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Another week gone by, another pile of books read. All my shows are ending - well, their seasons. Goodbye Lucifer, goodbye Prison Break, I'm catching up on Agents of Shield (I'll at least be finishing this season - not sure I'll care to go back next year, though I do find the way the show very loudly proclaims "Hydra are Nazis" ironic/amusing compared to the current official comic book line...)
What I've recently finished reading
Sara B. Elfgren & Mats Strandberg: Nøglen
Danish translation of the Swedish Nyckeln, being the third and final book in the series. I very much enjoyed this. It's a fairly standard town with a mystical connection, chosen group of teens must save the cheerleader world stuff, right up until it isn't. It's very dark and has some very well developed characters (one of the things that I really liked about the first book was that the chosen one don't instantanously bond), and then they turn everything upside down.
Meredith Finch: Wonder Woman: War-Torn
On one hand, I like that they step back from the heavily Greek Myth urban fantasy storyline, and I did enjoy watching Diana struggle with multiple heavy responsibilities and finding the right balance. On the other hand, it greatly annoys me that they hit the canon re-set button by having the Amazon men massacred. I mean, Themyscira is the island of women only, canon can't change that much, but damnit...
Satoshi Kon: Opus
It's a very nice bit of smashing-the-fourth-wall-to-bits-and-pieces bit of metafiction, but I must admit, the entire telepathic police manga that the manga artist main character is making/falls into isn't quite my thing.
Patricia Briggs: Silence Fallen
American Urban Fantasy's general image of Europe continues to puzzle me in many ways. Like - why do they keep thinking that a European supernatural community would be statically stuck in a power system from some Medieval/Renaissance period all the way up to today? In Europe? Continent that spent the last few centuries reinventing revolutions and inventing world wars? You really think the supernatural world would go untouched? And this book is nowhere near the worst offender - really, apart from how apparently the most powerful vampire lord of Europe lives in Italy, it's not that bad. Just - sometimes I wonder if anybody's done a study of the portrayal of Europe in US Urban Fantasy (possibly contrasting with the portrayal of the US in European Urban Fantasy), you know?
Shadows over Bögenhafen
Boring. Usually, Warhammer rpg books has this macabre gallows-humour thing going on that makes them an entertaining read, but not so much this one.
Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti: All-Star Western: Man Out of Time
This was fun - but then, the story of Jonah Hex stuck in the present feeds directly into one of my favourite story kinks, so it's not that surprising that I found it fun.
Mike Mignola & Joshua Dysart: B.P.R.D.: 1946
I think I like the flashback stories of the Hellboy universe better than the present day BPRD stories...
Daniel José Older: Half-Resurrection Blues
This was a very disappointing read. It's a very generic story - urban fantasy noir-ish with a main character who has to stop an evil sorcerer from breaking down the walls between the lands of the living and the dead - and frankly, the main character in question is an asshole. He's - basically a zombie - and works as a hitman for the ruling council of ghosts. So they send him out to kill a bad guy and he turns out to be the first other zombie Mr. Protagonist has ever met, and with his dying breath, other zombie asks Mr. Protagonists-who-just-killed-him to protect his sister - which Mr. Protagonist interprets as find her, put the moves on her and get into a sexual relationship with her without mentioning the awkward I-killed-your-brother bit. I think the story might have worked better if it was more willing to acknowledge that the main character is a very shady and probably a villain character himself, but seeing as he's also the first-person narrator - yeah, no. Not a particularly good book.
What I'm reading now
Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older, which I wouldn't even be reading except that I picked both of his books up at the same time, and this one is so much better than HRB, and Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis by Anne Rice. I assume it needs no introduction?
What I'm reading next
Probably Felix Palma's The Map of Chaos - excellent Spanish science fiction/steampunk/time travel/pastiche something trilogy.
Total number of books and comics read this year: 98
What I've recently finished reading
Sara B. Elfgren & Mats Strandberg: Nøglen
Danish translation of the Swedish Nyckeln, being the third and final book in the series. I very much enjoyed this. It's a fairly standard town with a mystical connection, chosen group of teens must save the cheerleader world stuff, right up until it isn't. It's very dark and has some very well developed characters (one of the things that I really liked about the first book was that the chosen one don't instantanously bond), and then they turn everything upside down.
Meredith Finch: Wonder Woman: War-Torn
On one hand, I like that they step back from the heavily Greek Myth urban fantasy storyline, and I did enjoy watching Diana struggle with multiple heavy responsibilities and finding the right balance. On the other hand, it greatly annoys me that they hit the canon re-set button by having the Amazon men massacred. I mean, Themyscira is the island of women only, canon can't change that much, but damnit...
Satoshi Kon: Opus
It's a very nice bit of smashing-the-fourth-wall-to-bits-and-pieces bit of metafiction, but I must admit, the entire telepathic police manga that the manga artist main character is making/falls into isn't quite my thing.
Patricia Briggs: Silence Fallen
American Urban Fantasy's general image of Europe continues to puzzle me in many ways. Like - why do they keep thinking that a European supernatural community would be statically stuck in a power system from some Medieval/Renaissance period all the way up to today? In Europe? Continent that spent the last few centuries reinventing revolutions and inventing world wars? You really think the supernatural world would go untouched? And this book is nowhere near the worst offender - really, apart from how apparently the most powerful vampire lord of Europe lives in Italy, it's not that bad. Just - sometimes I wonder if anybody's done a study of the portrayal of Europe in US Urban Fantasy (possibly contrasting with the portrayal of the US in European Urban Fantasy), you know?
Shadows over Bögenhafen
Boring. Usually, Warhammer rpg books has this macabre gallows-humour thing going on that makes them an entertaining read, but not so much this one.
Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti: All-Star Western: Man Out of Time
This was fun - but then, the story of Jonah Hex stuck in the present feeds directly into one of my favourite story kinks, so it's not that surprising that I found it fun.
Mike Mignola & Joshua Dysart: B.P.R.D.: 1946
I think I like the flashback stories of the Hellboy universe better than the present day BPRD stories...
Daniel José Older: Half-Resurrection Blues
This was a very disappointing read. It's a very generic story - urban fantasy noir-ish with a main character who has to stop an evil sorcerer from breaking down the walls between the lands of the living and the dead - and frankly, the main character in question is an asshole. He's - basically a zombie - and works as a hitman for the ruling council of ghosts. So they send him out to kill a bad guy and he turns out to be the first other zombie Mr. Protagonist has ever met, and with his dying breath, other zombie asks Mr. Protagonists-who-just-killed-him to protect his sister - which Mr. Protagonist interprets as find her, put the moves on her and get into a sexual relationship with her without mentioning the awkward I-killed-your-brother bit. I think the story might have worked better if it was more willing to acknowledge that the main character is a very shady and probably a villain character himself, but seeing as he's also the first-person narrator - yeah, no. Not a particularly good book.
What I'm reading now
Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older, which I wouldn't even be reading except that I picked both of his books up at the same time, and this one is so much better than HRB, and Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis by Anne Rice. I assume it needs no introduction?
What I'm reading next
Probably Felix Palma's The Map of Chaos - excellent Spanish science fiction/steampunk/time travel/pastiche something trilogy.
Total number of books and comics read this year: 98
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