Author: mountainwashere

Nothing to see, move along.

Weekly Pull Review 1/28/15

This is an absurdly good week for my comics. I mean, hell yes.

Sex Criminals #10- Image

Sex Criminals is, without a doubt, the single funniest goddamn thing in my pull. Especially the letters column. Oh my god the letters column. Yes. In all seriousness, though- this comic has amazingly developed characters. Jon and Suzie are way more sympathetic than… well, damn near any other comic book characters out there. Almost certainly the best comic book couple. Alana and Marko from Saga have them beat, maaaaayyyybeee? Hard to say. You can definitely feel Fraction’s style in here- comics he writes tend to have some of the highest panel per page counts out there. I mean, it’s not Hawkeye, with that one goddamned 27 panel page, but it’s still pretty crazy, with 10+ panel pages everywhere. That usually just ends up looking like shit, but it works out well here. That probably mostly speaks volumes about Chip Zdarsky (and David Aja on Hawkeye), but I’d still like to see some of Fraction’s scripts. Also, did I mention that this comic is goddamned hilarious? I don’t think I’ll be able to go into a Barnes and Noble without getting the temptation to yell “Vagina Doctor” ever again.

Bitch Planet #2- Image

It’s not even remotely surprising to find two Image titles headlining my pull review. At this point I think it should be obvious that I’m a raving Image fanboy. It should also not be surprising that the two comics headlining my list are by the power couple of comics these days, Kelly Sue Deconnick and Matt Fraction. I usually don’t really throw my weight fully behind a comic until at least issue 3, but this issue has completely locked in this comic for me. The art gives off an awesome pulp vibe that works great for the prison scenes. The scenes in the confession module are fantastic looking- definitely the most eyecatching scenes in the book, though the treadmill scene is pretty close behind it. I wasn’t expecting this book to take the prisoners form a sports team angle, but it could turn out pretty good- especially since we don’t know anything about Megaton yet, other than that it’s really, really violent.

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Weekly Reading List- 1/18/15-1/24/14

Thanks to one thing and another, I didn’t get many books read this week. Largely due to sleep deprivation, which makes me read really, really slow.

Firefight- Brandon Sanderson

YA, SF, Reread

I told you, I reread books a lot, especially Brandon Sanderson.

To be fair, I reread this one on my phone- which is what I read on in the bathroom, when waiting in line, etc. If I only have a minute or two, I’ll just read on here. I get a surprising amount of reading done this way, including, weirdly enough, most of the YA novels I read. My Kindle is still the format I do more of my reading on than any other device, but not by a ton- dead tree format is right behind it, with my phone in a distant, but by no means insignificant third. Audiobook comes in dead last. I listened to all of two audiobooks last year. Before that, it was something like 2010 since the last audiobook I’ve read, and before that? I couldn’t even tell you.

The Wanderer- Fritz Lieber

SF

I’ll have more on this one soon, I’m gearing up to reboot the Hugo Readthrough.

I meant to have the readthrough up and ready to go by now, but I’ve just not gotten much done and ready to go in the last week- I’ve been dealing with a major sleep shortage, which makes me move at about a quarter speed.

The Goblin Emperor- Kathleen Addison

Fantasy, Reread

The Goblin Emperor was one of my favorite fantasy novels from last year- it’s a breath of fresh air in the genre. There is very little violence, it doesn’t particularly leave itself open to a sequel- it’s pretty frankly excellent. 2014 was a really good year for fantasy, but it would not surprise me to see this one as a Hugo contender, even for the normally very science fiction dominated award.

Dune- Frank Herbert

SF, Reread

Man, what really needs to be said about this one? A lot, actually, but I’ll wait a couple weeks. Absolutely love this book, one of my all time favorites.

Weekly Pull Review 1/21/15

This is kind of an odd week for comics- there’s nothing in my pull that’s been there longer than a few issues this time around. Weird. It’s been a while since that’s happened.

Drifter #3– Image

Drifter’s consistently good art has held it in my pull so far- it’s not to say that the writing is bad, but the art has been the major pull thus far. The third issue is finally starting to pull some story threads together- mostly, though, it’s bringing more life into the town, its economy, and its residents. The issues thus far feel somewhat vignette-like, though they’re obviously part of an overarching story. Though the story is starting to improve, the art is still the primary draw. The mine scenes stand out especially well, with the worm-creature’s face being by far the standout visual in the issue.

Intersect #3- Image

Huh. This one wasn’t as weird as the past two issues. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty bizarre, but Ray Fawkes didn’t really whip out anything especially new this time around. Insane person merged into their environment- check. Disorienting, weird changes of locale? Check. I mean, it’s still good, and there is at least a pretty big surprise at the end. We do finally get to see Lucky, the monstrous dog creature who has been plaguing them in the background the whole time- and he’s kind of underwhelming, frankly. Intersect is still one of the most unusual, weird comics out there right now, though, so it definitely stays in. (more…)

Weekly Reading List: 1/11/15- 1/17/15

I know, I know, it’s late- but this weekend was my birthday weekend, so… yeah. 9 books isn’t a bad week at all, these days.

Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera, Book 1-6

Epic Fantasy, Reread

I’m not going to do an individual entry for each book in the series. Nope. Not happening. I’m way too tired for that. Anyhow, Furies of Calderon was my first introduction to Jim Butcher, well before I ever encountered the Dresden Files, and I honestly like the Codex Alera a lot more, which is really saying something, since I love me some Dresden Files. At six books, it’s much more manageable of a read than the Wheel of Time, or even A Song of Ice and Fire. (Which, although it has fewer books, has much, much longer individual entries. The Codex Alera books cap out around 700 pages.) Roman themed fantasy, while it definitely exists, is much, much rarer than “medieval European” themed fantasy, which is unfortunately dominant in the world of fantasy fiction today. About once a year, I get a hankering to reread the entire series. It happened pretty early this time around.

Adam Roberts’ Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea

Science Fiction

Oh, hey look, I did a review.

Clifford Simak’s Way Station

Science Fiction

Hey, look, a Hugo winner. Hmm. Maybe I’m reading Hugo winners for a reason, like I’m actually restarting my readthrough. (Yep.) Anyhow, more on this one later.

Brandon Sanderson’s The Alloy of Law

Fantasy, Reread

Brandon Sanderson probably gets more rereads from me than any other author. I don’t know if that necessarily makes him my favorite author, but it definitely says something good about him. The Alloy of Law is a followup to Sanderson’s bestselling Mistborn trilogy, but is set centuries later, in Scadrial’s equivalent of the Wild West. Magic-filled gunfights, hurrah! The seqeul and third book are coming out around the end of this year, so that’s something fun to look forwards to.

Book Review: Adam Roberts’ Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea

This book is insane, and I mean that in the absolute best possible way. The only way I can describe it is as the lovechild of Jules Verne (to whom the book is very much a tribute), Edwin Abbot, and Albert Camus. The book follows the French nuclear submarine Plongeur on its shakedown voyage in 1958. When catastrophe strikes, the skeleton crew prepares for death as the ship plummets downwards towards the seafloor. And keeps plummeting, and plummeting, and plummeting, until they realize that they’ve traveled far beyond the depth of the Earth’s core, then past the other side of the Earth, then even farther, and yet pressure stays manageable, even survivable to a naked human. The crew confronts leviathans, underwater suns, terrifying piranha children (childranha), and each other, as they descend into madness, religious madness, and violence.

The characters in this one aren’t especially likeable, with one or two exceptions, but they are nonetheless compelling- there is a reason I compared this book to Albert Camus. As the end draws closer and closer, the book grows steadily madder and more bizarre, with more and more unanswered questions rearing their heads. When you finally start to get more answers, well… it just brings up even more questions. I’m not going to spoil the ending, but there is definitely a very, very good reason I brought up Edwin Abbot.

The internal illustrations by Mehendra Singh are absolutely perfect for this book- the faux-woodcut appearance is immediately evocative of Jules Verne, Sherlock Holmes, H.G. Wells- it immediately screams 1800’s adventure novel. They’re absolutely perfect for the book.

Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea is a slim volume, but definitely one worth the read. It’s the kind of bizarre, trippy weirdness that has been so long absent from science fiction. I just wish I’d noticed this one when it came out last year, instead of just now discovering it.