Main Menu

Whats everyone reading?

Started by Paul faplad Finch, 30 March, 2009, 10:04:36 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Mardroid

Quote from: positronic on 07 May, 2017, 03:01:13 AM
Well, I've not read The Final Solution yet, but I presumed that Precious had appeared in that as well as The Life & Death of Johnny Alpha. Is that not the case?

No, she's not in the Final Solution. She only appears in the more recent published stories set before and after The Final Solution. She is a John Wagner/Carlos Ezquerra character. (Saying this as The Final Solution was written by Alan Grant.)

Rara Avis

Just finished the Wonder Woman Rebirth Vol 1 & 2. It's actually pretty good, I really enjoyed it.

Also read X-Men Gold 1,2 & 3. Lot of change for the old X-Men.

And I'm trying to read Blood Meridian - I started before and gave up.

positronic

Quote from: Mardroid on 09 May, 2017, 05:15:44 PM
Quote from: positronic on 07 May, 2017, 03:01:13 AM
Well, I've not read The Final Solution yet, but I presumed that Precious had appeared in that as well as The Life & Death of Johnny Alpha. Is that not the case?

No, she's not in the Final Solution. She only appears in the more recent published stories set before and after The Final Solution. She is a John Wagner/Carlos Ezquerra character. (Saying this as The Final Solution was written by Alan Grant.)

Thanks Mardroid. I guess I must have inferred something about Precious having a key role in L&DoJA meaning that she'd been present at the time when he was killed (although the flashback stories obviously reveal that she'd met JA by then).

Mardroid

Church of Marvels by Leslie Parry.

It's a novel set in the late 19th century, following several different people, who are linked somehow.

It's an interesting read so far.

On the comics front*, I've only been consuming* 2000AD and The Meg at the moment. Not a bad thing, as they're both in quite a good place, but I'm open to something else as well.

*I guess I'm mixing my  metaphors there.

Supreme Pizza Of The DPRK

Will Eisner - A Contract With God

Still trying to work out my feelings on this one. It makes you think, that's for sure. It feels like one of those things you only need to experience once, like Requiem For A Dream. I don't know if the cartoon look of the artwork gives rape more or less of an impact. Shouldn't have been in with the kids books in the library anyway.

Bolt-01

I'm about to sit and re-read issues 01-05 of Rok of the reds because look what little beauty just arrived courtesy of the postal droid.



And as well as John and Dan, this one is signed by Alan Grant as well. TPO for sure.

Thanks guys.

Supreme Pizza Of The DPRK

Finally found a physical copy of The Time Machine Did It by John Swartzwelder

Being a Simpsons fan of the 'golden age' I'm having a blast reading this. If you are looking for a comedic detective story featuring a time machine and penned by a writer from the simpsons, look no further.

positronic

#6127
Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey's COMIC BOOK HISTORY OF COMICS #1-6 (previously published in black & white by Evil Twin Comics from 2008-2011, now in color from IDW). I need to find the old copies of these (under its original title, COMIC BOOK COMICS), because I think this has been heavily reworked (other than adding color and a short 1-2 page backup feature, "The Comic Book HERstory of Comics") from its original version. They seem to have left out the original issue COMIC BOOK COMICS #4, which covered a lot of lawsuits down through time, from Fawcett vs. DC to Siegel & Shuster vs DC, to Steve Gerber, Jack Kirby and others vs. Marvel. But there's still six issues, so I'll have to see what else was changed. Oddly the sixth issue ends with the rise of the underground comix in 1966-1974. Certainly seems to leave things open for a sequel or two!

Professor Bear

Finally read my first Stephen King book, and typically managed to fuck this simple task up by reading a Richard Bachman effort - but it's King's fault, because he said The Long Walk was the first novel he ever wrote, he just didn't publish it until years after he was established as an author.
Despite this being mine and his first go-round, I do actually recognise what I think are traditional King elements, like references to Maine and a certain grouping of character archetypes that comprise the main cast, but the future sport TO THE DEATH premise also turns up in The Running Man (another Bachman effort).
This is actually a pretty good YA novel, except there's no female protagonist having to choose between two hot dudes despite being both plain in the looks department yet also stunningly beautiful, but to make up for that, there's some kids shitting themselves to death.  There's a rather lazy central conceit in almost all "fight to the death dystopia" stories wherein the protagonists are forced into the competition and so retain a moral character because the killings they commit aren't their own choice, but King doesn't bother with namby-pamby shit like that, he makes his cast choose to be where they are: a marathon across an alternate-history America in which the contestants walk under armed guard until they drop, at which point they get a bullet in the head and the winner gets unspecified rewards for being the last to die.  The rules are pretty straightforward (walk below 4mph and get a warning, three warnings and you get a bullet), leaving King to keep things ticking over between the characters without getting bogged down in world-building (I can see inattentive readers not even noticing this is alt-historical and just assuming it's set in the future or something), and the cast share life stories and drop off the perch with an efficiency that has been retrospectively rendered almost satirical by years of YA novels drawing out the same few tropes that King gets through pretty quickly before moving onto other things, such as the largely-unseen antagonist (known simply as "The Major") being omnipresent without being a panto villain, and a couple of conceits that even YA novels of the 21st century struggle with, such as the sexual ambiguity of the relationship between several male characters being rendered far more thoughtfully than the socialist feminizis of YA slashfic would ever manage - by which I mean it is an awkward tension that young males are portrayed as being emotionally unequipped to navigate, whereas typically in YA, the writer just has them gay up, or one of the characters is frightened of gaying up so he becomes evil and tries to kill women because he's angry at his own secret gayness.  YA novels are kind of strange.
The reader app I use doesn't tell you how many pages are left, only how many you've read, so the ending felt a bit out of nowhere, but I did enjoy it and can safely say it's the best Stephen King novel I've ever read.

The Adventurer

#6129
I like Stephen King when he's doing sci-fi / post-apoc. My first King novel was The Stand (When I was 13, let it never be said I do things in half measures) and that lead me to books like The Talisman, The Mist, and of course The Dark Tower. King has a way of weaving interesting fantasy elements even in his suspense horror outings, which I can appreciate. Though I've had less luck enjoying stuff like Insomnia.

My advice? Try The Stand, it's a lovely book of super viruses and biblical apocalypse.

THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

positronic

I don't know about the Richard Bachman book The Running Man, but I always thought that the movie version fit perfectly with the sensibilities of a 2000 AD strip. Maybe 2000 AD should have adapted the book (unless it's nothing like the movie) the same way they did with Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat. Speaking of, did 2000 AD ever do any other adaptations of existing science fiction stories besides SSR?

Professor Bear

Quote from: positronic on 15 May, 2017, 08:22:46 AM
I don't know about the Richard Bachman book The Running Man, but I always thought that the movie version fit perfectly with the sensibilities of a 2000 AD strip. Maybe 2000 AD should have adapted the book (unless it's nothing like the movie)

I already know part of the ending to the book because it came up in a discussion, and I understand the hero [spoiler]kills the cabal of capitalists who run America by flying a jet plane into the skyscraper they're in.[/spoiler]  Anyone who wants to adapt that, I wish them all the very best.

positronic

That is hilarious, Professor!  :lol:

JOE SOAP

Quote from: positronic on 15 May, 2017, 08:22:46 AM
I don't know about the Richard Bachman book The Running Man, but I always thought that the movie version fit perfectly with the sensibilities of a 2000 AD strip.

The Running Man and its execution of the death by game-show idea is predated by the much better, more prescient 1970 German film Das Millionenspiel / The Millions Game, adapted from the 1958 story The Prize of Peril by Robert Sheckley. It was adapted again in 1983 as Le Prix du Danger in France. Das Millionenspiel also predates RoboCop by intercutting action with ad breaks and vox pops.




TordelBack

#6134
I never knew that, cheers Joe! Sheckley is a criminally underrated SF writer (and Alisa Kwitney's father), one of the very best of the '50s and '60s, and while for my money the quality dropped off in the '70s and '80s there are still some gems in his huge catalogue.  I'm fascinated to see him at the root of this.