Black Science Vol 1 How to Fall Forever

Black Science, Vol. 1: How to Fall Forever by Rick Remender
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I couldn't tell you what this story was about to save my fucking life, this comic to me is strictly for the art, and OH MY LLOYD at the art. It is kind of like Lost in Space listened to a bunch of 70's prog and took acid and made this book and that my friends ALONE is a glorious reason to read this.

It is actually a super fun romp through the multiverse and one bizarre world after another, I usually don't go this route but buy it in trade, it flows better that way.

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Staked The Iron Druid Chronicles #8 By: Kevin Hearne

Staked by Kevin Hearne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First of all this will be a very opininated review. I like urban fantasy or just fantasy as this could be classified as, and this is one of my FAVORITE series, I drop books to read new Iron Druid books, and I loved this installment, great characters, a great story, heaps of mythology which I am a total slut for, and its JUST FUCKING FUN.

I have a minor complaint and its mostly me, the female lead eventhough I Love me some redheads, for lack of better words, is a bit overpowered in most senses of the word but a minor nick in a great series.

Go buy them all, give Kevin Hearne your money.

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A Collection of Children's Books

Paddington by Michael Bond
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

* * * The following three books were read & reviewed by me & my niece Emma * * *

A classic for the ages!...that completely fell on deaf ears.

Perhaps the issue is that the ears are new and not British? I thought this would be a grand hit with my young niece, but it turned out to be a dud. She couldn't get through it quick enough. Granted, there was a swimming pool awaiting with her name on it, but still, I don't think this book would've gone over well even without the extraneous distraction.

I was quite looking forward to it, having never read this famed story, but even I have to admit it plodded along rather slowly and with little reward. My British-born friends laughingly call me more "British" than them and since everything about Paddington Bear is very Britishy (even though the bear himself comes from Darkest Peru), I still had to concede to Emma's obvious boredom. Mishaps with tea time jam were the most enjoyment we could wring from this and it just wasn't cutting the mustard...however, if it cut the cheese we would've been rolling on the floor in stitches.

Never has Emma pressured me to skip lines and whole pages quite like she did with Paddington, so the needle on the Emma-o-meter never got remotely close to "amused".



Journey by Aaron Becker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



We LOVED Journey!!! We loved everything about it!

Usually reading time is an Emma and me thing, but even Tita Cherry (my wife/Emma's aunt) got in on this one. All three of us sat around the dining room table, not reading the wordless pages, yet fully enthralled by this wonderful adventure of a girl escaping loneliness and the doldrums of daily life with a stick of magic chalk. She draws up a boat or magic carpet or whatever, and off we go into a fantastical land of fairy forests, castles and steampunky airships. We excitedly guessed what the girl was drawing next and lingered lovingly over the lavish illustrations, reveling in the merest of details.

This book isn't an entirely original idea, but it is very well executed. The scenes are vibrant. The full spread, and sometimes double spread illustrations are highly detailed. And yet, the funny thing is, much of this is in drab colors. A vivid red is used to indicate the magic items the girl has drawn. Otherwise nothing more than a touch of gold here or a highlighted gleam of light there are used to transform the dull landscape into something living and vaguely mysterious.

Emma isn't terribly sexist (on the other hand just recently she started a "NO BOYS ALLOWED!" club, though I think that was set up in hopes of luring in the boys with reverse psychology), but the fact that the main character is a girl might have increased her interest in Journey. I know I was happy to see a girl as the hero of the story, taking matters into her own hands, going on adventures, etc. I don't think the world needs another wallflower girl, so anything that nudges Emma away from the shy, second class citizenship so many women are cast into is all right by me!





Dragon Quest by Mary Tillworth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



When Emma held this up and said she wanted to get it from the other end of the kids' section, I thought it said "Drag Queen" at first glance. I don't think I can be blamed. I mean, look at that fairy on the cover!

Luckily I was mistaken. Unluckily the reality is just as bad. The fairy is beyond Barbie. Her body shape is ridiculous. The eyeliner, mini-skirt and heels all make her seem more prepared for clubbing rather than questing. Fine. I've seen Bratz and its like before. I know modern animators are making even toddler characters into full-lipped, buxom mannequins. But I really was not okay with the level of coquettishness the fairy was displaying in this book. Too many vacant, finger-to-the-lip stares are used to show her "thinking". Too many knock-kneed girly stances to show defenseless vulnerability for a girl who can shoot fireballs.

The dragons were drawn pretty scary though. Yep, that's all I can say about it.

Emma liked it. Of course she would, it's what she's being brought up upon. Bugs Bunny in drag was the most sexual my cartoons got. This is a whole other world.

Reading level wise, this is listed as a "Step 2". Emma, 6 and heading into 1st grade soon, fought her way through half the book before tiring, at which point I took over and finished this damn thing as fast as I could.

I won't give Dragon Quest a low rating just because I don't approve of the minxy main character. The little girl this was aimed at liked the story well enough, though even she was all that excited about it.

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Mortuary Confidential

Mortuary Confidential: Undertakers Spill the Dirt by Todd Harra
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Mortuary Confidential is a collection of tales about the funeral business.

So, in the wake of my grandmother's death, I was thinking about the great beyond a bit and stumbled upon this. Since I have nearly infinite story credit at the local used bookstore, I snapped it up.

This is not precisely the book I thought it would be. I was expecting hilarious, inappropriate stories. While some of the stories were funny, most were just interesting. I guess I can't fault the book for that.

Some favorite tales include a mortician locking himself out of the hearse, two brothers beating the shit out of each other at a funeral, and the bottom of a casket dropping out while the pallbearers were carrying it.

Mortuary Confidential is a fun read but don't expect it to be a barrel of laughs. Three out of five stars.

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Boneshaker

Cherie Priest
Tor Books
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Nancy

Summary

In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.

His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.

My Review

Dazzling inventions, air pirates, evil bad guys, underground vaults, goggles, daring rescues, gold, Blight gas, a one-armed bartender, a princess, zombies. Oh, what fun!

The setting was vividly described and rich in details. The main characters were well developed and fascinating. Briar Wilkes, widow of Leviticus Blue, eccentric inventor, searches for her teenage son, Zeke, in a walled-off section of Seattle, where a dangerous yellow gas shrouds the city, forcing the remaining inhabitants to live underground. Lots of action, suspense, and vibrant, quirky characters helped move the story along at a brisk pace.

I thoroughly enjoyed the twists, surprises, and very satisfying ending of this riveting adventure story.

White Mountain

White Mountain by James T. Witherspoon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Nameless was born into a tribe of hunters that live in an icy tundra in the north. Nameless's father is the clan chief who is renowned for killing bears with his bare hands, his brother is blessed with incredible balance, and his best friend can use magic.

Nameless has yet to display any exceptional ability. Since he's part of a tribe that names its members for their exceptional abilities, he remains nameless. Until the day everything changed.

White Mountain was an interesting tale of a younger son Nameless who becomes a skinchanger. The skin he changes into is shocking as it's his tribe's main source of food and clothing...a bear. Fortunately for Nameless he changes into a large white bear rather than the brown bears that live near his tribe. After transforming into a white bear, Nameless's father finally gives him his name White Mountain.

The beginning of the story really pulled me in. I liked Nameless and felt for someone with no particular talent in a tribe where talents aren't just lauded they in fact become a persons name. The story stayed interesting as he changed into a white bear earning the name White Mountain. I got excited about seeing a training of sort where the skinchanging White Mountain learned to harness his abilities and even change into different types of animals.

Unfortunately shortly into that the story changed from a young man adjusting to his skinchanging abilities to a story on how people are just other animals and shouldn't feel they are more important than any other living thing. The dialogue at one point literally says that with no room for interpretation. All this is accomplished while the main character as a white bear hunts and kills seals to sustain himself and his partner. The story took on a national geographic in the arctic tone which wasn't too interesting to me.

One other thing that I personally disliked is that Nameless/White Mountain's internal dialogue read at times as though he was explaining everything that was happening to the reader rather than the reader experiencing it right along with him.

White Mountain certainly has moments that really caught my interest, but overall it was just OK.

2.5 out of 5 stars



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Starve vol 1 By: Brian Wood and Danijel Žeželj

Starve, Volume 1 by Brian Wood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am a life long comic reader, I learned TO READ with comics, so I decided to dip into some comic reviews for a change.

Lately, I have kind of gone against my usual grain, reading things I don't like. Several young adult books, a horror book, and although I loved Starve, I am not a Brian Wood fan, more on that later.

Starve is what happens when you lock No Reservations, Iron Chef, the Hunger games, and bleak ass future in a mixer and hit puree'. The chef Gavin Cruikshank, is kinda in my mind what Anthony Bourdain would be today, wild, gives no shits whatsofuckingever, and without a doubt, the baddest man in the room. He created a show Starve which is the cooking show to end cooking shows, but left and went into exile.

Now you are wondering, Kevin..you dangerously into spoilerville and you don't do that shit..so I'll stop you right there.

I am not a Brian Wood fan because he tends to be preachy, I agree pretty much most of what he "preaches" I don't like having stuff rammed down my throat, that being said. Starve works on all accounts, it is a story of redemption, a tale of the have and have not's, and a man living the way he wants and getting his shit together and making things right. Who doesn't love watching "the man" get it in the end.

(not tooooooooooo spoilerish)

The art isn't your typical comic art, dark and gorgeous and I love the covers, if you are a comic fan GO BUY.

NOTICE: I didn't review the trade, I read individual issues but I intend on adding the trade to my digital library, and although I am sure the first story arc is issues 1 through 5, I would recommend story wise adding 6 to your reading, it rounds the tale out better in my eyes

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Rebel Yell That Could've Been Louder

Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief by James M. McPherson
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Wow, that was incredibly adequate! If you don't want to be overly impressed with a historical work on the American Civil War, Embattled Rebel is where it's at!

Who wants deep insights, anyhow? I'd rather hear a broad recap of the entire war with the occasional tenuous link to Jefferson Davis' role as President of the Confederate States of America. Sure, James McPherson might've dug deeper to given the reader a more meaningful account of Davis. We might've learned more about the man's motivations. However, McPherson stuck to his guns and kept his subject at a distance. Bravo!

Yes, yes, this was a rather thorough retelling of the Civil War from the South's perspective and I definitely have a better understanding of their strategy as well as Davis' reasoning for the moves he made, but let's be honest, I didn't know jack shit about the South's side of the story prior to reading this book, so anything would've been more than nearly nothing. This was more than nothing.

Very serviceable writing here, as well. I don't recall the last time I read the placing of one word after another in such good order without them venturing into lyrical territory at least once in a while. McPherson laid it out pure and simple. No frills here folks! So few in fact, he might've been writing about the ancient Spartans.

Champions of the Galaxy Wrestling Card Game

Back in the olden days, I ate, drank, and slept professional wrestling.  For years, I noticed ads for Champions of the Galaxy, a pro-wrestling game using cards, charts, and dice with characters straight out comic books.  I think I was fifteen when I finally plunked down my precious thirteen bucks and gave it a shot.  My world was changed forever.

Before I knew it, I was running a wrestling federation, recognizing my own titles, and basically nerding it up hardcore.  With the dawn of the internet, it became a snap to share your results with other promoters and nerdification reached unheard of levels.  As time drew on, my focus shifted to things less likely to keep me from getting laid, although I still occasionally bust out the dice, cards, and charts and play a few shows.

The game features easy to learn mechanics.  It takes minutes to learn but the simplicity is what has kept the game going for the better part of three decades.  Couple that with great art and memorable characters and you've got a winner on your hands.

These days, Champions of the Galaxy is 30 years old and Filsinger Games, the parent company, now features an online version and other card games featuring the same engine, like Legends of Wrestling, Ring of Honor, and 80's Mania Wrestling.  There's also a documentary chronicling the game and a live event DVD featuring real world wrestlers portraying characters from the game!

Several years ago, Tom Filsinger and company decided to revisit the original edition with new, full color art by Darryl Banks.  Take a gander at these!

To fans of professional wrestling and comic books, I cannot stress the fun factor and replay value of Champions of the Galaxy.  I have countless fond memories of spending an evening building feuds, booking title matches, and recording results.  Five out of five stars.

Click here for more information!

Fender Lizards

Fender Lizards by Joe R. Lansdale
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

High school dropout Dot Sherman's life was going nowhere, working at the Dairy Bob and living with her mother, grandmother, and siblings, until her uncle started living in a van in the front yard. Now, she's forming a roller derby team and searching for her long lost father...

As I've said many times before, Joe Lansdale is one of top five favorite authors. He brings the usual mojo to the table in this one.

Fender Lizards is the story of a roller-skating waitress trying to get her shit together before she ends up like her mother and her older sister. Dot plasters her older sister's no good drunk boyfriend with a 2x4 pretty early in the proceedings, setting off an interesting chain of events.

I liken Joe Lansdale's writing to sitting on tailgate having a conversation with the man and this tale is no different. However, I felt like I've read it before. It felt like pieces of other Lansdale books at times. Hell, the man writes books as often as a dog licks its asshole so it's no wonder he treads familiar territory a time or two.

I've got some mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, it's par for the course Joe Lansdale, prominently featuring interesting characters, white trash awesomeness, hilarity, and Joe's trademark front porch wisdom. On the other hand, I feel like it's nothing new. How many coming of age tales does Joe need to write? 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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