VIRTUAL Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2020 discussion

Up one more level, then.

#37 - Captain America: Red Glare by Mark Waid and Ron Garney

The Red Skull returns again, now with the power of the Cosmic Cube internalized. This turns into the return of Korvac and then back into a Red Skull story. It’s okay, if a bit more routine than called for. Cap gets the worst Groundhog Day situation ever, though.

Borrowed from ComiXology Unlimited.

#38 - Sweetheart in High Heels by Gemma Halliday

An entry in the High Heels series of cozy mysteries featuring fashion designer Maddie Springer. This one has a corpse found in a sex shop, a case Maddie is determined to figure out before it screws up her anniversary with her cop husband. Lightweight enough to be loaded with helium, honestly.

Audible Plus.

#39 - Star Trek: Year Five - Odyssey's End by Jackson Lansing and others

The beginning of the end as the five year mission enters its fifth year and Kirk tries to come to grips with going home and flying a desk as a newly minted Admiral. An encounter with a destroyed Tholian colony and a stranded Tholian child leads to complications even as further missions come to the fore.

It’s okay, but things here and there seem off, and the Organian Treaty never even comes up when the crew runs into Klingons. There’s also a mystery set up early on that doesn’t get resolved here.

From ComiXology Unlimited.

#40 - Quick Service by P. G. Wodehouse

Madcap all-a-froth comedic romance from a master of the style. Wodehouse goes all-in on the knock-on effects here, from an unfortunate packaged ham to a painting with a peculiar history, issues of finance, impecunious relativity, mistaken acts, and generally all the silliness one gets in a manor house comedy of this kind.

Audible Plus.

#41 - A Highland Christmas by M. C. Beaton

A lighter tale from Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth series in which the Constable finds himself on special duty and confronted with small mysteries and social issues in the distant Highland region he’s assigned to.

Audible Plus.

#42 - Immortal Hulk, Volume 2: The Green Door by Al Ewing and others

Ewing continues his dark turn here, returning the Hulk to his original day/night setup with a distinct horror twist. Once again Hulk is the target of a covert government operation, one that discovers that *this* Hulk is unkillable. There’s considerable body horror to come, a mysterious journey home, and the unleashing of Banner’s personal Hell.

#43 - Immortal Hulk, Volume 3: Hulk In Hell by Al Ewing and others
#44 - Immortal Hulk, Volume 4: Abomination by Al Ewing

The Hulk, friends, and enemies end up in what appears to be Banner’s personal hell, one mostly occupied by devastation, a massive entity...and his Dad. Escaping this with both new revelations and a new outlook, Bruce makes his way back to his wife only for her to be murdered by Bushwhacker — a death that fails to stick and has consequences related to Betty’s time as the Red She-Hulk.

General Fortean’s Shadow Base steals the corpse of the late Rick Jones to produce a new Abomination, one they put into the field when their plan to trap and kill Banner at Shadow Base A goes awry, releasing the Joe Fixit personality. Mayhem, of course, ensues, and deaths follow — Fortean is quite willing to murder civilians.

This has been a crazily entertaining series, unafraid to dive into the past even as Al Ewing transforms the Hulk in interesting, if horrific, ways.

Read via ComiXology Unlimited and Marvel Unlimited.

#45 - Joyful Noise and I Am Phoenix by Paul Fleischman

Omnibus version of two poetry books that are designed for reading out loud by two performers. Nothing deep, but it has a modicum of charm and should be splendid for kids.

Audible Plus.

#46 - Poems of War and Remembrance by various

An assorted mix of the usual (Owens, Kipling, Tennyson) and some less often salted in. Not a vast collection, but a nice, thoughtful listen.

Audible Plus.

#47 - Alexa, why can’t you love me? by David Rossmer

A drama about family grief and learning to move on. The product placement is a tiny bit obnoxious at times, but Alexa is used to hilarious advantage, and then in a predictable, but moving way. Judd Hirsch plays the widower, an elderly man missing his late wife (also named Alexa), a man in full on frustrated conflict with his grieving daughter. I liked it, and I laughed loudly at several points, as well as being moved.

Audible Plus.

#48 - My Mum's a Twat by Anoushka Warden

An autobiographical piece by a woman whose mother got herself pulled into a cult, and the effects of that on her daughter. It’s by turns fascinating and appalling and occasionally tawdry and tedious, but never uninteresting.

Audible Plus.