Whats everyone reading?

[Buttonman]

'I, Partridge' by Alan Partridge.

Really enjoyed it - great to see Alan's behind the scene remenises about 'The Day Today' and various other humiliations. Laughed out loud at his telling of the day when he was upgrated to a Burton's gold card even though he hadn't spent the required £500. This was when he knew he's made it.

[SmallBlueThing]

Still ploughing through kim stanley robinson's 'red mars', which responds well to very close reading, and so is taking me forever. While doing that, ive taken a break for a few days to read 'the walking dead: rise of the governor'.

Went into it not expecting much- i love the series as a comic, enjoyed the tv vesion but feel no great desire to hurridly watch season 2, and was expecting this to a quick tv-friendly tie-in. It's not.

What it is, is one of the best zombie novels ive ever read.

If you're a fan of the comics, you know who the governor was, and how his shadow falls over the book to this day. This tells his origin story- which, in the world i inhabited before finishing the novel, i felt would be massively unnecessary and irrelevent. In the world i inhabit now however, id happy to urge people to read this with all the fervor or a lay-preacher.

So, that done, im back to mars now- pausing briefly to tug out a couple of stories from solaris books' 'end of the line' anthology- there's a nice, lovecraftian antarctic tale by gary mcmahon that id urge you to read, and our good old mr jasper bark acquits himself very well with a very twilight zoney piece. I look forward to going through the rest over the next week or so.

Oh, and also dynamite entertainment's trade collection of their six issue 'freddy vs jason vs ash', an adaptation of what would have been the cinema follow up to 'freddy vs jason'- but which im very glad wasnt, because it's a confused, rambling mess that's built around a series of escapes from certain death, sees ash played as the middleaged butt of teenagers' jokes, and freddy once more in full-on bob monkhouse mode. The central plot line, of people trying to grab the necronomicon is baffling and confusing and ultimately disappointing. It plays up the weaknesses of all three franchises and absolutely none of their strengths. Dismal.

SBT

[Professor Bear]

Glad you enjoyed the books, Prof!

I did indeed.

There are a lot of 'new universes' of comic book characters in various media these last few years that seem to originate with the notion of "what if superheroes existed in real life?" rather than "what if I could mine the possibilities of a genre that straddles sci-fi, magic and soap opera?" and sooner or later these tales - with the exception of Love And Capes - devolve into bloody fights or murder conspiracies and you wonder if it's actually possible for writers to do a superhero story about original characters that isn't a poor man's Watchmen.  I think that is when you need to find New Heroes, which is rich with ideas and a hoot to read.

Or, I dunno, maybe you could just read those countless Watchmen knock-offs like that one I read recently with the supervillain who chops off a superheroine's head and then drives around with it in a duffel bag occasionally having sex with it because this is the kind of portfolio piece that gets you a writing gig on a Marvel teen book these days.



Run Silent, Run Deep - a bit heavy on the technical side of running a submarine, but the human stuff is blunt and to the point and smacks of a realism of what men are like in close quarters and high stress environments.  It's a pretty good war adventure yarn with some likable characters that get you through the long-winded battle sequences, and though I didn't realise it until until quite late, devoid of the class system politics that inform a lot of British war fiction, which makes a nice change.

[The Doctor Alt 8]

The Pano script for Alladin (Yes it's THAT time of year folks) It's not that good because our group insists on writting it's own material to avoid paying performance rights... but they really ought to watch a few pantos first to see how it's done right... (And as usual there are too many bloody songs and I can't sing) but we do raise money for charity.

[Ignatzmonster]

The Zebra-Striped Hearse by Ross MacDonald: I'm more into crime novels about criminals than detectives but I do now and then like a Lew Archer book. The difference between him and other detectives is the sense of mercy he has. He feels bad that he has to dig up the shameful secrets his clients would rather hide, but once he starts digging he's compelled to continue. He feels to me like a curse someone accidently called down.

Winter's Bone by Woodrell: I put off reading this for a year, because I was so moved by the movie that I was afraid it would take over the images in my head while I read. The year didn't help. Still saw the actors play all the roles while I read. Still a great read though. There was some fleshing out of characters and scenes so I think it's time well spent.

Butcher's Moon by Richard Stark: It's follow up to Slayground, and perhaps the best of the Parker novels I've read. If you've checked out Cooke's Parker you owe it to yourself to check out the original novels. Parker is a unique character in crime fiction. Neither a psychopath nor a hero, he's a thief that when the job is on that is all he sees or deals with, and God forbid you interfer with the job or take the cash which in his mind he rightfully stole.

[Eric Plumrose]

TOM STRONG Book Two.

Wow. What happened? The first collection was a homage of fun with some nifty artist breaks. Book Two is this wretched pastiche that's only slightly more readable than Moore's run on WildCATs.

Bah!

[TordelBack]

Habibi, by Craig Thomson.  On reflection I was a bit underwhlemed by Blankets, which while capturing first-love rather beautifully, didn't half drift along through endless pointless pages doing it.  This, on the other hand, is something else - a truly beautiful absolutely huge production, which I can't believe I'm only half way through.  Set in a timeless apocalyptical middle east, mixing mysticism, the Torah, the Qur'an, Burton's version of the 1001 Nights, Paul Pope's THB, magical realism... I don't know where to stop, and nor does it.  Thank you county library!

A Storm of Swords, by George Martin, I think this (both parts) is one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read.  Even weighing in at something like 1200 pages, and the third part of a series, I don't think there's an inch of flab on this story - every single chapter delivers on characterisation, action and twisty, turny, insanely gripping plot.  How there can be so many dramatic reversals, rug-pulls and revelations in one book, and yet each one still be satisfying, is beyond me.  As schlocky pseudo-medieval melodramatic silliness goes, this is the undisputed King on the Iron Throne.  Outstanding.

Death of Kings, by Bernard Cornwell.  Uthred's tale continues, and despite the painful historical self-consciousness of the late 9th C characters ("Do you consider yourself English?"), this is another worthy chapter in Cornwell's most satisfying series, chronicling the clash of the Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Christian worlds in the forging of England, with added shield-wall and groin-gouging action.  I wonder is he ever going to admit to all his books being in the Eternal Champion mode, what with each series featuring a through-the-ranks trickster war leader, his highborn forbidden love, and his doughty Irish sidekick?  Not that I'm complaining, more please!

Fungi: New Naturalist Library Vol. 96, by Spooner and Roberts.  You have to love a popular science book that starts with the question "Animal, Mineral or Vegetable?".  A brilliantly readable overview of current thoughts on the Fifth (or is it Seventh?) Kingdom, and a great accompaniment to my autumn mushroom hunts (made a lovely roux sauce-thing of Wood Blewitts on rolled and grilled bread last night, washed down with the wife's homemade cider, yum yum yum).   

Time Travellers Never Die, by Jack McDevitt.  I consider myself one of McDevitt's biggest fans, but a third of the way in his I've-never-really read-any-SF-myself approach to well-worked SF concepts is wearing a bit thin.  The blasé way his Academy or Alex Benedict characters operate works well with those far-future settings, but it's a little harder to buy such nonchalant adventuring from a book set in the early 21st.  Still, he's never yet disappointed me, so I'll see how it goes.

[I, Cosh]

The rather shiny new collected edition of The Incal. I really want to like it but it's just too disjointed and silly in places. Suppose it's a bit like a Jodorowsky film in its quick succession of loony ideas and images but the problem with the films is lack of logical connection while here it's more the simplistic way each new daft episode is linked by someone saying "I think I went on a training mission to the secret space-chameleon base once so lets all modify the shape of our amygdalas and follow him there." I wasn't entirely convinced by the translation either, especially in the first volume.

It's got some pretty nice Moebius art, which might make it worth a look if you're more interested in that, but for me that's not really enough to save it from being classed as "sort of interesting, but..."

A Storm of Swords, by George Martin, I think this (both parts) is one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read.  Even weighing in at something like 1200 pages, and the third part of a series, I don't think there's an inch of flab on this story - every single chapter delivers on characterisation, action and twisty, turny, insanely gripping plot.  How there can be so many dramatic reversals, rug-pulls and revelations in one book, and yet each one still be satisfying, is beyond me. As schlocky pseudo-medieval melodramatic silliness goes, this is the undisputed King on the Iron Throne.  Outstanding.

Yeah. I would maybe dispute the lack of flab (there's a lot of repetition, often used to drive home a particular quirk of speech or mannerism a character has) but I can't argue with any of the rest. By this point pretty much every character's initial (and in some cases, secondary) motivation has been turned inside out and all sorts of ridiculous twists have taken place yet they never seem forced in just to move the plot forward.

[Roger Godpleton]

Swamplandia!

I'm reading Swamplandia!

[HdE]

Just read the first collected edition of Marvel's 'Moon Knight', by Charlie Huston, with art by David Finch.

This shouldn't really be my kind iof book, but I actually enjoyed it a great deal. It's spoilt by some confusing colouring in places, and some overly busy art, but the writing really pushes it above those problems. It really is PROPER barking mental - but in that finely crafted, stays-on-the-rails way that stops it becoming a mess and keeps the story focused. Very clever stuff. Roll on volume 2!

[Zarjazzer]

I have just finished The Gabble (anthology by neal Asher) a real good read with the tragic gabble ducks to the fore, 2000Ad trades Bison and Shimura I finally got round to finishing and Bison might have some critics but I thought the body swapping was a good idea and prety well thought out. Shimura was a real joy though some of the near psychotic art made my head hurt. I tend to prefer the b&w art on that. Also tried a couple of cheapy Star Wars adventures-The will of Daft Vader and Boba Fett the Shit of fear. Typos? What typos? Anyway these were a good fun read without any messing about and straight into the action. Now all I have to do is wait a few weeks and my Insurrection tirade arrives.

@HdE I might try Moon Knight again I always liked that character.

[Van Dom]

The People Next Door by Christopher Ransom. Tis not the best, to be honest. Started off promising, nice little mystery, hints of supernatural forces and all, but by about page 200 it had started spinning its wheel and by page 300 they're still not bloody going anywhere. Its only since I started submitting comic scripts to places that I realised the utmost importance of an editor, and now I am very conscious of where a good edit was necessary when reading anything. I'm sure this book had an editor, but he left in an awful lot of waffle that didn't need to be there. I still want to know how it ends though so I'll have to stick it out, but I've started that thing of skim-reading paragraphs, or just reading the dialogue bits to get through each page, which is never a good thing.
This author had a bestseller called The Birthing House. No idea whats that about but it would have to be a lot better than this if its a bestseller.

[SmallBlueThing]

I started, and gave up on, The Birthing House earlier this year. To be honest and from what i remember, it was a plodding, very old fashioned ghost story which reminded me of umpteen nineteenth century novels and didnt do a single new thing in any of the hundred or so pages i gave it before putting it back on the shelf, where it sits now. My local bookshop got it in at the same time as The Leaping by Tom Fletcher: which i then went on to, and which turned out to be a demented, glorious thrill-ride of the first order.

Currently, im reading Leviathans of Jupiter, by Ben Bova- another of his 'grand tour of the solar system' novels- and as usual it's fantastic. There may well be a formula to these, and Bova is just as guilty of rampant sexism, stupid plotting and general silliness as any fat airport blockbuster, but bloody hell he can trick you into thinking he's a master. Im eating this one up, and enjoying every page of big science fiction ideas and predictable adventure.

SBT

[Van Dom]

Cheers SBT. So - sounds like a common complaint with this author then? Screw it, I'll get to the end of this one somehow then that will be it, might check out that other one you mentioned.

[von Boom]

I really like Bova, but SBT is spot on about his writing. Still, it doesn't stop me reading his books. For one of his earlier works give The Dueling Machine a try. It can be downloaded as an ebook. I read this back in the stone ages and have fond memories of it.

JvB