Mount TBR 2014 Challenge discussion

Who wants to live forever?>! Ha ha haaaaaa! Diiiiiiiiive!"

Starting this Trek on the highest setting,and live from post-cardiac rehab. Let's see if I can make it!

#1 - Fuzz by Ed McBain

The Deaf Man makes a return in one of McBain's quirkier 87th Precinct outings.

#2 - Army Of One by B. V. Larson

A tangent novella to Larson's StarForce series, it's basically the story of an enhanced man coming to grips with his place in a world at war with alien machines. Bog standard SF war story, but told reasonably well.

#3 - The Score by Richard Stark

Master criminal Parker gets involved with a plan to rob an entire town in North Dakota...but the plan turns out to have some hidden perils. Curiously devoid of a sense of danger for the main characters, despite the set piece that's the middle of the book.

#4 - Doctor Who: The Light at the End by Nicholas Briggs

Big Finish have done several Doctor Who 50th anniversary projects, among which was this rather confusing multi-Doctor story featuring Doctors 1 through 8 and the Geoffery Beevers version of the Master. Some fun moments, to be sure, especially with Tom Baker. The music, unfortunately, strives to be epic, and is instead noisy bombast.

#5 - Epitaphs by Bill Pronzini

#6 - Surf Beat by Kent Crowley

A solid look at the entwined history of surfing and surf music (and early Frank Zappa, who was involved in odd and interesting ways.) Copyediting could have been better, mind you.

Great start. Hope your February reading is going well.

My February reading has been a bit scattered, alas, with further illness, starting outpatient rehab, and assorted distractions. I'm hoping to get back on pace quickly.

Steven wrote: "My February reading has been a bit scattered, alas, with further illness, starting outpatient rehab, and assorted distractions. I'm hoping to get back on pace quickly."

So sorry to hear that you're still battling illness, Steven. Hoping that you will soon be well.

Steven wrote: "My February reading has been a bit scattered, alas, with further illness, starting outpatient rehab, and assorted distractions. I'm hoping to get back on pace quickly."

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Bev, Leslie, my problems are coming out of a lengthy history of pulmonary problems, but I'll battle through. :) The ruder surprise was the onset of Dressler's Syndrome, which is apparently relatively common as a post heart incident complication -- it's not crippling, but it's very painful.

#7 - Encounters with the Unknown (Star Trek Voyager by divers hands

Trade paperback collection of two miniseries and two standalone graphic novels published by Wildstorm when they had the license. The best of these is "Avalon Rising," which focuses on the Doctor. "Voyager: Elite Force," a game tie-in, is rather poor.

Good start, Steven!

A successful surgery was the major step. Be well Steven. Enjoy my list in the meantime. :)

C. -- I am indeed working on being well. It's hard work, as I expected, but as my friends point out now and then, it took time to get me to the point of needing the surgery, so recovery will take time too. Well worth it.

And let me say at this juncture that I am blessed when it comes to friends.

#8 - Bone Handbook by Jeff Smith

I'm finally getting around to these books (I bought a stack of the Scholastic trades at a library sale, including this one) and starting with this one. It's as i says on the tin, and provides background to the series and the characters, along with interviews, art examples, and a couple of short stories. While it's a elatively quick read (and geared towards a Junior reading level), it's enjoyable, and left me with a growing urge to read the series.

#9 - Blitz by Ken Bruen

I fund it very interesting that one of the character beats in this novel involves a tough, corrupt cop's love of the Ed McBain novels. Bruen's book seems almost to mirror the McBain books -- where the procedurals in a McBain 87th Precinct novel are almost emotionally sterile, procedure here is fraught with emotion, violence, bigotry,and worse. Nobody comes away clean here, whether it's by malice aforethought or simply falling prey to an unrecognized vulnerability. Brutal and dark.

#10 - Let's Hear It For The Deaf Man by Ed McBain

The Deaf Man is back, and he's up to no good -- and confusing the 87th Precinct while he's up to no good. Also up to no good are a cat burglar who leaves kittens, and whoever crucified a man in a deserted building. Well interlocked, interesting,and sometimes quite amusing before you get slapped back to the grimmer side of police work.

#11 - Hail To The Chief by Ed McDain

One of the more experimental 87th Precinct books, in that it serves as a satire of the politics of the time -- with a particular focus on Richard Nixon. If you get the idea that "we had to burn the village in order to save it" and a better path to peace through bigger acts of violence, that's where the author was going. Also featured is the White House bugging everything. The experiment isn't just in the satire, however -- it also is in the split between the third person narrative following the cops (dumbed down a bit here) and what turns out pretty quickly to be the self-justifying confession of the central bad guy.

Good reading! I've got a couple of the 87th Precinct books on my TBR pile....maybe I'll get to that part of the mountain range this year....

Bev -- good luck with getting to them. The 87th Precinct books are very variable, but have always been interesting. I'm happy to be finally catching up ob them.

My pace, meanwhile, needs to pick up a bit...!

#12 - Afrika by Hermann Huppen

A graphic novel that follows an embittered reserve director and a naive journalist as the story she thinks she's doing turns into something bigger and more horrifying. Translated from French (this was published initially in Belgium), the story makes its points, at least to a degree, but lacks the space to really develop the characters. The time wasted on a side story doesn't help. The interesting artwork does.

#13 - All-New X-Men, Vol. 1: Yesterday's X-Men by Brian Michael bendis

Cyclops is off the mutant reservation post-Phoenix Five, struggling with out of control powers and trying to maintain a fragile alliance with Magneto and others. Which is when Hank McCoy (The Beast) decides to go back to the past and bring the young X-Men forward so that young Cyclops can give his older self a talking to. Hilarity, as it were, ensues. Sadly, not a whole lot happens during the course of this book, and it feels as though Bendis is just going through the motions.

#14 - The Amalgam Age of Comics: The DC Comics Collection by divers hands

An entertaining conceit wherein DC and Marvel fused their characters briefly, creating oddbsll hybrids (many of whom seemed like templates for early Image Comics.) The DC book tried for the dark, gritty Marvel tone, but often just seemed histrionic, although Wolverine cast as Batman (or, rather, Dark Claw)was an amusing touch.

#15 - Bread by Ed McBain

An 87th Precinct book that keeps its main focus on Steve Carella, though we do get introduced to "Fat Ollie" Weeks, a slovenly, bigoted detective from the 86th Precinct. The story starts with an irate businessman who has jut lost a warehouse full of toys in the arson fire of his warehouse, and things cascade from there. More heavily procedural than many of the 87th Precinct books, with very little of the McBain sarcasm.

#16 - Blood Relatives by Ed McBain

A young girl is horribly murdered and her cousin staggers into a police station bleeding and disheveled. A brutal crime that soon seems to be an open and shut case turns out to be anything but, and thus the story spirals down a dark, horrifying path that's made worse by the clinical procedural element. Unfortunately while this has the makings of a dark thriller, it's tripped up by bog-standard and even cliched elements, and the ultimate solution is evident by the third chapter. If fans of the 87th Precinct series were to skip this one, they wouldn't be missing much.

#17 - Doctor Who: The Queen of Time by Brian Hayles

There's occasionally the comment that perhaps some of the Doctor Who lost stories should have stayed lost. These comments are occasionally quite on the mark -- this would appear to be one of those that should have stayed lost, being as it's pretty much a re-run of "The Celestial Toymaker" with clocks in place of games.

#18 - At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

I've never really managed to find my way into Lovecraft's work, and I'm afraid this didn't help at all. It's a horror story written as an expedition report, full of detail and purpling prose but short on the concrete. Lost cities, a madman' book, alien horrors of the indescribable kind, and much verbiage that seems to go around and around for a long time.

#19 - Return to the Amalgam Age of Comics: The Marvel Comics Collection by divers hands

Once more into the breach with this sometimes zany collection of comics featuring characters who areamalgamated versions of various DC and Marvel characters. The best entry this time round, as far as I'm concerned, is SPIDER-BOY TEM-UP, which does a very good job of sending up the convoluted history of the Legion Of Super-Heroes, including the notorious Fives Years Later series.

#20 - Avengers: Standoff by Geoff Johns

Perfect if you like lots of hitting and exploding with a thin political plot wrapped around it. If not, well, skip this.

#21 - Avengers: The Yesterday Quest by John Byrne and Roy and Dann Thomas, et al

The history of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch is revisited, and we find out who their father is. Oh, and there's a battle for Wanda's soul.

#22 Batman/Captain America by John Byrne

While this was a one-off crossover between DC and Marvel, set in the 1940s, it led directly to Byrne's three Superman & Batman: Generations, An Imaginary Tale outings in which the characters aged in real time.

#23 - Avengers West Coast: Darker than Scarlet by John Byrne and Roy & Dann Thomas, et al

Further shenanigans with the Scarlet Witch, Magneto, and the ever loquacious Immortus. Scenery-chewing comics action at its best.

#24 - Batman: Through the Looking Glass by Bruce Jones and Sam Kieth

So, the plot is this: Batman, as a result of accidentally eating magic mushrooms, is trippin' balls and doing a whole Wonderland thing wherein the role of Alice is played by a dead childhood friend. Add in a lame mystery, the Mad Hatter, and a stripper with a heart of gold, chuck into a blender with the art of Sam Kieth, and out comes this concoction. The stylized art isn't going to sit well with many people, but ity really does work for the story (although it's a strain when it's doing real world elements, such as Robin and Alfred's search for Batman.) Sadly, the story itself is rather week. Still fun to see Batman coping with being royally stoned, though.

#25 - Fables, Vol. 1: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham

What if the characters of fairytale, story, and legend were driven to band together on Earth to save themselves once a mysterious "Adversary" began destroying them and taking over their worlds? And thus is the story for this series (which shares some thematic tissue with ONCE UPON A TIME, but in most respects differs), which, disconcertingly, opens up in New York City with a murder mystery that has to be solved by the Big Bad Wolf, who's swapped his usual hairy aspect for that of a Columbo knock-off. There's a lot of interesting elements, but this opening volume is rather pedestrian -- most people will figure out the mystery very quickly, for instance.

I'm hoping that the other volumes that have been living on my shelves for a while will be better than this.

#26 - Fables, Vol. 2: Animal Farm
#27 - Fables, Vol. 3: Storybook Love both by Bill Willingham, et al

There are some improvements in the story, as Willingham rejiggers Orwell's Animal Farm with fairytale characters and a different ultimate goal, and then goes on to play with the aspects of love and capers in the Fabletown universe, even as he continues to expand on Sondheim's twist on Prince Charming, from Into the Woods -- "I said I was Charming. I never said I was sincere!"

This is a bit more like it -- I was actually suckered into staying up late, reading this pair of books. Still some room for improvement, mind you.

#28 - Fables, Vol. 4: March of the Wooden Soldiers by Bill Willingham, et al

Fabletown goes into crisis mode as an invasion is launched even as Prince Charming carries forward his campaign to become Mayor of Fabletown. This collection mixes up violence, tragedy, and altogether goofy humour, while providing a few clues to the nature of The Adversary.

#29 - Fables, Vol. 5: The Mean Seasons
#30 - Fables, Vol. 6: Homelands
#31 - Fables, Vol. 7: Arabian Nights (and Days) all by Bill Willingham, et al

I'm apparently starting to really enjoy these, given my pace through that part of the pile. The story still has a tendency to lollop all over the place, but at least now the Adversary stands revealed (as though this was long going to remain unguessed by readers.) As always, the books vary in length.

#32 - Fables, Vol. 8: Wolves by Bill Willingham, et al

Old wolf Bigby has lost himself somewhere in the world, and it's up to Mowgli to find him for a very special mission into the Homelands. Veers from goofy spy fantasy to serious spy fantasy to outright romanticism. I enjoyed this volume a great deal, although I can see Bigby's secret mission not ending well overall.

#33 - Fables, Vol. 9: Sons of Empire
#34 - Fables, Vol. 10: The Good Prince by Bill Willingham, et al

The coming war between Fabletown and the Empire inches forward little by little, until a seemingly minor character causes it to take a giant step...sideways. The plot thickens even as it runs in unexpected channels and with a certain amount of inconsistency at times.

#35 - Fables, Vol. 11: War and Pieces by Bill Willingham

The big are between the exiled Fables and the Empire finally arrives, progresses, and ends...although much of the important stuff ends up offscreen, and nobody explains what happened to Briar Rose. Not as good as it could have been because there seems to be little by way of actual risk to the Fables, especially when the enemy is fond of expressing how stupid the Empire has been.

#36 - Fables, Vol. 12: The Dark Ages by Bill Willingham

The War is over, but now everyone is left picking up the pieces and trying to decide what's next. What's next is a knock-off of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouse releasing an unspeakable and ancient evil that even Frau Totenkinder can't get a handle on. Oh, and Gepetto ends up buried in the Earth.

#37 - Fables, Vol. 13: The Great Fables Crossoverby Bill Willingham

Having set up the release of a great evil, and left Fabletown in ruins, we now get dragged of on a metatextual journey that's probably the biggest misstep in Willingham's progress. Crossing over with the Jack Of Fables series, the storyline sees Jack calling in the Fables when writer Kevin Thorn turns out to be a powerful magical being...and so on ad so forth. Jack is a horrible character, and given that one of his first acts on going to the upstate NY Fables Farm is to rape Rose Red, I think i can safely say that the book itself is pretty damned horrible in this instance.

On the bright side, anyone reading the series can skip this. Or quit with the series altogether, as many seem to have done.

#38 - Fables, Vol. 14: Witches by Bill Willingham

Back to business as usual, although more scattered than usual, too...and the already interrupted story of Mr. Dark and the next coming battle is interrupted by Bufkin versus Baba Yaga,and then a baseball game.

#39 - The Mammoth Book of Fantastic Science Fiction: Short Novels of the 1970s edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Greenberg, etc

A lengthy collection of novellas with some great work, and some not so great, much of it, interestingly, settling on the softer edges of science fiction -- rivers and ray guns took a back seat to explorations of the human (and inhuman) psyche and views of society as it might develop.

#40 - Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff

In the end it's too focused on LeDuff and his issues, veering away from the true point of the book -- a history and analysis of what went wrong with Detroit.

#41 - Lieberman's Thief by Stuart M. Kaminsky

Relatively lightweight novel in Kaminsky's Lieberman series, but Abe Lieberman does seem to be a fun character -- very much on the Colombo mold, but more so. Murder happens, quirky characters are involved, Lieberman hangdog-kvetches his way through the investigation. Cozy.

#42 - Nothing But the Night by Bill Pronzini

Bleak thriller interlocking the stories of two people -- a man hunting for the hit and run driver who put his wife in a coma, and the man he believes to be that driver. While it's a solid thriller, with good characterizations of damaged people, many readers will likely see the twists coming.

#43 - Runaways, Vol. 2: Teenage Wasteland by Brian K. Vaughn, et al

The kids have escaped from their evil parents...but the Pride isn't giving up so easily.