Virtual Mount TBR Challenge 2023 discussion

I’m starting higher up this year, and will jump mountains as needed. Several sources digitally: Scribd, Kindle Unlimited, Audible Plus, Hoopla, ComiXology Unlimited.

Good luck with White Plume, Steven!

Bev wrote: "Good luck with White Plume, Steven!"

Thank you!

#1 - Crossover, Vol. 2: The Ten-Cent Plague by Donny Cates, et al

A wild and woolly ride, this. Comic book characters have broken through to the the real world, with terrible consequences. Chaos! Death! Also, somebody is killing comics writers.

Turns out it’s all because of writer Donny Cates doing a self-insert fan-fiction kind of thing that, well, just went out of control. By the end we know who’s behind it…but the book a cliffhanger. By that point the story is pretty much an incoherent…crossover saga.

At times very funny, at times just frustrating.

Hoopla.

#2 - Monochrome Photo Scenery of Sapporo Tramway by masa310

A collection of good to excellent photographs of the modern tramway system in Sapporo, Japan.

Kindle Unlimited

#3 - Doctor Strange: Damnation - The Complete Collection

Aside from lifting the concept from Green Lantern: Emerald Twilight/New Dawn where there’s an incautious drive to power followed by an epic if injudicious act in raising a destroyed city and its inhabitants, this story just rattles about disconnectedly until it lumbers to a stop. The various crossovers are presented one after another, rather than interwoven, and entire chunks of it are just…unimportant (certainly the case with the Scarlet Spider and Iron Fist.) The narrative itself is an uneven and uneasy mix of silly quipping and gruesome action — when Dormammu shows up popping jokes, you know things are off the rails.

ComiXology Unlimited

#4 - Vampirella/Red Sonja, Vol. 1: These Dark Synchronicities by Jordie Bellaire, etc
#5 - Vampirella / Red Sonja Volume 2 by Jordie Bellaire, etc

Not a lot to say about these, honestly. Dynamite seems to like throwing these two together, and the results can be fun at times, if jarringly out of character. Unfortunately, the story is longer than it really should be, and tends to lose focus a lot — entire plot lines just stop, and there’s a lot of breaks for goofiness. Nowhere near as good as Red Sonja & Vampirella Meet Betty & Veronica, honestly.

ComiXology Unlimited

#6 - Red Sonja: Worlds Away, Vol. 1: World's Away by Amy Chu, et al

Red Sonja loses a battle and us thrown into the future, where she finds old enemy Kulan Gath plotting destruction and domination. By turns violent, silly, and slightly sleazy, the book ends on a cliffhanger as New York cop Max is tossed back in time to Hyrkania…where he came from.

ComiXology Unlimited

#7 - Sankarea 1: Undying Love by Mitsuru Hattori

I’m a hard sell when it comes to zombie anything, and might not stick with this series despite its twisted approach to the subject — we already have the thread of “the real monsters are the living”, which is by now a stale trope, but there’s also a perspective shift as we see things from Rea’s point of view.

I’ll give it another volume or two, but if the ugliness becomex the point then I’ll move on.

ComiXology

#8 - Sankarea 2: Undying Love by Mitsuru Hattori

Going by the backmatter, the mangaka got told off for making Rea’s father so thoroughly creepy and awful. Meanwhile, Rea’s zombie state turns out to be quite peculiar.

I’m sticking with it for now.

#9 - DAWN OF X VOL. 13 by Hickman, Fuggan, et Al

Lurching back into the X-Universe in a gloriously haphazard manner. I’ve been here before. Gets utterly ludicrous with the alien plants vsX-Zombies vs Golden Girls Horticulturists.

Hoopla

#10 - Trials of X, Vol. 1 by Hickman, Williams, Ayala

Continuing the lurch back into the crazily complex world that’s the current X-Men. The Scarlet Witch (yet again Not A Mutant) has been murdered, and Magneto stands accused. Meanwhile, diplomacy rages onward.

#11 - Trials of X, Vol. 2 by Ewing, Percy, et al

The Scarlet Witch is revived and redeemed (again), and Wolverine works on a violent mystery.

The X-Men universe continues to be more complicated than a Rube Goldberg machine.

Hoopla

#12 - REIGN OF X VOL. 6 by Ewing, Hickman, Dugan, etc

Several X-Men face the Vault, a place where temporal compression throws everything out of whack. X-Force’s Quentin Quire faces himself, and the Marauders tackle the thorny issue of Madripoor.

Hoopla

#13 - Trials of X, Vol. 3 by Percy, Duggan, Wells, etc

Wolverine continues his violent mystery, which somehow turns into a pirate fantasy. Excalibur continues to have boring Otherworld adventures as Merlyn goes off the rails again. The Hellions get thrown in to a murderous brawl with Tarn The Uncaring, thanks to Mr. Sinister.

Hoopla

#14 - The Variants by Gail Simone

This only gets the lowball because I wanted more and I wanted a better rationale for the third act. Five issues doesn’t provide enough room to explore these women, all variants of Jessica Jones, so it’s damn near all bullet points.

Hoopla

#15 - Trials of X, Vol. 4 by Wells, Spurrier, etc

Things get messy with the Hellions and Tarn The Uncaring. Storm also goes up against Tarn. On Mars, Legion and Nightcrawler wrestle with the psychic plague that’s eating at Krakoa: Onslaught, somehow, is back.

Not great, I’m afraid.

ComiXology Unlimited

#16 - X-Men: Hellfire Gala - Red Carpet Edition by Hickman, Duggan, Ayala, Percy, etc

The X-Men’s first Hellfire Gala, seen from various angles over multiple storylines. It’s a mish-mash, but it advances things quite a bit.

ComiXology Unlimited

#17 - REIGN OF X VOL. 7 by Duggan, Ayala, others

Mostly notable for sone really ugly artwork.

Hoopla

#18 - Trials of X, Vol. 5 by Spurrier, Howard, etc
#19 - Trials of X, Vol. 6 by Howard, Ayala, etc

Onslaught gets driven out, the Marauders go up against a space pirate, and things get messy on the corporate side of Krakoa.

Honestly, it sometimes feels like the X division if Marvel is flailing at this point, trying to find a way around the inevitable reset.

Hoopla

#20 - Trials of X, Vol. 7 by Ayala, Percy, Duggan
#21 - Trials Of X Vol. 8 by Howard, Ayala, etc
#22 - Trials Of X Vol. 9 by Ewing, Duggan, etc

Thankfully some stories are closing in an ending. As is this line of collections, which Marvel is abandoning with #12 — reverting instead to collections of each title. Hopefully it’ll be easier to keep track of things.

This set includes a one-shot story featuring Dr. Strange’s villain Nightmare, another one shot with Wolverine doing a mix of The Old Man and the Sea and Moby-Dick or, the Whale, and a visit from everyone’s favourite addled dragon Fin Fang Foom.

Hoopla

I’m trying to get back to speed. I moved to Bisbee, AZ, a month ago, and it’s been an adjustment.

Steven wrote: "I’m trying to get back to speed. I moved to Bisbee, AZ, a month ago, and it’s been an adjustment."

Moving is a lot of work. Did you decide to leave any books behind? I never do :)

CinCO wrote: "Steven wrote: "I’m trying to get back to speed. I moved to Bisbee, AZ, a month ago, and it’s been an adjustment."

Moving is a lot of work. Did you decide to leave any books behind? I never do :)"

This is supposed to be an interim move, so the majority of my stuff is in storage right now — what’s left of it. I’d gone through and culled a lot prior to that, and decisions were taken in a number of others. Painful, but I think I’ll not miss what went away.

Additionally, I’m well stocked in the digital world, in all respects — and I’d ripped the majority of my CD audiobooks. What I need to do know is find the energy and focus to get back to reading.

#23 - Batman '89 by Sam Hamm and others.

An interesting return visit to the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton Batman universe. Basically, what might have been if Burton and Hamm had done a third Batman film together, with Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face and the return of Catwoman. The story doesn’t just go the blockbuster action route, either — this story has a social conscience, and both a divided hero and a divided villain.

ComiXology Unlimited

#24 - The Marvels Vol. 1: The War In Siancong (The Marvelsby Kurt Busiek, Yildray Cinar, Alex Ross

Part one of a big Busiek epic that pulls in characters from all over Marvel, from the 1940s to the present.

ComiXology Unlimited

#25 - THE MARVELS VOL. 2: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY by Kurt Busiek, Yildiray Cinar, Alex Ross

And the concluding part, which reveals the gigantic stakes and plays with the fake countries of the Marvel Universe.

Hoopla

#26 - Blade Runner: Origins, Vol. 1: Products by K. Perkins, Mellow Brown, Mike Johnson, etc

An undistinguished prequel to Blade Runner, set in a very alternate 2009 as ex-soldier Cal Moreau, now a cop, is sent to deal with a seeming suicide at the Tyrell Corporation. Moreaux fails to follow orders and actually investigates, and things begin falling apart. A new Nexus-5 has escaped, Nexus-4s are turning on humans, and the dead scientist is revealed to have transferred her consciousness to a replicant body. Unfortunately all of this is delivered via some serious narrative confusion.

Hoopla

#27 - Historic Photos of Tucson by Mike Speelman

I had much higher hopes for this book, but it’s a rather uninspired collection of photos, too few in number (especially in the last section) with text that fails to adequately inform the reader about many of the images.

Hoopla

#28 - Star Trek: Year Five, Book 3: Weaker than Man by Jackson Lanzing and others

I appreciate the writing group working up the transition to The Motion Picture, but other than that this is a mix of warmed over plot threads from Enterprise and a very bad take on Gary Seven and the Aegis (fortunately now condemned to the dustbin of Trek history by Picard season 2.) The Aegis plan here makes no sense at all — work to direct the future of the Galaxy, but then sterilize everything but the Tholians so things will forever be in stasis. Saving quadrillions of lives by snuffing them out seems rather problematic.

This series has had some good entries, but unfortunately none of them make up for the core idiocy.

ComiXology Unlimited

#29 - Blade Runner: Origins, Vol. 2: Scrap by K. Perkins, Mellow Brown, etc

The narrative confusion continues.

Hoopla

#30 - Star Trek: Year Five, Book 4: Experienced in Loss by Paul Cornell, Jackson Lanzing, et al

Concludes the Year Five story rather quietly, resolving the Gary Seven story without killing Seven. The best part here is the Valentine story, which has a rather sweet and charming tale about another lost love of Kirk.

ComiXology Unlimited

#31 - Blade Runner: Origins, Vol. 3: Burning by K. Perkins, Mellow Brown, etc.

Props for the Easter egg that explains Rick Deckard’s attitude in the movie, but that doesn’t excuse the wildly chaotic story, which never gains coherence until the very end when it quickly deals with the origin of the Blade Runner Unit.

Hoopla

#32 - Generation X Epic Collection, Vol. 2: Emplate's Revenge by Scott Lobdell, Michael Golden, Chris Bachalo, others

Mostly saved by how fascinatingly goofy things get when Chris Bachalo is on art. The book starts with a really rough looking Annual that serves to bring Mondo to the team, and brings in Emma’s sister as a villain, only to send her off without doing much. Two key X-Men issues (41 and 49) are left out despite there being room, making Chamber’s story nearly incomprehensible for a bit. There’s a lot of inconsistencies throughout, and characters come and go (Emma has a staff of big, amusing brutes in the Canada arc, but we never see them before and after.) It’s entertaining reading, but when you dig below the goofy surface there’s not as much there as might be hoped — there’s more substance in “Everyday People”, Michael Golden’s story in Annual ‘96, than in Lobdell’s year of mainline stories. The revelation that M is autistic is intriguing…but goes absolutely nowhere.

Hoopla

#33 - Guardians of the Galaxy Epic Collection, Vol. 1: Earth Shall Overcome by Arnold Drake, Steve Gerber, Roger Stern, others

The original GOTG, during the decade between their first appearance and 1977. The team bounced around various titles, with a run in Marvel Presents that ended after nine issues. Created as a space war saga, it became more generic space opera for a bit, then metamorphosed into SF satire with Steve Gerber writing, finally lapsing back into generic space opera. This volume ends with a Thor annual that’s a sequel to a Defenders story and a prologue to Avengers: The Korvac Saga which sees th Avengers and the Guardians teaming up — a story for volume 2 of this line.

Hoopla

#34 - Hip Hop Family Tree, Vol. 1: 1970s-1981 by Ed Piskor

It’s a fascinating shot at a history of the tumultuous hip-hop scene, but it doesn’t quite work — partly because Piskor’s research sources are fairly constrained, if we go by the bibliography, and space issues means taking things at a frantic gallop, which leads to confusion when there’s an abrupt switch between people and timelines. The compression also leaves out something significant things and people — the Black Poets are ignored, as is Gil Scott-Heron, and deep roots (talking blues, dubplates, Jamaican toasting) while the interconnection of punk is passed by (though punk and new wave is nodded to), which means leaving out Bad Brains.

On the other hand, Piskor pays homage to Marvel Comics throughout, but does so through an underground comix filter. It’s goofy conceit but it serves to make what could be dry history a bit larger than life — like most of the people who were out front in this.

Hoopla.

#35 - Surely You Can't Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker and others

An oral history of Airplane! told by the guys who made it. I went with the audiobook, which is assembled from recordings of ZAZ and various associated people. It’s an enjoyable look at an iconic movie and all the rough times involved in getting it made.

Via Everand.

#36 - Ultimate Fantastic Four, Volume 4: Inhuman by Mike Carey, Mark Millar, etc

The Ultimate FF goes up against a new Mad Thinker and her Awesome Android, then the Inhumans show up to be dicks when Johnny Storm gets involved with Princess Crystal.

Not much to shout about, though the Ultimate version of Lockjaw is pretty nifty.

ComiXology Unlimited.

#37 - Thrilling Cities by Ian Fleming

Be aware: material very much of its time, though many of the observations still have weight. There’s some rather nice dry humour, and some of Fleming not taking himself too seriously. The book is in two parts, essentially — Fleming commissioned to fly around the world and write about the locations he sped through, and a follow-on where Fleming drives across Europe and writes about a selection of cities, some of them with considerable acidity (Berlin, for one, while he laments Germany as artistically barren following the Nazis, though even in 1960 Germany was beginning to rediscover its artistic side…plus Hamburg would be a training ground for the Beatles, for one.)

Well worth reading despite the occasional wince and cringe — sexism, faint racism, an air of mourning over Britain’s fading colonial history. It’s an interestingly different approach to the art of the travel article. I rather wish he’d lived to do more.

Kindle Unlimited

#38 - The Waste Land & Prufrock and Other Observations by T. S. Eliot

Bare bones edition, so it’s just reader vs poetry. “The Waste Land” is not for the faint-hearted, and teasing out its meanings is achieved only through multiple exposure. The second half is more accessible, certainly, and years after it introduced me to Eliot, “The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock” is as meaningful as ever, by turns charming, melancholy, and tragic.

Kindle Unlimited.

#39 - My Name Is Markham by Jodi Taylor

A Christmas tale involving the chaotic historians of St. Mary’s, a historical research society that uses time travel as a tool…usually with dramatically funny results. This story is from the point of view of security officer Markham, who’s drafted in to a trip to find out what the deal was with King Alfred and the burned cakes. The results are, as always, manic panic. Also includes pantomime reindeer, a children’s party, and gaseous emissions.

Audible Plus.

#40 - In the Empty Quarter by G. Willow Wilson

Set in 1952 in the Rub’ Al-Khalil desert, this rather compelling story not only deals with a clash of cultures involving a rather unlikeable American woman far out of her comfort zone, but, when her behaviour leads to her being trapped in a cave, facing myth in its supremely unpleasant form.

Very well done.

Kindle Unlimited

#41 - Justice League vs. The Legion of Super-Heroes by Brian Michael Bendis, et Al

As a long-time lover of the Legion, going all the way back to when they were a real bunch of dickheads (admittedly there’s several choices of period, but, hey, I go back all the way) Bendis’ handling of the Legion has been a disappointment. It’s not the reworking oof the setting, origin, and characters, it’s that Bendis never seems to know what the hell to do with the LOSH — something very obvious here, where he tries to rework Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga, Deluxe Edition in a smaller space and without Darkseid. Nothing hangs together, and there’s never an explanation for *anything* (some characters age, others grow younger, everybody reverts between panels.)

In the end it turns out to be Vandal Savage doing a Per Degaton thing and…well, it just ends. Literally, there’s the Big Reveal, then the combined teams show up with a “Ha ha, tricked you!” wile the cosmic threat evaporates.

Worse than that, none of it ends up meaning anything — as soon as Bendis was done, Geoff Johns did his own time anomalies bit In Flashpoint Beyond and DC launched into Dark Crisis, which rewrote the Great Darkness yet again.

Hoopla

#42 - 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.

#43 - A Cup of Christmas Tea/A Memory of Christmas Tea by Tom Hegg

For some reason I thought Tom Hegg was English...as it turns out, incorrect.

Anyway, this is a couple of sweet Christmas poems, and very effective they are too...I'm not a Christmas kind of fellow, but the first poem had me warming up, and wishing I had an elderly great aunt to sit with at Christmas (I'll be spending this Christmas alone as usual, this time with no expectation of a visit with a Christmas plate.)

Very well read, but lumbered with some rather clangy Chrstmas music.

Audible Plus

#44 - The Rise: A Short Story by Ian Rankin

A dead concierge leads to a spiraling case with an unexpected result. A fast, enjoyable read that, unusually, I read start to finish without getting distracted by a different book.

Kindle Unlimited

#45 - The Manifestations of Sherlock Holmes by James Lovegrove

A collection of Holmes stories of varying lengths, twelve in all, that run a somewhat narrow gamut -- there's the usual tales of detection, but there' also an entry in The Cthulhu Casebooks that sees Holes and Watson tangling with Lovecraft's monstrous creatures. Lovegrove, an expert Holmes pasticher, also blends Holmes and Watson with Jekyll and Hyde, and delivers a couple of retold tales from the point of view of side characters.

all in all a delightful, if imperfect, collection, read by Dennis Kleinman, who gives Watson a rather enjoyable James Mason kind of voice.

Audible Plus

#46 - A Rare Book of Cunning Device by Ben Aaronovitch

London Constable and trainee sorcerer Peter Grant iscalled in to the British library to investigate what appears to be a haunting as books and objects are being mysteriously moved. What he finds is a lot more than that....

Audible Plus

#47 - The October Man by Ben Aaronovitch

A spin-off from the Rivers Of London series, with German police officer and apprentice sorcerer Tobias Winter called to Trier, Germany to investigate some very nasty fungal phenomena. Pretty much a variant of Aaronovitch's Peter Grant, with more Teutonic inflexibility, and this serves as both an introduction to the European side of things and an introduction/refresher overall, so it can be bit long-winded.

Audible Plus.

#48 - Great Poems For Children by Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, others

Pretty much a bog standard collection of poems for children, enlivened by a murderer’s row of British performers reading them. Docked a point because of the abridgment of The Hunting of the Snark.

Audible Plus