I spent part of my morning finishing up The "Walking Dead" compendium 2. The story is actually going in an interesting and different direction now so any concerns I've had (I think) were unfounded. If you are unfamiliar with either the comic book or the television series, I highly recommend both EVEN IF you are not a fan of zombie or horror movies. Both of them are more character-driven survival stories, than actual horror stories, although there are certainly some horrific things that happen. One of the ideas in both series are that while the zombies are a force of nature certainly to be feared, the break-down of civilization and order is far more dangerous, and is more likely to get you killed. How do you know who to trust? How far are you willing to go to survive, to keep your self, your family, and your friends safe? The series happens to be about the Zombie apocalypse, but to an extent, a lot of it could have been set after a nuclear holocaust.
I've been reading "Indexing" by Seanan McGuire, which is an Amazon Serial. If you are an old-timer like me, you may recall that some science fiction novels would first be released as a serial in a science fiction magazine. The novel would be broken up into 3 or 4 or more parts. It's a long tradition of literary and pulp magazines going back for years. Well Amazon has adapted that to the electronic age. Every week or so, a new chapter of their serials 'magically' gets added to my version of the book. The price is quite reasonable as well, judging just by how much I've received. Obviously, I don't know how long this will continue, but it's an interesting take on the concept. It's not even a subscription, since there is no termination date, it's for however long the writer keeps releasing chapters. Anyway, back to the substance of this particular serial. It's a modern fantasy set in our world... sort of. The main problem though is that fairy tales are real, and there's some kind of force in the world that makes them want to come true and keep reoccurring with certain variations with a lot of destruction spread as a result. "Happily Ever After" can have a lot of devastating results on the innocent bystanders being drawn into those stories. So, there's a secret government agency that exists in order to prevent the stories, slow down their momentum, stop the evil stepmothers from distributing their poisoned apple juice, the sleeping beauties spreading their sleeping disease, and so on. It's entertaining in totally light, and somewhat humorous way, and while I have not read enough of it to make a final judgement, I think that if the concept appeals to you, you could have some fun reading it.
Recently a book that I must have pre-ordered a while ago showed up on my Kindle: Ex-Communication by Peter Clines. I hadn't started reading it because the title made me think that I had already read it. But I hadn't. It's the third book in a series that starts with Ex-Heroes, and continues in Ex-Patriots. Ex-Communication is the latest book in the series (and I already see one available for pre-order called Ex-Purgatory). The series combines the zombie apocalypse genre with the super-hero genre. The premise is that superheroes are real, and they are unable to stop the zombie apocalypse, but some of them gather together to help preserve the remnants of humanity. I had to start the third book in the series, and it's shaping up to be as good as the earlier books. It's a fun series of books, and I do recommend it as a light read.
I've taken a small break from fiction again while I work on my own stories, but I have been filling my time by re-reading The Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes complete collections. What is life without some humor, eh?
Talking about humor, I picked up "40: A Doonesbury Retrospective", a huge tome that is so big that it can't sit upright in my bookcase. It's not the longest-running humorous comic strip, but it's got to be up there. I grew up reading Doonesbury during its golden age, when the characters were still in college, living on Walden Pond, and so on. The comic has changed a whole lot since then, I stopped reading it for a very long time, but I can still recall some of the highlights. Certainly, it's a bit political, but it also shows how people change and evolve, what happens to people's politics as they grow up and leave college and get married, and have to make a living and so on. if you read it for long enough. It's certainly not the same comic that it started out as, and the characters are not the same characters that they started out as. So it's a lot more than just a political comic. So I've always been meaning to go back and read it from the beginning, all the way through, because I've missed so many years of it. It's just that huge tome is so darned inconvenient to lug around lol.
I finished the book -- it was entertaining, but nothing special. One thing that bothered me was a story contrivance regarding a character that conveniently shows up right when he or she would be essential. I don't want to go into detail that would spoil it, but let's just say that it's the kind of plot device that feels cheap. What makes it worse is that the character appearing made me extremely suspicious so that not only was the plot contrived, but the nature of the contrivance was telegraphed way in advance, making it predictable. Still, it kept my attention all the way to the end. I REALLY want to read Dust by Hugh Howey next, as it just recently appeared on my Kindle, and I just love this series (it's the next book in his Silo series, the one I've raved about before. But first, I'll be starting Avarice Dynasty: Evasion by Dyego Alehandro this evening. And sometime after both of those, I plan on diving into The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle, the third Sherlock Holmes novel. I know I've seen the old black and white film of it MANY years ago, with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce playing Holmes and Watson, but my memory of that is limited to a scene with foggy moors.
Ah, the Hound! One of my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories. I happen to be a huge fan of all of his work, anyway, but Hound has stuck with me for a long, long time.
I've only ever read the more recent Doonesbury comics so I'll have to take your word that it used to be good. My experience has been that it's the least funny of any of the comics in the paper, and that's including Prince Valiant and The Phantom, who at least occasionally toss off a witty action-movie style one-liner every now and then.
It used to be one of the best comics of its day, but I admit that it went downhill. It was best back in the 1970s and early '80s when it featured its quirky characters.
I just finished Xyvik's book: Avarice Dynasty: Evasion. It's a science fiction adventure novel, clearly the first of a series, about a man and his companions fleeing for their lives across the galaxy from an enemy willing to destroy all in his path to kill them. I found the book to be exciting with lots of action. I did have a few problems with the story itself, but the action sweeps you up rather effectively, so I found myself forgetting about those issues soon enough. I do recommend it for anyone looking for an action-packed space opera. I gave it 4 stars on Amazon.
My first book was a co-authoring, so Avarice marks my first foray into One Man Author. And it's also my first sci-fi. Therefore 4 stars is a better review from Haldurson than I was expecting! (and no, I didn't bribe him. I don't make nearly enough money for that ) I'm still working on the sequel, on a steampunk story, and on a sequel to Treasure of the Mayan King, so I've turned away from novels for my own personal reading for a period of time. However, I did finally manage to read Boatmurdered and I have also been reading Dilbert. Good times.
I just finished reading Dust by Hugh Howey. It looks like it's the last book in the Silo series, which started with Wool. I thought it was an excellent way to end to a terrific series. Questions are answered, mysteries solved, stories resolved, many people die, both good and bad. And some survive in spite of the odds. I guess upon reading the Afterward, I was left wanting more, wanting to know what happens next. But that's the way the best books and series ought to end. I think that other writers could learn a thing or two from Mr. Howey. The series as it stands is as follows (cut and pasted from Wikipedia): Wool (July 30, 2011) Wool: Proper Gauge (November 30, 2011) Wool: Casting Off (December 4, 2011) Wool: The Unraveling (December 25, 2011) Wool: The Stranded (January 14, 2012) First Shift: Legacy (April 14, 2012) Second Shift: Order (November 20, 2012) Third Shift: Pact (January 28, 2013) Dust (August 17, 2013) The Wool books and Shift books are also each collected in Wool Omnibus Edition and Shift Omnibus Edition. If I ever want to revisit the series, I know I can, because fans of the books have added to the series with stories and novels of their own. I think it's because the books were not released by a normal publisher, so Howey has allowed others to publish their own works set in the same universe. Do a search on "Silo" and you'll find some of them. Anyway, I'm ready to start reading something new. I'll probably be reading The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the next book in the Sherlock Holmes series. But I also picked up a few graphic novels and volumes of "Bloom County" on a whim. I'll probably end up reading a bit of everything at the same time.
I wanted to add this as well: http://www.hughhowey.com/jet-city-comics/ Apparently Amazon has started their own Comic Imprint, and Wool will be one of their premier titles. Only question I have is "Why the blue skin???"
One thing to learn from Hugh Howey is how not to be an arsehole, and how not to apologise. Guy's blacklisted for a few people over some of the shit he's said.
I know you've mentioned something about this before, and I did find a blog where he had apologized about some unknown thing he said which he did not repeat in that blog, so I have no idea what it was. But whatever it is, there doesn't seem to be much of a backlash about it anymore, at least none that I could find. I believe you, that he said something bad. But if everyone would be blacklisted for saying something nasty on a bad day, I think we'd all be on a blacklist somewhere. I know I've said things that I wish hadn't, out of anger or frustration. I've lost my temper when I shouldn't have. Thankfully, I'm not any kind of a celebrity so most of it is not part of any public record. But I still feel bad about it when I remember the incident (except for the times when the targets of my anger really deserved it, Because sometimes they really did deserve it and more). And it still does not take away anything from the books.
BTW, regarding Bloom County... When I was working at my first programming job in New Jersey, I got in trouble (kind of) because I posted one of the Bloom County fake ads for the Banana Junior 6000 computer in my cubicle. It wasn't this one (I don't think it was, anyway), but I can't actually locate an image of the one I posted Now you may ask, why would I get into trouble for posting this? Well it turned out that the Macintosh computer was kind of brand new when these ads appeared. And it turned out that my boss (and President of the company) was enamored of all things Apple. He must have purchased at least one of every single model of Apple computer that Apple ever made on the very first day they'd become available (the guy had a lot more money than sense). I had other comics posted as well, but this one he took very personally. He was the prototypical Apple Drone follower and mid-ranked priest of the apple religion before anyone knew that apple drones existed. BTW, I could swear that he was also the inspiration for Dilbert's pointy-haired boss.
