Mount TBR 2020 discussion
Mount Olympus (150+ books)
>
Brian Blessed Buys A Jetpack!
#41 - Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil, Vol. 10 by Steve Gerber and variousGerry Conway moves on, and freshly minted Marvel Comics writer Steve Gerber, soon to create Howard The Duck, takes over the adventures of Daredevil and Black Widow, now living in San Francisco. While Gerber was still a bit rough around the edges early on, he soon found his footing...turning Daredevil into a bit if a psychedelic and cosmically aware book with slightly more complex characterization (though, like his colleagues, Gerber was terrible writing women.)
#42 - Dalek Empire IV: The Fearless - Part 1#43 - Dalek Empire IV: The Fearless - Part 2 both by Nicholas Briggs
Set off to the side during Dalek Empire I: Chapter One - Invasion of the Daleks this finds humans trying to fight back by whatever means they can...which includes creating a decoy battalion and manipulating Sarus Kade into fighting a war he never wanted to be part of. The Dalek are as shouty and perverse as always.
#44 - Bread by Ed McBainCarella gets stuck with an arson investigation that turns out to be more complex than he figured...especially when the first dead body turns up. #29in the series, practically a straightforward procedural. This also seems to be where McBain started letting the books run a little longer.
#45 - Batman: The Golden Age, Vol. 1 by Bill Finger, Gardner F. Fox, Whitney Ellsworth, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson, Sheldon Moldoff, George RoussosCreated by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, the Batman, though rather a knockoff of pulp hero The Shadow, landed in comics with what seems to have been blockbuster impact. Though the art was rough and the storytelling raggedy, Batman stayed the course in Detective Comics and was soon granted his own quarterly title, as well as spots in the Worlds Fair comics, and World’s Best/World’s Finest, books shared with Superman and others (World’s Finest would, with #71, become a Superman and Batman team up book, later becoming a Superman team up book.)
The stories here are mostly goofy fun, though Batman does have a body count here. The rogues gallery arrives early on, with the Joker, The Cat, and Hugo Strange all putting in appearances. The writing quickly grows more assured, too, though the art remains rather unrefined and often rather ugly.
Overall, best taken in small doses, I think.
#46 - Blood Relatives by Ed McBainTwo young women are walking home from a party, in torrential rain. One is horribly murdered, the other cut badly though she survives to run yo the 87th Precinct. Steve Carella catches the case, but it proves twisty...first he tries known sex offenders, booking one for new offenses but not murder. A line-up proves fruitless...and then the serving fifteen year old points the finger in an unexpected direction. The truth comes out...as ugly, and horrific as can be.
One of the 87th Precinct books that bothers me more than it perhaps should, possibly because of the bleak tone.
Something screwy going on with your numbers Steven...
Leslie wrote: "Something screwy going on with your numbers Steven..."Thank you! Fixed. I have no idea what was going on there....
I only noticed because I was surprised to see you at 41 - 46 is much more what I expected *smile*
Leslie wrote: "I only noticed because I was surprised to see you at 41 - 46 is much more what I expected *smile*"Too many time travel stories!
#47 - James Bond: Kill Chain by Andy Diggle, Luca CasalanguidaBond as blunt instrument, facing off against a revived SMERSH determined to set NATO into internal conflict and put the UK and US at odds with each other. It’s a story that needs more room that it gets, but it does a good job overall.
#48 - Star Trek Archives Vol. 3: The Gary Seven Collection by Howard Weinstein, Michael Jan Friedman, et alStories from the DC comics era featuring the return of Gary Seven, first in a story where he tries to stop the use of a proto matter weapon and bring to heel a group of rebels in his own organization, and then in a TOS/TNG crossover featuring the Devidians.
Congrats on reaching the peak of El Toro!
Leslie wrote: "Congrats on reaching the peak of El Toro!"Thanks!
#49 - So Long as You Both Shall Live by Ed McBainOne more 87th Precinct novel down. This one starts with Bert Kling marrying his long-time model girlfriend Augusta Blair, only for her yo be kidnapped from their wedding hotel by a crazy creep. What follows is a hazy mix of procedural (with extra Ollie Weeks and z surfeit of blind alleys) and the torment suffered by Augusta, which is handwaved at the end with a Kling and Augusta being put in a taxi and sent home — just the thing for a traumatized woman who’s recently been beaten and nearly raped.
Definitely not the best of the series.
#50 - Marvel Masterworks: Daredevil, Vol. 11 by Steve Gerber, Bob Brown, Gene Colan, Chris Claremont, Tony Isabella, Gerry Conway, Sal Buscema, etcSteve Gerber’s tenure comes and goes, Daredevil finally relocates back to New York City, and the Black Widow runs out of money. It’s okay on the whole, at least while Gerber is leading the charge, but tends more to the fantastic than perhaps it should.
#51 - Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers, Vol. 11 by Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, Rich Buckler, Don Heck and othersRoy Thomas abruptly wrapped up his time on the series, handing over to Steve Englehart, more or less the new kid in town. Plot threads were flung around with glee, though sometimes incoherently — Quicksilver vanishes during a battle with Sentinels and shows up half dead in the Fantastic Four. The X-Men are devastated by Magneto and we find out then that the Avengers have little clue about the X-Men...yet Scarlet Witch is on the team, and knows Xavier’s lot *and* the mansion they live in.
Throughout it all Hawkeye is a major miserable pain in the ass and disgustingly stalkery over Black Widow and Scarlet Witch. On top of that, the art is inconsistent and sometimes painful to look at.
You have reached a third of your goal already! Great job!
Leslie wrote: "You have reached a third of your goal already! Great job!"Thanks! Slow and steady wins the race, they say. Curiously I’d expected to have read more by now despite the stay at home thing not changing my life much.
#52 - Atomic Marriage by Curtis SittenfeldHollywood development managers Heather, unhappily married, sets out to convince the author of a marriage manual her company is adapting to a romantic comedy that he should allow inclusive casting. He isn’t convinced. When she gets back home she finds her musician husband reading the book. There it ends.
It’s not very long but it never really raised my interest.
Slowpokin’ my way along here...but here goes a big, turgid one!#53 - Thor Epic Collection Vol. 1: The God of Thunder by Stan Lee, Larry Lieberman, Richard Bernstein, Jack Kirby and others
Though the lead feature in Journey Into Mystery from #83 onwards was semi-exiled Norse Thunder God Thor, the book was treated somewhat as a lower-tier publication. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby launched it, but for more than a year the stories were written and drawn by others (though Lee did plot them all.) It was only when the “Tales Of Asgard” backup started that the sales started to public up, along with the quality of the stories — Lee and Kirby went big, finally, resulting in JIM (retitled Thor was #125) becoming Marvel’s top seller for a while.
This collection, though, is very rough in places, and the first half is a slog to get through. It’s still very earthbound at the end, but there have been interesting moments (and some tedium as a Thor loses his hammer and sixty seconds on turns back into Dr. Don Blake...a gag played half a dozen times.)
The character eventually does improve spectacularly, especially once the focus shifts more to the cosmic. He even cools his ardour towards mortal Jane Foster...but that’s a tale for another time.
#54 - Long Time No See by Ed McBainA blind Viet Nam veteran is murdered after a day of panhandling. Then his wife is also murdered. Things get even more complex when another blind man is also murdered. In the case of the first two, the killer seems to have been searching for something, but what?
Carella is on the case (and stuck with the first victim’s service dog.) Unfortunately this was where McBain was given the chance to run longer, with the result that this rather thin story stretches twice the distance.
#55 - The Black Monday Murders, Vol. 1: All Hail, God Mammon by Jonathan Hickman and Thom CokerImagine if the financial industry was the result of an actual blood pact between greedy, sociopathic humans and the actual god Mammon (or something representing itself as such.) Schools oof black magic are encapsulated as investment banks and Wall Street Firms and stock market crashes exact a blood price. Families *literally* eat their own.
All of this chaos is orchestrated by Hickman in a way that suggests he’s a frustrated games designer and an even more frustrated novelist — I think there’s more text pages here than art pages.
The story is intriguing thus far, if occasionally ridiculous. Plus it does jump into tinfoil hattery with the notion of “what if the Rothschilds and their ilk were in service to a demon?” The story, frankly, would have been served better as a novel.
#56 - The Scrambled Yeggs by Richard S. PratherA Shell Scott mystery, repurposed from an earlier novel called Pattern For Murder as by David Night (a Prather pseudonym.) Scott is hired to figure out who killed a man in a faked hit and run, and proceeds to unravel multiple mysteries in the process. It’s a labyrinthine story, with less of the usual humour than is usually in the Shell Scott novels.
#57 - Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers, Vol. 15 by Steve Englehart, Tony Isabella, George Tuska, George Perez, Don HeckThe old order changeth, and the Avengers need new members. But first, there’s miscreants to manage, weird romance to goggle at, a missing Archer to find, an Assassin to defeat, and the Squadron Supreme’s world to set right. Frankly, a lot happens, plus the young George Perez starts his first stint in the Avengers...unfortunately inked by Vinnie Coletta at first.
Decent restoration, though the colors could do with muting a little.
#58 - Calypso by Ed McBainThe 87th Precinct gets into one of their most laborious cases when a well known but fading Calypso performer is shot to death. The case seems impossible at first, then takes a strange turn when it involves the victim’s missing brother. Then a prostitute trying to break out of the life is also shot to death in a similar manner, something that doesn’t come into the 87th’s purview for a while. Meanwhile, on a secluded island a woman keeps a man locked in her basement....
The extra space granted the author honestly sometimes seems to work against him — a lot of this book feels like padding, which works against the pace. Even narrator Dick Hill sounds weary as he plods through this book — there’s far less humour, and the emotional bursts are infrequent.
#59 - Carmilla by J. Sheridan LeFanuAudible Original, with a full cast headed by David Tennant as a rather eccentric Doctor who figures out what’s going on here.
It’s a vastly more than twice told tale, the first to truly establish the idea of the sexy vampire, and challenging in that it develops a lesbian angle between protagonist and predator (very much played up here.)
#60 - Star Trek: Ongoing, Volume 1 by Mike Johnson, Steve Molina, Tim BradstreetThese are the voyages of the *other* version of NCC-1701, following on from the 2009 movie. The first volume retells “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and “The Galileo 7” from TOS, albeit with a number of differences (including the shuttle being four times the size in G7, and Elizabeth Dehner being absent from WNMHGB.
Very readable, but fluff.
#61 - Star Trek: Ongoing, Volume 2 by Mike Johnson & variousMore gallumphing around as the Kelvin alternate revisits “Operation: Annihilate!” and serves up a tale of renegade Vulcans out to blow up Romulus. One of the lesser entries in the series, though it upends part of OA.
#62 - Star Trek: Ongoing, Volume 3#63 - Star Trek: Ongoing, Volume 4 both by Mike Johnson with divers hands
More episodic stories, with a redo of “The Return Of The Archons” that improves it and starts to set up the second movie, a Trible story that combines bits of “The Trouble With Tribbles” and the animated “More Tribbles, More Troubles” though the Glommer is considerably bigger and meaner here.
Vol.4 has stories focusing on security man Hendorff, with references to another episode and a wink to how things went in that story (the outcome here is much better), Scotty’s little sidekick Keenser, and the Kelvin version of the Mirror Universe.
All good fun, certainly.
#64 - The Space-Eaters by Frank Belknap LongA Lovecraftian tale in which Lovecraft himself is a main character. It’s a morally neutral universe here — there are greater and lesser predators, functioning in a logically impenetrable way. The narrator and his friend, exploring the fictional fringes of reality, are plunged into the heart of something that, if visualized, will destroy them horribly. But how do you stop a writer from visualizing?
It’s overwrought in that 1920s Weird Tales kind of way, but intriguing. Unfortunately I encountered this in a HorrirBabble audio edition, and the narration rather leaves something to be desired.
#65 - Star Trek: Ongoing, Volume 5#66 - Star Trek: Ongoing, Volume 6: After Darkness
#67 - Star Trek: Ongoing, Volume 7
#68 - Star Trek: Ongoing, Volume 8 all by Mike Johnson & divers hands
More stories that delve into the pasts if various characters, before a time jump gets to the other side of Star Trek Into Darkness, continuing that story into a conflict between Klingons, Romulans, and humans. There’s also a parallel timeline story that sees the crew meeting their gender-flipped counterparts, a vastly revised version of “Amok Time” that goes flying off the rails, and the tale of a long lost astronaut.
Mostly entertaining, mostly ephemeral.
#69 - Star Trek: Ongoing, Vol. 9#70 - Star Trek (2011-2016) Vol. 10
#71 - Star Trek (2011-2016) Vol. 11
#72 - Star Trek (2011-2016) Vol. 12
#73 - Star Trek (2011-2016) Vol. 13 all by Mike Johnson and various
More continuing adventures of the Kelvinverse Enterprise, with Q getting into the mix for a six-part story. Other stories visit the mirror Kelvinverse, tell Spock’s story after the first film (dedicated to the late Leonard Nimoy), and crossover the Prime Universe and the Kelvinverse without them physically interacting. Along the way the Enterprise gets tossed into the Delta Quadrant and we get a revised version of “The Tholian Web.”
Quirkyreader wrote: "Congrats on reaching Mount K."Thanks. I figured I’d clear out one of the Humble Bundles I’ve had sitting around for a bit.
#74 - Star Trek: Countdown To Darkness by Mike Johnson, etcWhere Star Trek: Countdown had at least some bearing on the 2009 film, providing pertinent information (since retconned by the Picard series to an extent), this prequel barely even connects to Star Trek Into Darkness, telling the story instead of a renegade Starfleet Captain — and upending the character of Robert April in the process.
#75 - Fuzz by Ed McBainThe Deaf Man is back, bringing with him yet another wild scheme. It’s also the dead of winter and Carella is trying to find the hoodlums who are setting homeless men on fire. Plus there’s a robbery scheme afoot, and a host of other things too.
A longer tale, full of twists. Will Carella take down the Deaf Man at last? Read it and see.
#76 - Ghosts by Ed McBainWinter in Isola, and the bodies are falling like snowflakes -- best-selling author Gregory Craig has been murdered horribly, and his neighbour, a young woman, killed with a single knife thrust...the detectives of the 87th Precinct suspect the killings are connected, but they have no idea how. And then things get weirder.... Notable for McBain stepping over the line into outright fantasy for a brief moment, although the main case itself is a bit more prosaic. We also get a look at the police department's worst Christmas ever.
#77 - Conan, Vol. 1: The Frost Giant's Daughter and Other Stories by Kurt Busiek, et alThe earliest of the Dark Horse Conan series goes right to adapting “The Frost Giant’s Daughter”, tying it in with several other tales that lead Conan from fighting alongside the Aesir to trying to escape the jaded immortal sorcerers of Hyperborea. It’s a muscular chunk of work, grimmer in some ways than the Marvel adaptations. I’m not sure I’ll be retreading this, though.
#78 - Heat by Ed McBainThe city is in the grip of a heat wave, and detectives Kling and Carella are called to the scene of what appears to be a suicide — one that has an oddity: the victim turned off his air conditioner before downing a fatal dose of Seconal. That starts wheels turning in Carella’s head. Meanwhile, Bert Kling tells Carella his suspicions that his wife, a gorgeous model, is having an affair.
Unbeknownst yo either of them, a killer who Kling caught literally red-handed has been paroled and has decided he needs to murder Kling as soon as possible.
One of the grimmer 87th Precinct mysteries out there.
#79 - Cat Projects: DIY Projects to Serve Your Feline Overlords by sundry at Maker MediaAs with cat ownership in general, this volume of DIY projects is full of improbably complicated things. Repurpose an old VCR as a cat feeder! Build a spring-loaded scratching post that fires out treats! An Arduino project that sends tweets for your cat!
I doubt I’d have the patience.
#80 - Ice by Ed McBainThe 36th 87th Precinct novel finds the city blanketed by an ice storm. Bert Kling is in a black depression over the failure of his marriage, Steve Carella is trying to come up with a Valentine’s gift for Teddy, and somebody is using a .38 to kill apparently random people. Undercover officer Eileen Burke has to catch a laundromat robber, a mad fake monk is on the rampage, and then a serial rapist shows up. So...things are hopping in the 87th.
It;s one of the most complicated stories in the 87th Precinct line. It’s not always successful, but it’s quite a read.
#81 - Graphic Audio, Green Lantern: Sleepers Book #1 by Michael A. Baron & Christopher J. PriestAudiobook version of the novel with a full cast supporting the rather boring narrator. About as clunky as these prose tie-ins get, frankly, not aided at all by a rather dull voice cast. Green Lantern Kyle and his girlfriend Jade get sucked into an invasion from the anti-matter Qwardian universe that was already underway when Hal Jordan was Green Lantern. There’s appearances by Green Arrow, Black Canary, Plastic Man, and Alan Scott, the oldest of the Green Lanterns and the only one not powered by the Oan power battery.
The project overall (a trilogy) was quite fraught in the writing, so the story here is more than a little disjointed.
#82 - Lightning by Ed McBain#37 in the 87th Precinct series, and this time around the detectives have to contend with a serial killer who’s stringing women up from lampposts, and then, as things always get more complicated around the Precinct, a series of serial — and repeating— rapes start up. The result is a harrowing book. There’s some goofy humor, the tediousness that’s Detective Ollie Weeks, and occasionally boring side stories to fill out the time. The story has points to make, but it’s heavy-handed when it does so.
All of the detectives are concerned that the Deaf Man has returned...but that’s another story.
#83 - Stand Down by J. A. Jance Novella following the transitions of Jance’s married homicide detectives J.P. Beaumont and Mel Soames into new careers, via a minor thriller involving professional jealousy and petty politicking. The story wanders around a bit too much, unfortunately, but it does what Jance wants it to.
#84 - Battlestar Galactica Vs Battlestar Galactica Tp by Peter David & variousBasically a conceit — what if the old Battlestar Galactica met the new? Peter David does his best to spin a story out of the meeting, and draws on some fun connections in the original series, though his ending is pretty much out of the film The Final Countdown.
#85 - Eight Black Horses by Ed McBain#38 in the 87th Precinct series finds the Deaf Man returning to bedevil the 87th with another complicated robbery plan and bizarre clues for the detectives to figure out. This time, though, the clues are separate from the robbery scheme, and are for a far more nefarious plan....
It’s a relatively lightweight novel, but some of Evan Hunter’s nastier attitudes towards women are on display here. On the other hand, it’s nice to see the Deaf Man’s masquerade as Carella not being used to generate artificial drama.
#86 - Graphic Audio, Green Lantern: Sleepers Book #2 by Michael Ahn, Christopher J. PriestMuch, much better than the first book. This entry focuses on Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, and provides a detailed look at his origin. Priest;s villainous creation, Malvolio, is repurposed for the story, but really doesn’t play a big part for at least half of the story. The whole tale cracks along in pulp fashion and the cast sound like they’re having a ball.
#87 - Damage Control: The Complete Collection by Dwayne McDuffie, Ernie Colon, and variousA collection of McDuffie’s four Damage Control miniseries, plus some extra bits and pieces. Damage Control are the guys in the Marvel Universe who come in and clean up the mess left by superhero battles. McDuffie’s idea was to do it as a superhero sitcom of sorts , so there’s a great deal of goofy and silly stuff going on. Things do get a bit more serious in the last miniseries, as much as they can be serious in a story where the Chrysler building comes to life and wants to go for a walk.
#88 - The Burnout Generation by Anne Helen PetersenA rather lightweight but on-point look at the stresses suffered by Millennials, though Petersen doesn’t deign to glance aside at the groups to either side to make the picture clearer. Also troublesome: the limited number of interviews that tend to rattle in without great point. More interviews and consistently tighter editing would have framed points and insights better than here.
#89 - The Underworld Railroad by Jason M. Burns and Paul TuckerI’d have liked this book far better if not for the eye-straining “primitive” artwork. The story itself is s relatively straightforward tale of a waystation on a network that serves to rescue lost souls hovering between heaven and hell. This one time, though...the Devil herself comes calling, and a war brews between the grand powers.
Mount TBR 2020
Books mentioned in this topic
The League of Regrettable Sidekicks: Heroic Helpers from Comic Book History! (other topics)A Vintage Year for Scoundrels (other topics)
Callan Volume 1 (other topics)
The Zapple Diaries: The Rise and Fall of the Last Beatles Label (other topics)
Justice League of America: The Last Survivors of Earth! (other topics)
More...
#28 in the 87th Precinct series. This is another of McBain’s experiments with style and format, with the procedural part in third person following the investigation after six bodies are found dumped into a road construction trench, and a lengthy confession from the gang leader behind the mayhem alternating in first person. On to of that, it’s also an allegory for the Nixon administration in Viet Nam and for Nixon himself in the White House. Unfortunately, at this distance in time, the allegory doesn’t work too well.