BPRD, and an apparent desire to see the Earth survive a coming interdimensional breach.

It's fine for what it is, and Maleev does a creditable take on Mignola, but Mignola's done this story several times through the course of all of the BPRD/Hellboy series, so it can seem old hat at times. It's popcorn horror, mainly.

[Steven]

#128 - Wisdom: Rudiments of Wisdom by Paul Cornell, Trevor Hairsine, etc

A MAX miniseries that's sorta-kinda in continuity, and sorta-kinda not, and is pretty much Paul Cornell writing the result of a genetic experiment to develop a hybrid of Warren Ellis and Grant Morrison. I'm impressed that Cornell was able to slop in versions of Sir Clive Reston and Black Jack Tarr from the Sax Rohmer Fu Manchu books, even as Shang-Chi shows up to give an amnesiac Welsh Dragon a right bollocking to wake him up.

Good weird fun (with some tragic moments) with some silly references and ideas. And haven't you ever wanted to see the Beatles show up and battle H.G. Wells' Martians?

[Steven]

#129 - Superman and Batman: World's Funnest by Evan Dorkin, Alan Grant, and various

A collection of stories from the Silver Age to the modern era of all the times that Mxyzptlk (in both of the spelling variations) and Bat-Mite have shown up together to bedevil the denizens of the DCU. The stories themselves range from the expected Silver Age silliness to much darker takes, including some violently satirical takes such as "Mitefall" and its sequels.

Very much a curate's egg built on an acquired taste, I'm afraid.

[Steven]

#130 - Flash by Mark Waid Book One by Mark Waid and various

Not a bad start for Mark Waid...when he gets started. It's not the best of his work on The Flash, but it's mostly readable, and the artwork isn't too eye-bleedingly 1990s until you reach Annual #5 and the Eclipso tie-in -- which is a bit of an annoyance, as you get just a fraction of the story, and the next volume of these collections just chugs on with the regular Flash series.

[Steven]

#131 - The Sisters by Robert Littell

They are The Sisters, Death and Night...or Francis and Carroll to their colleagues in the CIA, who regard them as odd birds who flock together without giving any idea of what they're flocking about. The Sisters are deep clandestine types, more than a little mad, and they've hatched a plan for the perfect crime, and they think they have the approval they need.

In the Soviet Union, the former head of the Soviet espionage school, known as The Potter, lives in disgrace and seclusion with his common-law wife. His fall from the heights, it seems, was occasioned by the accidental reveal of information about his most talented sleep agent, and oversexed prodigy who needs only the trigger phrase to "awaken" and start on a mission. The Potter is lured to the West, but goes on the run, intent on stopping the Sleeper before he carries out his mission -- the assassination of the man known as "The Prince Of The Realm."

For the Sisters, it's the perfect crime. For the Potter, it's a threat against his homeland. For everyone involved, it's a race against time.

While it never makes it too explicit, this is a story about the JFK assassination in 1963. It plays into various conspiracy theories, of course, but does so lightly enough. Most of the time it's concerned with its convoluted plot and its cast of oddball characters. Unfortunately, the convolutions of the story eventually end up thrashing around like a headless snake, and the ending is a disappointing case of (view spoiler)[rocks fell, everyone dies (well, the lead CIA investigator and the two Canadian "sweepers") (hide spoiler)], and ending that's in a way inevitable with this kind of story, but disappointing at the same time because it feels like the author had made his page count and couldn't be arsed to work out a more elegant ending.

[Steven]

#132 - Lady, Lady, I Did It! by Ed McBain

A ferociously snappy book, kept tight and propelled along this time not just by the police procedure that is the hallmark of a McBain book, but by the drive of the cops to solve an apparent spree killing in a bookstore that left four people dead...one of them Claire Townshend, the girlfriend of Detective Bert Kling. The detectives quickly figure out that it wasn't random -- one of the people killed was a target, and the others were collateral. The question is...which one?

Carella and Meyer, and eventually Kling himself, chase down leads, interview people, and get into scrapes -- Meyer almost gets killed -- and they're even more baffled when another young woman turns up dead...a woman with mysterious ties to Claire.

I wouldn't really describe it as a *fun* read, but it is engaging, and there's enough thrown in along the way to make you stop and think, and to make you consider the history of the United States, even. Definitely one of the better 87th Precinct books, but, oh boy, poor Bert Kling.

[Steven]

#133 - The Conquest by Stephen Coonts

The sequel to the turgid, clunky Saucer is a turgid, clunky book that finds Charlie Pine working for the French space plane/Moonbase project, flying one of their space planes, while Rip lives a boring life on his Uncle Egg's farm. Before too long Charlie is on the run from the Moonbase, where a looney-tunes type has decided to take over the world with an anti-gravity beam and the second saucer that was found outside Roswell in 1947....

You know, I don't want to recap this thing to any great degree. It's a preposterous, thuddingly written, potboiler with characters who don't even qualify as cardboard.

There's a third book in the series. I wonder if I have brain cells to spare?

[Steven]

#134 - The Winning Side by Lance Parkin

The Time Hunter series is a spin-off from the Telos series of Doctor Who novellas, specifically Doctor Who: The Cabinet of Light, which was a rather phantasmagoric story that *possibly* featured the Seventh Doctor (or the Eighth, or possibly a future regeneration) in London following World War II. That the Doctor was damn near phantasmal in that story is somewhat the point, as it introduced Honore Lechasseur, a black American soldier turned London spiv, a fixer who turns out to be time sensitive. During the course of the story he meets the mysterious Emily Blandish.

As The Winning Side opens, Emily and a hulking man turn up on the bank of the Thames, and Emily is promptly murdered. Honore, taking a break from a strange adultery case, is called in to identify the body, and has just done so when Emily walks into the morgue...and then things get really strange. Honore and Emily don't yet understand the nature of their abilities as time sensitives -- together, they can shift through time, something they discover suddenly when they're shot into the dysopian world of 1984 The time jump leaves Honore sick and confused, as he's seeing at least two timelines, but the one Emily is aware of is the future of The Party, when all dissent has been crushed, there are endless wars, and there's only one newspaper that's collected and reycled the day after release. The televisions watch people.

This being Lance Parkin, the story gets very twisty very quickly, but seems to conclude clearly enough. It's debatable, of course, whether the "real" 1984 of Thatcher's Britain is really a better outcome.

I like the characters of Honore and Emily, and it's unfortunate that the series was fairly short-lived. For those interested, however, the books are available for Kindle and in audio form.

[Steven]

#135 - Seven Up by Janet Evanovich

Seven books in, and Stephanie Plum's life has become extremely chaotic. As a bounty hunter, she's handed the task of capturing the elderly Eddie DeChooch, which goes south in a blinding hurry as the in-his-seventies Eddie, near blind and in terrible physical shape, escapes catastrophically time after time. One of her paramours, Joe Morelli, wants to marry her, but that's got strings attached. Her nemesis Joyce Barnhart has decided she's going to be a bounty hunter too. Sister Valerie has decided to be a lesbian.

By this point, the elements of a Stephanie Plum story are pretty well set in place -- Morelli and Ranger, the chaos of Stephanie's job, the inevitable destruction of one or more cars, and Grandma Mazur behaving scandalously.

Read in audiobook format. Tanya Eby isn't the best narrator for the series (that would be Lorelei King) but there's a bit more Jersey in the voice than is usual with King.

[Steven]

#136 - The Tunnel At The End Of The Light by Stefan Petrucha

Audiobook version read by Mary Tamm who, sadly, makes a bit of a botch of it.

Three books in to the Time Hunter series, both Honore and Emily are coming to understand their abilities, and how to control the effects of them. They're also slowly starting to realize that they're not alone in these abilities, though it seems that Time Sensitives are a bit more common than Time Channelers such as Emily.

In this story, set mainly in 1950, an unexploded bomb sets loose a horde of subterranean creatures that, it turns out, have some kind of connection to a rather avant-garde and mostly incomprehensible poet. There's worse yet than that, though, and Honore and Emily find themselves in the worst jeopardy of their career together. It's gothic science fiction of a type done very well during the 4th Doctor's era, but with the sort of tone set by Sapphire And Steel.

A short, sharp, and occasionally brutal book.

[Steven]

#137 - Cold Fusion by Keith R.A. deCandido

An entry in the Starfleet Corps of Engineers series. The da Vinci is tasked to assist Lieutenant Nog of Deep Space 9 in retrieving the fusion core of an abandoned Cardassian station called Empok Nor, as DS9 used theirs in a battle as a last-ditch weapon. A simple mission, complicated by the presence of Androssi tech on the station, and an attacking Androssi ship.

Extremely straightforward, reads quickly, is pretty much one of those occasional empty-calorie Star Trek stories that works as a quick fix, but leaves you wanting something more substantial as a chaser.

[Steven]

#138 - The Flash, by Grant Morrison & Mark Millar by Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Chuck Dixon, Ron Marz, Pop Mhan, others

First things first --


This collection fits smack in between Mark Waid's first run on the character, and his second (with Brian Augustyn) that led into Geoff John's run. To either side of the Morrison/Millar book are fairly long as yet uncollected runs.

Collected here are three arcs -- "Emergency Stop," "The Human Race" and "The Black Flash" (the latter written solo by Millar), as well as a three-series crossover written by Morrison/Millar, Ron Marz and Chuck Dixon. Of these, "The Human Race" is both the most Morrison-like and the one that most approaches weirdness (Wally ends up racing his childhood imaginary friend, who wasn't, it turns out, all that imaginary; he's also a radio waves version of Sonic the Hedgehog.)

Mostly, it's just terribly dull. There's no sense that either Morrison or Millar had any particular game plan in mind, and were just, pardon the expression, running in place.

[Steven]

#139 - The Flash by Geoff Johns Book 2 by Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, et all

A fairly hefty chunk of the series, covering more less Johns' second year on the book, along with a couple of tie-ins and extras (Abra Kadabra is the catalyst for a race between Two Flashes and Superman, and Our Worlds At War tie-in features the Black Racer.) The majority of the content is built around a single story arc featuring the updated Rogues and several reformed Rogues, with a additional thread running through regarding Iron Heights Prison and its brutal warden, Wolfe.

It's okay for what it is (with some ropey artwork in the first part of the book, and some just rather ordinary work in the rest) but it's frustrating to see Johns just teetering on the edge of the sort of gleeful giddiness that the Flash should embrace -- he gets close when Goldface rallies the union workers of Keystone City to battle the Rogues while Flash rebuilds and upgrades a suspension bridge (took him a whole thirty seconds!) but mostly just recycles the same old slugfest over and over otherwise.

On to Book Three, then..and, oh man, it's Hunter Zolomon. *sigh*

[Steven]

#140 - The Flash by Geoff Johns Book Three by Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, et al

Curiously, some like this part of the Geoff Johns run most of all, although it marks a pretty bad downhill slide for the series -- it's cruel to the character of Linda Park, for one, mean-spirited,. needlessly violent, and ultimately pointless as one sub-arc is abandoned (Iron Heights Prison and its brutal Warden, Gregory Wolfe) and another seemingly forgotten (the Pied Piper's escape in an attempt to clear his name), the Gorilla Grodd arc ends with Wally's memory erased, and the final arc in the book, "Blitz," not only ends up with Wally's wife Linda being brutalized to the point of miscarriage, but the entire world having its memory altered by the Spectre (at the time hosted by Hal Jordan) to forget that Wally is the Flash. This, by the way, includes Wally.

Along the way we also get the worst depiction of Gorilla Grodd to date, and a horrendous villain in the form of Hunter Zolomon, now calling himself Zoom after an accident he caused gave him weird time-related powers and a raging desire to introduce great amounts of tragedy into Wally's life to, um...make him a better person and a crazier Flash? The stupid is strong in this one.

[Steven]

Twenty days.
Ten books.
Can he make it to the top yet one more time?

[Steven]

Nah, it'll be a range. I'm most of the way through the first Expanse book and several other novels. I will get that JLA Omnibus wrapped up, though.

[Jadetyger]

Steven wrote: "Nah, it'll be a range. I'm most of the way through the first Expanse book and several other novels. I will get that JLA Omnibus wrapped up, though."

I'll be interested in what you think of Leviathan Wakes. I finished the book before the series was announced (one half of James SA Corey lives in my town) and really enjoyed it. I've enjoyed the series thus far, though I'm behind--just now reading Cibola Burn.

[Susan]

Steven wrote: "Twenty days.
Ten books.
Can he make it to the top yet one more time?

"
Good luck with the last sprint to the top!

[Jessika]

You can do it!!

[Steven]

Jessika wrote: "You can do it!!"



The BLESSED power of BRIAN compels me!

[Steven]

#141 - Sherlock Holmes, Steam Detective by Robbie Bevard, et al

One of those impulse purchases, and I could not say why. Holmes and Watson, dropped into an alternate steampunk world, with familiar stories retold in that milieu -- so the Hound Of The Baskervilles becomes a steam cyborg, while The Five Napoleons are to do with a clockwork soldier in the hands of anarchists. While the storytelling improves by the last, it's still hard to see the point of doing this.

[Steven]

#142 - The Plunderers/Desperado Doublecross

An Ace Double, this, and it's going to get a split entry as I've read one of the novels but not the other.

That one is The Plunderers by Norman Daniels, who was, it seems, a fairly prolific pulpy type who didn't dabble much in the oaters. This one's a snappy, tight piece about a quiet cattleman (with a Deep Dark Secret) who's drawn into a complex plot perpetrated by a clever con man.

It's lightweight enough, but it does have a nice element thrown in -- early on in the proceedings the ostensible hero muses that his intended bride is a damn smart woman, with an impressive mind. That turns out to not be a throwaway -- Ann Hunter is not only smart, she's quick and brave too, and she's the one that ultimately saves the day AND the protagonist.

[Steven]

#143 - Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

I started reading this in the trade paperback edition, and then switched over to the audiobook.

It's a giant, complex book with multiple strands that converge on a single mystery as detective Josephus Miller and ship's Captain-by-default Jim Holden are, millions of miles apart, drawn into a mystery that spans all of the governmental entities at work in this busy technological future -- the UN-dominated Earth, Mars, and the rebellious Outer Planets Alliance -- and stretches far out into the unknown as the alien creation at the heart of it all is revealed in its horrific, genocidal glory.

The first season and a half of THE EXPANSE covered the entirety of this book, with the second season covering about two thirds of the next book in the series, CALIBAN WAKES.

[Steven]

#144 - Cimarronin: The Complete Graphic Novel by Neal Stephenson, et al

Part of the Foreworld Saga, apparently, though I've yet to explore any other parts of that. There's also elements that stem from such historical works as 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus and its follow-up 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created.

Which is to say, there's a considerable amount of literary power and scholarship involved in this graphic novel (originally released as two 3-part miniseries.)

Stephenson and his collaborators are doing a Samurai In The Americas tale here, but there's several twists on the trope -- first of all, there is no United States as yet. The story itself begins in Manila, as disgraced Ronin Kitazume prepares to commit suicide, only to be interrupted by Father Luis, a Jesuit priest and an old friend. Luis appears to be enlisting Kitazume for an investigation...only for Kitazume to be knocked on the head and shanghaied off to New Spain, where he's to help Luis protect his family's silver mine (Luis, after his pompous brother is killed: "No matter, I have eleven other brothers.") By this point, though, a Manchu Princess is also involved, and then there's the Cimarrons, escaped slaves who were soldiers in their home countries.

So, yes, things get very complicated. There's the conflict between the Manchu and Ming Dynasties, the ambition and greed of Spain, the increasing skullduggery of Portugal, and even occasional nods to the insularity of Japan. Oh, and the slave army marching on Mexico City.

It's violent, bloody, and probably needed far more room to expound than it had. There are some quite funny parts, too (every so often there's a title-off, and there's the decrementing count of Luis' brothers, not to mention Luis' irritating recitations about destreza while in the midst of a swordfight. Also, a Princess Bride reference for no reason at all.) How much of this story has any basis in history, aside from the presence of the Conquistadores in Central and South America, I really have no idea, but it does give me a prompt for further research.

[Steven]

#145 - Excalibur: Weird War III by Michael Higgins, Tom Morgan & "Justin Thyme", etc

Ugh.
Ugh.
Uuuuuugh.

Okay, i should perhaps explain why I'm groaning so much. Excalibur is a series that I always rather liked...light-hearted, goofy stuff, with a bit of a British slant to it.

Then came this original graphic novel release, back when Marvel was experimenting with doing European-style slightly oversized albums in a premium format. A lot of good work was done with those, and the line ran for some time.

This was not their finest hour. Michael Higgins' story takes the goofy, fun team, ramps up a past premise (a Nazi alternate world), and proceeds to get ham-fisted and heavy-handed in making the premise serious, with the very first scene being mutants burned to death on a psychic oven.

And *then* it goes downhill from there. The story is simple -- the alternate Nazi world and Marvel 616 ar somehow merging (this is never explained) and various characters are become altered versions of themselves. There's a lot of horror, a lot of fighting, much confusion, and then everything snaps back to normal, with no explanation.

All of this is rendered in an art style that falls between 90s Extreme Primitive and Kindergarten Accidents With Ink, coloured in a style that's absolutely on the Kindergarten side in its garish ugliness.

[Steven]

#146 - Captain Marvel by Jim Starlin: The Complete Collection by Jim Starlin and various

The convoluted tale of Mar-Vell, former Kree spy turned Earth sympathizer, superhero, cosmically aware being, and, in thre end, a victim of his own body.

The stories collected here are mainly focused on the arc that sees Mar-Vell becoming cosmically aware and given a makeover while Thanos launches one of his combined assaults on the universe and attempts to woo Death herself (he's complicated, that boy.) The character pretty much went from being space opera to being space OPERA, with Jim Starlin approaching the cosmic from a, shall we say, more mushroomy angle than Jack Kirby tended to. There's more personal focus, with the big stuff often happening in the background.

The capstone of the collection, though, is the final entry in the book -- Starlin moved on from Mar-Vell and on to Warlock, and an extended meditation on Thanos that's gone on until recently. He returned after a few years, though, to write and draw the very first of Marvel's graphic album series -- an attempt to start a line of Euro-style albums, and one that may make a comeback shortly -- The Death of Captain Marvel.

In short: we find Mar-Vell recording memoirs for the Avengers files, and its quickly revealed that a past incident involving a gas dosed him with a carcinogen. His photonic powers and such have been keeping the cancer at bay for years, but now it's mutated and metastasized, and he's almost out of time.

But, hey, comics, right? Yeah. Actually, it's exactly what it says on the tin. Major efforts are made, major efforts fail, Mar-Vell slips into a coma and dies. There's a battle with Thanos at the end, but it's all on the spiritual plane -- Mar-Vell's last barrier to break through before the next adventure in his existence. He's pretty much stayed dead ever since, with legacies carrying on the name and (sometimes) the powers. It's surprisingly moving.