Whats everyone reading?

[Albion]

The adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
I haven't read any Holmes in years and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

[klute]

Currently reading The Shining by Stephen King, My booky Wook by Russell Brand and Rogue trooper tales of nu-earth v1

[Keef Monkey]

Finished Extra Lives, pretty good read. Doesn't quite achieve what it set out to do though, initially the point seems to be to justify gaming to the uninitiated (and it goes into great detail explaining things the average gamer will already know)but eventually turns into more of a self-analysis of why he plays games and what they mean to him and the positive and negative effects they have on his life and career. From that perspective, as a gamer its a really good read.

Onto Anno Mortis now...

[SmallBlueThing]

Mr Stink, by David Walliams (bedtime book for the kids). Not bad, but a little too self conciously trying to be 'the new roald dahl'.

Action: The story of a Violent Comic, by Martin Barker. You know what this is, and how splendid.

Curse of the Full Moon, various, werewolf anthology that appears at first glance to be rammed with quality authors, but might (might, i say) just be too far up its own hairy arse to deliver proper thrills.

SBT

[SmallBlueThing]

Tomes of the Dead: Stronghold, by Paul Finch. Which is also the name of the OP of this thread. Are they, by chance, related?
Will be starting this tonight.
SBT

[Mardroid]

I just started 'Wicked - The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.'

I was curious considering the fact the play is so highly acclaimed. I didn't even know it was based on a novel. What's more there are two sequels!

So far I've just read the prologue, but from the reviews I've read* it sounds like an interesting idea. The gossip at the start between the members of Dorothy's party already shows a quite amusing adult leaning.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever read the original Wizard of Oz novel either, although I know the story fairly well from the film.

I also recently read Fiends of the Eastern Front. I found the start a bit repetitive, i.e: [spoiler]set up dangerous situation for Germans and their 'Rumanian' allies. Cue Rumanians easily deal with enemy in a strange horrific way arousing suspicion (and later confirmation) of our protagonist.[/spoiler] Repeat as required. Also the style of storytelling with the captions and thought bubbles** describing to you what you can drokking well see in the panel irritated me a bit, but I'm aware that's quite a commons style for comics of that time-period. I particularly remember a scene when the main character is thinking that two vampires are approaching. In a panel where you can see him looking at two bats approaching. (Sigh.)

However, I actually found it quite exciting later. [spoiler]I guessed the twist where the Rumanians switched sides, but it was still great when it happened. And the main character and his accomplice preparing and taking the fight back to them was brilliant.[/spoiler]

I noticed continuity issues though, although they're perhaps easy enough to explain.

[spoiler]1. The soldiers fired silver bullets from a machine gun. Later on the main protagonist mentions there are two bullet remaining... in his pistol.

Explanation: We never see him shoot the pistol, but I suppose that might have happened off panel. Or maybe he only made two pistol bullets?

2. The demasking moment. It was very cool, except it was established a couple of times that sunlight hurts these vampires. And they met at the start of the comic in the day.

Explanation: It seems these vampires can come out during the day as long as they are protected from the sun as shown earlier in the story when they're inside a building. Maybe the mask was enough to protect the vampire.

3. Fire kills vampires. I wasn't convinced with the 'I can grow from a speck, even ashes' moment.

Explanation: Maybe the vampire shrunk himself before the flames finished their work.[/spoiler]

Overall it was decent read though. I would love to have seen a version written in the present day method of comics writing though. (Just my taste. I've probably gotten used to the new progs, although even as a kid I wasn't over keen on that more exposition type style. I didn't read 2000 AD then but I saw it in a lot of other comics.


Another recent read was an Avengers GN. (I forget the name off-hand but it's the one where a new bunch of Avengers are set up. And Iron-man get's turned into a rather well endowed woman called Ultron.) Not too bad, but there was a bit at the end that annoyed me.

[spoiler]After finding his wife dead, (cue going crazy. Actually this is the third book I've read where this guy goes crazy. What's with him?)  the Sentry returns to his penthouse to find her alive. And no explanation whatsoever is given. I imagine it will happen in future issues, but as this is a library book (i.e. I'm not really following the series) it was rather annoying.[/spoiler]



*A couple of Amazon reviews actually spoilt the ending. [spoiler]Not exactly a surprise considering the outcome of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but still, it's not as if other things aren't different!(Part of the point of the book.)[/spoiler] I don't mind spoilerific reviews in the right place, but I'm pretty sure a seller isn't the right place. Some people are so annoying.


** I actually don't mind thought bubbles used sparingly, although I usually prefer comics without them. I understand Alan Moore's argument that comics shouldn't require them due to their visual and therefore more cinematic expression, but they are partly text too. We see thoughts in prose novels and there are voice-overs in films sometimes (although those would probably be translated more to caption boxes). A recent Bendis Avengers GN I read used thought bubbles in an interesting way that worked.... although he did overdo it sometimes.

[TordelBack]

[spoiler]After finding his wife dead, (cue going crazy. Actually this is the third book I've read where this guy goes crazy. What's with him?)  the Sentry returns to his penthouse to find her alive. And no explanation whatsoever is given. I imagine it will happen in future issues, but as this is a library book (i.e. I'm not really following the series) it was rather annoying.[/spoiler]

The Sentry may just be the most annoying character Marvel have ever come up with.  He originated in Marvel Knights as a hoax-character created by script droid Paul Jenkins, who pretended (along with Stan Lee, I think), that the character had been created in the Silver Age, even though this was about 1990, and gave him a fake publication history and in-universe history.   This was pretty clever stuff, and in line with the sort of retro-thing Moore was doing with Supreme and 1964.

Somewhere along the line this stopped being a joke and it was revealed  that the Sentry had made everyone in-universe forget he existed after he went all Jekyl and Hyde as 'the Void'.  Since then it has been impossible for the casual observer (me) to keep track of his supposed history and nature - is he real, is h an alien/human, is he the Void, is he amnesiac/delusional, is his wife real/alive/dead, etc. etc.  It seems to change every time he appears, presumably becasue writers and editors can't keep it straight either, and worse he seems to become more important to events (e.g. Siege) and still has an appallingly naff costume.

It's a classic case of Poochy syndrome: someone has decided we should care about this character, but we don't.

[Paul faplad Finch]

Tomes of the Dead: Stronghold, by Paul Finch. Which is also the name of the OP of this thread. Are they, by chance, related?

In a word - No. While I have been known to scribble a few words from time to time I am not published. Trust me, in the extremely unlikely event that anything I write ever ends up on the shelf you won't need to ask. I'll not have been shy with the preening/pimping.

[zombemybabynow]

Current supergirl arc is pretty good


And the boys highland hughie #1 was really good

[Paul faplad Finch]

Tomes of the Dead: Stronghold, by Paul Finch. Which is also the name of the OP of this thread. Are they, by chance, related?

In a word - No. While I have been known to scribble a few words from time to time I am not published. Trust me, in the extremely unlikely event that anything I write ever ends up on the shelf you won't need to ask. I'll not have been shy with the preening/pimping.

Or alternatively (and this only applies if the book turns out to be good), I can neither confirm nor deny *nudge* *wink*

[SmallBlueThing]

Frankly, im glad its not you- since i may conceivably meet you at a hi ex or dreddcon one day, and the book's front cover informs me that this Paul Finch has 'cold hands' and 'knos where im most vulnerable'!
SBT

[Sepp Salerno]

Re-reading all they Kevin O'Neill's Nemesis stuff (books 1&2) for the sake of it, then I'm onto Hole by Charles Burns

[chris_askham]

Just finished Iain Banks' The Crow Road, and about to start The Business. I'm new to Banks and wasn't completely satisfied by The Crow Road, but there was enough good in it for me to try one of his other titles.

Banks fanatic here.
I love The Crow Road- even though it is essentially a number of people having nothinbg happen to them for a few hundred pages!
The Business is one of his weaker efforts, but has its moments.
Have you tried any of the Iain M stuff yet?

Got Excession, Inversions, and Against a Dark Background on the shelf but haven't started them yet. Worth a read?

I agree with you about Crow Road, Rich, and I loved all the bits that were just about folk chatting and getting on with lives, but found the tiny piece of plot a bit shoe-horned in.

[Richmond Clements]

Got Excession, Inversions, and Against a Dark Background on the shelf but haven't started them yet.

Yes, yes and yes.
Of the three, Inversions is probably my favourite.
Excession is great, but you'd be better reading Consider Phlebas first, as it's a kind-of-but-not-quite sequel to that one.
AaDB is brilliant stuff, although not a Culture novel.
For my money though, Use of Weapons is the best of the lot, and one of my favourite books ever.

[Roger Godpleton]

Has anyone read The Slap?