Mount TBR 2013 Reading Challenge discussion

Having created Everest, it's now time to voyage to Mars, strap on the rocket skis, and sally forth up Mount Olympus...ohhhh, she's a biggun, isn't she? Yes, she is...!

Books #101 and #102 coming very shortly!

...though possibly not quite the ones I was intending, as my home is currently off-limits due to a fire (possibly arson) in the back section. It's a triplex, and part of it went up very very rapidly. Most of my stuff is okay, we think; it's hard to tell under the devastation wrought by the firemen.

Nobody was seriously hurt, thankfully -- I had an issue with some smoke inhalation, but came out of that okay.

Christine wrote: "Good to hear that your ok. Hope you get back in your home soon"

I hope so too. It might be a little while though. The back section needs rebuilding pretty thoroughly. As the third section was vacant at the time, I might be able to move in there for a while, until my place is fixed.

#101 - Samurai Commando: Mission 1549 - Volume 1 Samurai Commando: Mission 1549 - Volume 2 by Harutoshi Fukui

A two volume manga about a Japanese Self Defense Unit accidentally sent into the past, and the unit sent to bring them back...except the commander of the first unit has decided he isn't going to come back, as he's apparently decided to be a conqueror instead. However, there's levels and levels to the story. While there's action, there's also a lot of talking as various characters work to figure out what's really going on.

Wow. So sorry to hear about the fire. Glad everyone is ok.

A scary encounter that turned out all right. It's fashionable to say "as long as animals/people are fine" but there's good reason to care about personal belongings too. I'm glad both are well Steve (whose name I understandably used to think was 'Brian'). ;)

Susan wrote: "Wow. So sorry to hear about the fire. Glad everyone is ok."

I am too, though I have my reservations about the neighbour in the rear section (who was the target for any arson; I have to get the fire department's report to see what they concluded.) As it turned out he was away and had a housesitter in.

C. wrote: "A scary encounter that turned out all right. It's fashionable to say "as long as animals/people are fine" but there's good reason to care about personal belongings too. I'm glad both are well Ste..."

Ha, yes, I only sound like Brian Blessed when I open up, b ut I'm most certainly not a Brian.

In the case of my home, there are indeed personal belongings that would be a tragedy to lose -- artwork from my late girlfriend, for instance, copies of my own books, my manuscripts, masters of recordings, my instruments, and so forth.

It's made certain elements of my life rather more difficult, too -- it's become far harder to stay in touch with my ailing mother, who's in Australia. My mobile service doesn't accommodate communication very well, and not at all with mobile numbers outside of the US, and Skype depends on myh cousin, who is periodically unreliable.

#102 - Ax by Ed McBain

A janitor is found hacked to death, an ax buried in his skull, and it's up to Carella and Hawes of the 87th Precinct to find out who did it -- an effort that leads them down some very sad paths indeed before they're done. This is one of the 87th Precinct books that aims for a bit of social commentary, which drags the procedural element down just a bit.

#103 - Fantastic Four, Volume 6: Rising Storm by Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo

Waid and Ringo were one of the better creative teams to land on the Fantastic Four series, which makes this volume a lot of fun to read even without the preceding volume. In the space of a few issues, the ream saves several planers from Galactus, reveals the origin of Galactus, gets him sent off to another universe, and the deals with a power swap situation that goes way out of control...and does it all with heart, humour, and addressing what it's like to be these four people. Good stuff.

#104 - Star Wars Omnibus: Early Victories by diverse hands

Rather a mixed bag, with the adaptation of Splinter Of The Mind's Eye, Vader's Quest (which delves into Vader discovering that the pilot who blew up the Death Star was his son), and some one shots.

Until recently she was living in Ulladulla, NSW; she moved there to take care of my maternal grandfather after my Dad died. She's now in a care facility called the Glen. With the house inaccessible, my landline is down, and using the mobile results in a rather fraught connection.

#105 - Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich

I'm all over the place with this series, even more so now. This entry, though, strikes me as a bit lackadaisical, with neither the mystery nor the ongoing romantic elements having much power to them, while Lula is becoming a complete caricature by this point.

Christine wrote: "Steven wrote: "I've not been to Ulladulla."

I haven't either...never been able to quite afford to visit Australia. I've seen Mum's pictures, though, and other photos and video of Ulladulla, and it does look fanrasric.

The Glen, meanwhile, is near Bateman's Bay, which is also supposed to be quite beautiful.

#106 - Doctor Who: Bernice Summerfield and the Criminal Code by Eddie Robson, Doctor Who: The Suffering by Jacqueline Rayner and Doctor Who: The Emperor of Eternity by Nigel Robinson

Three Companion Chronicle entries. First up is book companion Bernice Summerfield, who gets a breezy entry with the 7th Doctor (Lisa Bowerman tries, but doesn't quite get McCoy's accent and delivery), thn it's Vicki and Steven for a double-length story with the First Doctor and a battle of the sexes, and finally it's Victoria and Jamie with the 2nd Doctor. The third story is the weakest of the three by far, although it aims to be a relatively straight historical. The problem is that Deborah Watling's performance is weak, and Frazer Hines sounds like he's half asleep -- and, worse, the director had Watling try to portray the Doctor, rather than Hines, who does a perfect imitation of Patrick Troughton (as he has in other audios.)

#107 - Alec: The King Canute Crowd by Eddie Campbell

Campbell's autobiographical narrative of his early adult life is a rambling, shambling thing, disjointed and often quite amusing, coming to a rather shambolic close. Fortunately for the world, Campbell did eventually find his way out of the drunken, nihilistic existence he had.

#108 - 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man and 3 Story: The Secret Files Of The Giant Man, both by Matt Kindt

A fascinating spin on the idea of giant men in fiction, and a deliberate twist on the Incredible Shrinking Man -- Craig Preegang continues to helplessly grow over his lifetime. Kindt's model for Craig is Robert Wadlow, the tallest man to have ever lived, though he sends Craig's stories down quite different avenues, examining hjow difficult it might be to be a thirty foot tall man whose nerve pathways are so long that he could bleed out from an injury before he realized it had occurred. The three stories that make up the book chart Craig's life from the 1940s, when he's born, to somewhere in the 1990s, when his daughter tries to track him down.

The Secret Files compiles three short stories from Dark Horse Presents that give the perspective of a trio of outsiders whose paths cross with Craig.

#109 - Battle Angel - Alita Last Order: Angel of the Innocents by Yukito Kishiro

Volume 2 of Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, continuing the story of the youth rebellion, and then a battle with a giant homicidal robot. There's not much story progress by the time the volume ends. Fortunately the story picked up just enough to cause me to decide to continue with the next volume on that piles.

#110 - Avengers: The Origin by Joe Casey, et al

Updating (slightly) the origin of the Avengers, and expanding on the original one-issue story. Casey has some fun with the story, particularly expanding on Thor figuring out that Loki is behind the events and dealing with the miscreant. If we have to have decompression in conmics, this is the way to do it.

#111 - Battlepug, Volume 1

Battlepug: Blood And Drool is the first trade collection of Mike Norton's amusing webcomic. It's essentially a Conan The Barbarian parody, but casts a far wider net in terms of its humour. Funny stuff, featuring giant animals, an evil Santa, and a naked woman telling the story to two talkative pugs.

#112 - Dark Shadows Volume One

Well, it does what it says on the tin, more or less, in that it continues on from the original television series. In some respects it might even be too faithful to the show, but the worst of it is that it's another Angelique tale....

#113 - Angela by Neil Gaiman, Beau Smith, et al

Neil Gaiman's infamous addition to the Spawn canon, which led to huge lawsuits and the wresting back of intellectual property,and, latterly, the appearance of Angela in the Marvel Universe. Fortunately, the collection itself is short, and was cheap (in more ways than one.) Ihad to see what the fuss was about, though...I need not have bothered.

#114 - Ascend by Keith Arem and Christopher Shy

The main draw here would be the dark, miasmic artwork as the story, a warmed over tale of warring angels and mad ambition, is thin stuff indeed.

#115 - Nexus Omnibus, Volume 1 by Mike Baron and Steve Rude

I've read bits and pieces of this series over the years, but this is the first time I've been able to read the majority of the early issues. It's a happy surprise, then, that it's still fun -- even with all of the implied brutality and horror that lurks just below the saurface (it isn't minimized or ignored; Baron's characters tend to kick against the pricks and make the most of things, even as Nexus himself falls prey to worsening nightmares and a kind of dementia.)

#116 - Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne, Vol. 3 by John Byrne

More science fiction fun with the FF, with Byrne now starting to stretch his stories out again, and even crossing it over into other titles (this volume includes issues of The Avengers and The Thing solo book.) The majority of this book is a Negative Zone tale that has both an overarching arc, and short done-in-one tales.

#117 - Long Tail Kitty by Lark Pien

I didn't quite know what to expect of this. It's a very sweet and amusing collection of stories aimed at the 5-9 crowd, just warm and cheerful through and through -- and there's even a lesson in drawing Long Tail Kitty at the end of the book.

#118 - Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers, Vol. 8 by Roy Thomas et al

Ah, the 1960s and 1970s, an era of tin-eared dialogue, proclamations from all sides, and absolute howlers. There's no shortage of the clunky in this volume of Avengers Masterworks, but for all the ludicrousness of thre stories and dialogue, there are attempts here, admittedly ham-fisted, to address racial politics, bigotry, and the state of the USA that modern-day Marvel Comics has no stomach for.

#119 - Saga, Volume 1Saga, Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan, et al

I've been hearing a lot about this series since it began, so getting to it in the pile was accompanied by a certain fear of disppointment. Far from it. The story is part Romeo & Juliet, part The Little Prince, and all kinds of lunatic. I'm looking forward to seeing the next volume, and already have quite the affection for The Lying Cat (he does not lie; he spots lies.)

#120 - Marvel Masterworks: The Invincible Iron Man, Vol. 1 by Stan lee, Larry Lieber, Robert Bernstein, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, er al

The first dozen Iron Man stories from Tales Of Suspense are collected here, and it's enough to make you wonder how the character survived this long -- even by the standards of the 1960s these are silly, slapdash stories with sloppy artwork, reeking of jingoism (surprisingly, the sexism isn't at the sort of level seen in Avengers or Fantastic Four, but this might be due to the fortune of having introduced Pepper Potts as a feisty character who often one-ups the guys.) Overall, though, pretty much a waste of the Masterworks restoration process.

#121 - JLA/Avengers by Kurt Busiek and George Perez

The question for a long time has been whether or not George Perez could outdo his insane achievement on Crisis on Infinite Earths. Well, the answer to that is...yes, essentially in the telling of a similar story,but with human comics encyclopedia Kurt Busiek providing the script. The story itself puts two universes at stake and provides layers upon layers as to the foundation of the story, as well as temporal dislocations that give Perez the chance to depict a ridiculous number of characters and to further depict many of those characters in the various forms they've had over the years (in the case of the Wasp, this pretty much leads to Jan's outfit changing in every panel towards the end.) Grand stuff, and well worth multiple reads, I'd say, given the enormous amoutn of detail.

#122 - Peter Panzerfaust Vol 1: The Great Escape by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Tyler Jenkins

Another of those surprises -- a story set in WWII-era France (for the most part) that blends Peter Pan with La Resistance. Each volume is to be told from the point of view of a surviving Lost Boy, interviewed by the sunny John Parsons. This volume sets the series up at a dead run, but it never once seems forced, nor is the blending of Peter Pan with the WWII scenario particularly intrusive -- as yet there's no indication that magic is involved.

#123 - Doctor Who: The One Doctor by Gareth Roberts and Doctor Who: The Ratings War by Steve Lyons

All of a sudden, it's time for the comedy approach to Doctor Who -- which is often quite an ill-fitting and uneasy thing indeed. Fortunately, Colin Baker almost makes it worth in both instances, despite the propensity of the producers to go for the silly voices and cod-Hitchhiker's Guide humour. But did we really need an extended sequence of the Doctor making a monster barf him up?The One Doctor is widely believed to have been the basis for the TV episode "The Next Doctor" but it's not -- the story and tone are parsecs apart. The Ratings War, meanwhile, gets to be gleefully meta, and take yet more pokes at the 1980s BBC for their attempts to kill the series.

#124 - The Avengers: The Kree-Skrull War by Roy Thomas, Neal Adams, and sundry

Grand old comics fun, and for some reason one of the more celebrated Avengers stories, though given the way the plor meanders around I'm not sure why it's so -- perhaps because it's pretty much a sequel to one of the first Fantastic Four stories, and mixes up a combination of Marvel's mad tech and the cosmic side of Marvel. There's a smattering of Neal Adams art.

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to cross the 150 mark by the end of the year, but I'm going to try to get as close to it as I cn before the surgery on December 5th. I might be completely out of action for a week, but I'm setting up things that might help -- getting audio books ready for the tablet, and so on.

#125 - Doctor Who: Ghost Ship by Keith Topping

If you enjoyed the Fourth Doctor's gothic period, then this is certainly a story to find and read. While rather unusual -- it's a rare tale told in first person by the Fourth Doctor -- it delivers the goods on the mad science, ghostly chills, and general horror-strewn malaise and weirdness

#126 - The Little Book of Essential Foreign Swearwords by Emma Burgess

A lot of space dedicated to so little, really, and all of it scurrilous...and not enough of it Russian, frankly. Burgess runs through the basics in French, Italian, German, and Spanish, throws in some phrases you'd be all-advised to teach your friends before they went on a European holiday, and finishes up with a selection of words and phrases in a few more languages.

Everyone will think of you December 5th. Be well, Steven.
Carolyn and your world wide peers.

Thank you, Carolyn. I was hoping to somehow avoid the paternal family curse, but better overall that I know now and get the heart surgery done. The good news is that the Uncle who had a quadruple bypass at about the same age as me is still with us. My Father, alas, was never diagnosed, and his heart attack was quite final. I'd rather not follow in his footsteps!

@127 - Invincible, Vol. 1: Family Matters by Robert Kirkman, et al

I've been meaning to get started on this series for quite some time, and have had various editions of the books lying around for, in some cases, several years. I'm sorry I took so long to get here -- this is a neat series, often funny, though sometimes with a bit of a blank affect. There's a dollop of silver age superheroing filtered through light teen angst and a wonderfully functional dysfunctional family centered around long-time hero Omni-Man -- whose son is just coming into his own. Mom, meanwhile, had become the ultimate cop's wife -- the miraculous has long since become mundane, and the rigours of her husband's heroic life have become mundane. "Oh, he's off fighting a hundred foot tall dragon in Taiwan? Here, have some more pancakes." I'm looking forward to reading more.

#128 - Batman: Earth One by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank

While there are some nuances here -- yet another reboot of the origin of Batman -- the sheer greyness of the work is off-putting. I do appreciate the spins on some of the regular characters, but overall what we get is a Batman who's shaded much too close to the real world, to the point where Alfred, now depicted as a former Royal Marine, has to save Batman from the Penguin by kicking in a door and shooting Cobblepot in the head. All the lifts from various of the cinematic stories don't help, either. Johns' Batman is a wreck who can barely keep himself from getting killed, no matter how much he works at getting better.

#129 - Invincible, Vol. 2: Eight is Enough by Robert Kirkman

...however, as it turns out, things in the Invincible universe aren't so bright and shint after all. Which leads to....

#130 - Invincible, Vol. 3: Perfect Strangers by Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley

In which the truth about Omni-Man is revealed, and all gritty, bloody hell breaks loose. For all that, however, Kirkman's characters wind up having compassion and kindness come through, and some of them are flat our dorable.

I'm sorry your Dad ascended early, who had no surgery or information. Along with your long-living Mom and uncle, you'll pull through just fine. Don't freak out if you feel weak at simple things post surgery (from observation of others). It's normal and goes quickly but wise to have those audio stories ready. www.CMRiedel.WordPress.com

C. wrote: "I'm sorry your Dad ascended early, who had no surgery or information. Along with your long-living Mom and uncle, you'll pull through just fine. Don't freak out if you feel weak at simple things p..."

Given that I've had such a lead-in to the surgery (which is bad in the respect that it lets me have too much time to think...!), I've been getting quite the preamble. I've also read Ferrett Steinmetz's journaling about his heart attack, surgery, and recovery, which gives me quite a good idea of what to expect in the recovery phase, and as I'm presently living with friends as a result of the fire, I'll be in a very safe and supportive place.

I'm very, very fortunate, I think.

My Mother, alas, will not be with us for that much longer, I fear. Then again, of course, I've said often that she's going to surprise herself, and the rest of the family, but being around a lot longer than she thinks.

I'm sorry about my Dad, too...I've often felt guilt about it, as I was certain something was wrong, but ignored my instincts and let him tell em it was just, as his Doctor has insisted, indigestion. He was 64. I'm 57...I rather hope to have many more years after this.

#131 - Invincible: Ultimate Collection, Volume 1 by Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker, Ryan Ottley, et all

Oversized hardcover collection that comes complete with scripts, proposal materials, and a big scrapbook section. The story is intriguing, and the extra materials make for a very interesting look into the development and production of comics.

#132 - Invincible, Vol. 4: Head of the Class by Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley

While the series hasn't returned to the more all-ages approach of the first few issues, it does lighten up considerably for this volume (also, there are more pages than usual.) Many of the characters are being developed nicely, and are both interesting and fun, even the government agents who are now running the new Global Guardians.

#133 - JLA, Vol. 7: Tower of Babel by Mark Waid and Howard Porter

I picked this up without actually intending to make it the next thing I read, and proceeded to just sort of jet through it. It's a very grumpy story, overall, but considering the stakes and the cause of the major problems for the Justice League, a little darkness is to be expected. Most interesting to em is the collection of "lost pages" at the end of the book, however, as we get to see reactions outside of the League to Batman's planning.

#134 - Batman: Noel by Lee Bermejo

A Christmas Catol done as a Batman tale -- very much an Elseworlds without that name being attached. Batman gets a clear picture of what he's become, and learns better. There's a lot of good things about this book, and the artwork carries it over the flaws. The Joker in this tale is also one of the scariest permutations yet, even though he has a certain mundane quality to him. It's a fairly quick read, taken at face value, but most will find themselves lingering over the pages because of Bermejo's artwork.

#135 - Platinum Pohl: The Collected Best Stories by Frederik Pohl

This is one hell of an assemblage, well worth the time it takes to read -- Fred was an amazing writer, and a damn good worldbuilder. He also possessed a sarcastic wit that benefits many of these stories.

Surgery postponed, due to an infection, and to bronchitis triggered by finishing the clearing out of my home so it can be rebuilt. At this point I have no idea what the new surgery date will be, as they're waiting for test results once I finish the antibiotics.

So...here's to 150 before I go under!

#136 - Essential Avengers, Vol. 5 by Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, and diverse hands.

A bit of a labour to get through, but that's only because of the writing styles practiced in the early 1970s. There's much of a to-do centered on the Scarlet Witch and the Vision, Hawkeye spends the entire time sulking, and the Avengers/Defenders War gets in there. Part of the problem with the volume is that there is little consistency in the art -- artists were coming and going constantly on the book, and some rush jobs were squeezed in as a result...which shows. Also, an insane amount of fighting and many, many big panels.