Whats everyone reading?

[Link Prime]

Just read trades 2, 3+4 of Locke & Key. I was stunned by the quality of the writing and the ideas within the comic. In fact, it's my new favourite series (along with Sweet Tooth)

Glad to hear a fellow Earthlet is digging L&K, Ghastly...I got the penultimate issue of book 5 yesterday, I'm happy to report the quality doesn't dip for a second.
If you havent read Hill's books I'd recommend em too- speaking of which...what I'm currently reading is Joe Hills '20th Century Ghosts', great anthology, and the inaugural story 'Best New Horror' has to be one of the best metatextual pieces Ive had the pleasure of reading.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein.

Well we all know that a lot of people find it's quasi Militaristic Society offensive but it's not really it's theme that's bothering me.

The idea that only those who have defended the group with their most precious possession i:e their lives can be trusted with power is an interesting one.

I think it's just too elitists these days to believe such an idea and obviously rule by the Military isn't exactly a barrel of laughs as lot's of unhappy Histories around the world demonstrate all to clearly.

It is also a bit boring I'm sorry to say. Long winded descriptions of Mobile Infantry Regimental Doctrines are not that interesting. The Bugs are described as Red Spider like horrors with futuristic weaponry which sounds great. That's it. A few references to how burning off a limb won't slow 'em down but not a lot of details about the actual battles that take place! Heinlen seems to skim over these.   

Haven't got to the end yet so hopefully Planet P will offer some Warhammer type blood letting.

[radiator]

It doesn't, from what I recall. There is a battle of sorts but it's rather dull, much like the rest of the book.

For future war fiction I much preferred The Forever War. That actually has a story and characters.

[von Boom]

Starship Troopers and The Forever War are two sides of the same coin. I enjoyed both, but The Forever War has the benefit of being written after Starship Troopers.

JvB

[Ghastly McNasty]

I got Starship Troopers lined up and ready to take on me hols with me next month. Will grab a copy of 20th Centrury Ghosts and will be taking a collection of Lovecraft short stories too. Awesome.

[SmallBlueThing]

Ive been looking for a reasonably priced copy of 'starship troopers' for ages. I read heinlein's 'to sail beyond the sunset' last year, and loved it. And the movie version of st is a personal favourite. However, i really didnt get on with 'stranger in a strange land', so its slipped down my list a wee bit.

SBT

[the 'artist' formerly known as Slips]

I've just finished my Dune Reread (about the 12 time) and loved it again.  It is amazing how you can go back and see different things in books at different times in your life.  The one thing Ive never noticed, as a negative is the damp ending, its all very rushed I think. 

Ive started reading the Magic of Reality by Dawkins

Its a cracking read and his explanation of genetic drift and ancestors is worth the price of it alone.  The art is wonderful as well.

[Trout]

I've never participated in this massive thread, mainly because I fell out of love with reading.

Then my wife bought me a Kindle. What a marvellous thing it is. I've been steaming through all sorts of books.

Currently I'm reading The Hashish Man and Other Tales by Lord Dunsany. It's all sorts of creepy short stories set in the upper strata of English society at the turn of the 20th century. I'm enjoying it a lot, especially The Exiles Club.

- Trout

[Dark Jimbo]

Nearly three months into the year, here's a brief summary of everything I've read since Christmas:

My Flashman re-read (chronological order) has reached the end of Flashman and the Dragon - a great precis of the Teiping Rebellion and the British Army's march to (and subsequent destruction of) the Forbidden City, which previously I knew very little of. Harry's his usual caddish self and there's plenty of bedroom hijinks - the only sour note comes from the fact that I now only have two and a half Flashman books left!

Following up a read of King Solomon's Mines and Allan Quatermain a few years ago, I've started reading through the rest of H Rider Haggard's Quatermain books, in the order he wrote them. To be quite honest, the first novella - Allan's Wife - was a bit of a dissapointment. The first half of the narrative feels aimless and unfocused; events happen without much emotional engagement from either the hero or the reader, and the early years of the hero's life are dismissed within the first chapter. It feels like Haggard on auto-pilot, to be honest. It picks up when he meets his wife-to-be in the obligatory 'lost' land, and the villian of the piece - a feral woman raised by baboons - is a cracker. Fortunately the follow-up, Marie, is much better. It's the sort of exploration of young Allan's life that I was expecting from its predecessor, with its evocative description of growing up in early 19th-century South Africa - his first meeting with the zulu tribes, his mastery of guns and rifles, and plenty of tension between the British and Boers. Proper Boy's Own stuff, in the classic mold.

Comics-wise I'm two books into the three-book Mazeworld collection - stunning stuff from Arthur Ranson - and I've embarked on a read-through of Promethea. I'd read the first two TPBs before now and then let it lapse for some reason; since then I've invested in the Absolute editions and started a re-read from the beginning. Still astounded at just how much is going on in this series - sub-plot upon sub-plot, and the art's a masterclass in graphic storytelling. I've also not long finished a complete re-read of the Caballistics saga, courtesy of Tharg's January sale, which has me in love with the series all over again and already jonesying for the next Absalom series.

Also read since Crimbo - finished my re-read of A Song of Ice and Fire series with Storm of Swords (but I doubt anyone on the board needs me to tell them how good that is); the Alan Partridge biography; and my ongoing Aubrey-Maturin read reached The Mauritius Command, which didn't quite hit the heights of the preceeding HMS Surprise but was a cracking read nonthless. My heart is breaking for Stephen Maturin - laudanum's never the answer, chap!

[TordelBack]

My heart is breaking for Stephen Maturin - laudanum's never the answer, chap!

Just wait 'til he discovers cocaine in about 10 books' time!

[HOO-HAA]

Couple of reviews for y'all...

25th Anniversary Edition of THE LIGHT AT THE END by John Skipp & Craig Spector.

The gist: 'To be honest, I can't recommend this book enough. It's got everything I love in a horror story: thrills, chills, great characters, loads of gore and a well layered plot... Simply put, I loved it.'

And here's the whole thing:

http://waynesimmons.org/blog/?p=1121


Aaaand...

AUTUMN AFTERMATH by David Moody.

The gist: 'The Autumn series is as realistic an account of the zombie apocalypse as you're going to find. Aftermath is an emotional book: a fitting end to a traumatic story about the human condition. Fans of the series will feel satisfied, if not a little sad at waving goodbye to those characters they've spent time getting to know. And with a beautifully emotive afterword from the author himself, you know that David Moody is right there with them.'

And here's the whole thing for that one:

http://waynesimmons.org/blog/?p=1115

Hope they're of some use

[Gonk]

Events are darkening considerably in "Gormenghast", the second installment of Mervyn Peake's fantastic epic. There is a sinister number of events occuring within the walls of Gormenghast which start to menace the fabric of it's existence. The world of Gormenghast is being undone by a poisonous thing that has been nurtured within it's ancient stones and towers. Change, that most deadly apostasy, is reaching for Gormenghast's decrepit soul with batlike wings of violence and murder in the figure of the deformed Steerpike. 

                                             

[Mardroid]

Then my wife bought me a Kindle. What a marvellous thing it is. I've been steaming through all sorts of books.

I recently bought a Kobo Touch. I opted for it over a Kindle as it's cheaper even with the touch-screen (at least it is if you get it from W H Smiths). And apparently you can access other stores like the Kindle too with the Kindle app. (I think Kindle force you to just get stuff from Amazon... although granted I tend to get most of my stuff from there anyway.)

Trouble is... while it is definitely a nice gadget, there does seem to be some issues with touch-sensitivity.
I wonder if this is common for this device. I get the impression it's a software issue (all uptodate by the way. It did that with the first sych)  rather than the hardware. I used the internet browser the other day and it worked rather well.

I'm thinking of sending it back. Rather than getting a Touch edition as replacement and risking the same issues, I think I might opt for the regular Kobo. I love the idea of touching things directly on screen but I can live without it and can imagine less going wrong with regular controls.

I downloaded Metamorphosis free from the Kobo store. I understood it was a classic, and while it's an interesting premise, with the whole 'guy wakes up to find he has inexplicably turned into a giant beetle' idea, I found it a bit disappointing.  The writing style is a bit odd, but I think it might have been written in a different language originally so this might be a translation issue. The story itself was a page turner... but it seemed a bit of a lost opportunity. So much more could have been done with the story. Kudos for the [spoiler]downbeat, or is it?[/spoiler] ending though!

I also recently got my latest issues of the Marvel Ultimates collection too. I actually quite enjoyed my reread of The Ultimates. I realise my disappointment concerning certain aspects of the story coloured my memory of the rest. I left the story feeling Millar has a tendency to go to a nasty place just for the sake of it, ([spoiler]I'm thinking of the fight between Giant Man and The Wasp[/spoiler])  but it was an interesting read. Even the nasty bits. Captain America isn't a particularly favourite superhero of mine (and I'm not sure what the big deal is with the Supersoldier Serum as it seems every other superhero is more powerful) but Millar's version is interesting, and the part when he reunited (or not) with old friends was actually very touching. Credit to Millar he can do that stuff too. He's not just about the controversy. (I'm not keen on the selfish Bruce Banner though, although I get the characters motivations somewhat.)

I'm reading The Birth of Venom right now and enjoying it a lot, although I'm not keen on the over captioning and excessive thought bubbles. A tad corny but good stories.*

Oh, and I picked up Clint** #10 recently. (Seems the Titan site hasn't long sorted out their back-issues ordering system. Pretty recently they only seemed to deliver to the US for some reason.) Not bad so far,  but dear me did Kick Ass go to a nasty place this issue! Shall I continue with this? Not sure. I don't dislike it like many on this board, but the violence in this issue was actually a bit off-putting. Ironic for a 2000 AD reader to say, I know. It's far out enough to be kinda amusing though. (How many crushed skulls with popping eye-balls were in Officer Downe?) I'd like to see the rest of Kick-Ass2 and Who is Jake Ellis is an intriguing story that wouldn't be out of place in 2000 AD.

*Plural intended as it's a series of stories featuring the Venom arc.

** I refuse to type the letters the way they do it. The name in itself isn't bad for a lad's comic but the sweary joke is cheap and (overused but relevant word here) nasty.

[Greg M.]

Have just read the graphic novel My Friend Dahmer, in which author / artist Derf Backderf recounts the true story of his 1970s teenage years as a contemporary  of the infamous Jeffrey Dahmer. I'm not sure if 'enjoy' is the right word for a comic that sees Dahmer collecting and dissecting dead animals, becoming a teenage alcoholic and making plans to bludgeon a local jogger so as to render him helpless to Dahmer's advances, but it's a remarkable piece of work. Despite its focus on Dahmer slowly, pitifully and inexorably drifting towards his horrific destiny, the book rather surprisingly has a few humorous moments - Dahmer was a cult figure / freak-mascot among some of the local teens, and his unsettling 'spaz' impersonations, as the author puts it, end up part of their vocabulary. The most impressive thing about the book is that although you read it knowing how things eventually turn out for Dahmer,  when the moment of no return finally arrives towards the end of the book, it still feels utterly shocking - part of you hopes that Dahmer somehow won't cross the line, even though you know he does. Haunting stuff.

[Daveycandlish]

Following up a read of King Solomon's Mines and Allan Quatermain a few years ago, I've started reading through the rest of H Rider Haggard's Quatermain books, in the order he wrote them

I always thought Rider Haggards books were ripe for comic strip adaptation - imagine Frank Bellamy illustrating these, they'd be fantastic - and did consider it for my small press comic. Then Alan Moore did LXG and it fell by the wayside...

I've just bought the third book of cinebooks Chimpanzee Complex, so that's me sorted for the evening