Books and things with words in them!

Advent Killer.

One of those serial killer fiction books where they terrorise London. Was fairly dull until the end.

The Prince of Heroes: Chapter 1 GN.

Nice art but not much of a story or much dialogue truth be told. If I see chapter 2 I'll give it a read.

Ice Station by Matthew Reilly.  Hmmmmm this guy is a pretty terrible writer.  The characters have zero development, the story is ridiculous and the action scenes go on for way too long.  And yet...the book was strangely enjoyable and always made me want to read on.  It was outrageously fast paced and always made me want to read on.

I feel like I cant recommend it but I kinda feel like I could because it was mindless entertainment...

The Authority: The Lost Year Volume One

Didn't know anything about The Authority and after reading that I still don't.  

Would read some more though if I had the chance.

aaroncupboard wrote:Ice Station by Matthew Reilly.  Hmmmmm this guy is a pretty terrible writer.  The characters have zero development, the story is ridiculous and the action scenes go on for way too long.  And yet...the book was strangely enjoyable and always made me want to read on.  It was outrageously fast paced and always made me want to read on.

I feel like I cant recommend it but I kinda feel like I could because it was mindless entertainment...

I've read that. I thought it was shit! Could not recommend it in the slightest. It was like reading a mindless B-movie action film that was just non stop, and thoroughly boring.

Hatchet Job: Love Movies, Hate Critics by Mark Kermode.

Was alright.

Tokyo by Mo Hayder. I really struggled with this book. It's two tales, one told in 1937 and the other in present day, that link together. I found the past sections the best part of this book. They tell of the Nanking Massacre in China, which to confess to my ignorance, I knew nothing about, so it was interesting part of history that the book told, that felt very real. The present sections detailed a womans quest to find out what really happened in 1937, but it goes really freaky. She's a weird character, and she meets Yakuza, and cannibals, and asexual characters, it all just got a bit oddball and really didn't gel together. I didn't enjoy this, and didn't find it a page turner like a quote on the back says it is. I liked the past story the best, and that's what got me through to the end, but the rest of the book was depressing and a bit twisted.

Winnie The Pooh by AA Milne. My partner and I visited Ashdown Forest on a day trip recently, and its the home of Pooh Bear. The author lived here, and the scenery helped inspire the charming stories that appear in the book. You can go for a little walk around there and see various locations, and you can go to the bridge where they play Pooh Sticks, and there's the House at Pooh Corner which is a gift shop. And that was where I was inspired to pick up the two Pooh books. I've just finished the first one, and while obviously a children's book, there's a certain ageless charm to the characters. And its not all sweet and saccharine - Eeyore is borderline depressive, and in one story, Pooh kidnaps a baby, but everything has a happy ending, is mostly amusing, and a joy to read. Winnie the Pooh himself is a genius character - always thinking with his belly, and getting into trouble because of his love of honey. Gorgeous book too, with lovely drawings.

Just finished The Once And Future King by T H White, the epic story of King Arthur. It's the grandfather of fantasy books, really, which Game of Thrones borrows from in style. Epically long and detailed, it wasn't always fun to read, and I had to persevere, but it was worthwhile. It covers the Arthurian legend from boy pulling the sword out of the stone, through his tragic life, to the questions about his death, all with detailed political plotlines, theories on war and human nature, and questions on religion. But as you follow Arthur over his lifetime, and it is such a long book, you really feel like you have been on a journey. The ending is a bittersweet and nostalgic, and made me not want to leave it like that. A book which, while not perfect, has dug its way into my head during reading it, and worthy of a chance.

Tony Baxter: The First of the Second Generation of Imagineers by Tim O'Brien. A very short book at 90 pages I read it in a day but interesting nonetheless. A biography of a theme park designer and ride creator, who helped design Disneyland Paris and some of the best Florida theme park rides. Because it was so short it's barely a snapshot of what he had done - a whistle stop tour of his work which I wanted more details on. It was a good read but just needed more information and more time and pages devoted to it.

Stay Close by Harlan Coben.

Was alright, definitely one of his better books.

Finished A Million Ways To Die in the West by Seth Macfarlane. Obviously based on the movie the novel is recognisable for being the first novel by Seth Macfarlane and for also being better than the film. It just seems to work better on paper than it did on screen. It's funnier, you get more of the characters thoughts and it was a quick enjoyable read.

Just read Top Gear: Epic Failures, a slim volume on the motoring world's biggest cock ups, covering poorly designed cars, blunders in motoring sports and the most embarrassing mechanical failures for companies. Slightly interesting topics were covered, but as expected with Top Gear written in a very lad mags way with little detail, but full of puns.

Finished Walt Disney: The Biography by Neal Gabler last night. It's a chunky book that goes into incredible detail, starting with his Wild West grandparents through to his death and his plans for Walt Disney World and covering every film, every event and milestone in between. It was a long, concentrating read but worthwhile. I didn't even realise some of the things he pioneered and he was a real visionary. The book also highlighted his flaws which was interesting.

Read Watching The Watchmen by Dave Gibbons over the last few days. It's a massive book, but mostly filled with artwork which made it a quick read. He was the artist for the Watchmen graphic novel, and it was filled with lots of drawings and thumbnails and rough sketches. Kinda interesting, but some real, finished artwork in there would have been nice too. It was filled with some anecdotes and comments, which really made the book interesting, but in terms of ratio of pictures to words, it was about 80/20, so more anecdotes would have been very welcome, especially as they were quite entertaining.

Know Your Enemy: Rage Against The Machine biography by Joel McIver.

Didn't like it as it felt rushed and I didn't like the writing style which was a surprise as I read his book on Metallica which I couldn't put down at the time.

Finished a couple of books recently. First The Disney Book - a Dorking Kindersley encyclopaedia picture book. It was kind of like a sequel to my Walt Disney biography as it covers the releases from the film studio with facts and pictures. It was a fun read but more for kids. After my Florida holiday my quest to know more about Disney continues with The Disney War which covers the 80s and 90s at the studio and I'm looking forward to reading that. 

I also finished On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers a pirate novel featuring naval battles, desert islands, Caribbean magic and rum. It's a cliche pirate story and all the better for it. But the writing was a bit jumpy and the authors seemed to leave chunks of narrative out occasionally and I was left trying to fill in the blanks sometimes when the story jumped about a bit but otherwise it was a grower and by the end the story ties together nicely.

Finished The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J Anderson, which details the final days of the inhabitants of the doomed planet Superman came from. I thought this would be an interesting book, and it aims to combine both known comic events and what is also told through the movies. Sadly it fails massively, mainly because Krypton comes across as such an arrogant and stilted place I couldn't wait for the planet to blow up. There's not one interesting character, and for a culture that was meant to be superior to Earth, just felt very bloated, patronising and dull. General Zod was the better character, but goes from normal politician to megalomaniac very suddenly. There were some good, tense moments, like when Zod eventually is captured and banished to the Phantom Zone, but these were rare moments in an otherwise plodding novel.

Wolvieware wrote:Finished The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J Anderson, which details the final days of the inhabitants of the doomed planet Superman came from. I thought this would be an interesting book, and it aims to combine both known comic events and what is also told through the movies. Sadly it fails massively, mainly because Krypton comes across as such an arrogant and stilted place I couldn't wait for the planet to blow up. There's not one interesting character, and for a culture that was meant to be superior to Earth, just felt very bloated, patronising and dull. General Zod was the better character, but goes from normal politician to megalomaniac very suddenly. There were some good, tense moments, like when Zod eventually is captured and banished to the Phantom Zone, but these were rare moments in an otherwise plodding novel.

I read The Last Days of Krypton a few years ago and enjoyed it. Krypton is meant to be a stagnant society that represses things like freedom of knowledge and cultural change out of a sense of tradition. In their long history they have shaped the galaxy but have slowly stripped their sense of exploration from their culture. Isolating themselves from the universe at large. It's why they blindly let their world be destroyed with only a handful of people surviving. Being bloated, patronising and dull is the perfect way to write them with characters like Zod, Jor-El and Zor-El being the outsiders somewhat within that society. 

Like you said I remember the book being a so so but interesting interpretation of those events. Zod's sudden switch is in keeping with most comic book versions of the story. The Kryptonian Government's failure to act causes Zod to snap and attempt the coup breaking his moral code in the process. I also remember really enjoying the book's look at the Kryptonian Guilds system.

I'd recommend watching the opening of Man of Steel again now that you've read the book because it sneaks in quite a few nods to it while also pulling from the John Byrne Post-Crisis Era* of the comics.

*I realised this reads as gibberish to most people

That's interesting that you agree with me but enjoyed it! Despite it being an accurate portrayal of Krypton then, it doesn't necessarily mean entertaining read. 

I love that opening of Krypton in Man of Steel which is part of the reason I wanted to read this book. It seemed like such a vivid and unique setting of Krypton by Zachary Snyder far from the pristine white I was familiar with from Christopher Reeves Superman that I wanted to find out more. But ultimately this disappointed though, but it did have some good moments in there.

Wolvieware wrote:That's interesting that you agree with me but enjoyed it! Despite it being an accurate portrayal of Krypton then, it doesn't necessarily mean entertaining read. 

I love that opening of Krypton in Man of Steel which is part of the reason I wanted to read this book. It seemed like such a vivid and unique setting of Krypton by Zachary Snyder far from the pristine white I was familiar with from Christopher Reeves Superman that I wanted to find out more. But ultimately this disappointed though, but it did have some good moments in there.

I did read it when it first came out nearly a decade ago so I might be looking at it through rose tinted glasses a bit!

Wayne of Gotham by Tracy Hickman. A really interesting story that tells two parallel stories of Bruce Wayne and flashbacks to his father Thomas. The setup is really good and the pacing and flashbacks are really well intertwined. Batman a investigating clues in the present while flashbacks piece those clues together for the reader. It's very well done. Plus it's actually quite fun to read, I wanted to know what was going to happen. By the end it was a little too straightforward but still good overall.

Clough's War by Don Shaw.

Covering Clough's time at Derby and the subsequent movement that was set up by Shaw to have him reinstated as Derby boss it's an interesting read but it really does show how borderline paranoid and reckless Cloughie could be.

It's kind of a depressing read in hindsight.

Dancing with Myself - Billy Idol autobiography.

A good and refreshing read as it's well written and he accepts full responsibility for all of his actions good or bad.

Class of 92 by Ian Marshall.

About the Manchester United youth team of 1992 there wasn't really anything that couldn't be found on Wikipedia. Bit of a disappointing read.