Discuss and rate the last thing you read

[Hawki]

Sonic the Hedgehog: Fallout (3/5)

Before you get any ideas, no, this isn't some kind of crossover with the Fallout universe. If it was, it might be more interesting.

So, this is the first paperback collection of the IDW Sonic the Hedgehog series, collecting the first four issues. Now, I have a mixed relationship with the Archie comics, but if this was meant to be a successor of sorts (Ian Flynn is doing the series after all), I thought "okay, this could be promising." I mean, I didn't really get why it needs to exist in its own canon when by the book's own narrative everything that happened in the games is canon to the comics (and it's only after Sonic Forces that it strikes out with its own continuity), but, yeah. But hey, people were giving it positive reviews, so I picked it up.

Well, it's "back to basics" alright. It's so basic that for those four issues, we pretty much get the same plot recycled four times. As in, "Sonic goes to a town. Sonic meets a friend. Sonic and his friend beat the badniks while commenting on how coordinated they are. Sonic moves onto the next town." Replace the friend, add in some slight variation, and voila, you've got the first arc of the IDW series. Now, obviously this is intended for people younger than myself, and it is the start of a new comic, but if we're comparing it to the Archie comics when they first started...well, sure, they had stand-alone issues, but at least they were memorable rather than rinse and repeat Even Fleetway had some variation, even if it took about eight issues to find its feet and establish its own 'feel' separate from the games. This however, is, well basic. And while I can give it some props (e.g. Amy is bearable, the art style is nice), these are props that other media either did before (e.g. Sonic Boom) or did better (e.g. Archie). It doesn't help that the world feels so...disjointed. None of the towns are named, none of the townsfolk are named, we do get Tangle, but there's really nothing special about her. Seriously, she has no reason to be here because Blaze appears in the same issue she does, and Blaze at least has a backstory the comic can leverage (and I'd argue personality as well, but whatever).

So, yeah. Maybe I'm simply too far past the intended age bracket for this. But I can't help but be disappointed. I know it's not Ian Flynn's fault that the Archie comics ended, and I stopped collecting them at Issue 210, but so far, of the three Sonic comic series, this takes the bottom spot for me so far.

 

[Hawki]

StarCraft: Scavengers (3/5)

Yay, more comic disappointment. Though this is a bit harder to quantify.

Here's the thing - Scavengers appears to be a single 4 issue series, but effectively ends on "to be continued." Now, it's possible that the upcoming StarCraft: Soldiers series will pick up on its threads, but I seriously doubt it. Considering that the original StarCraft comic series ended on a cliffhanger that was never resolved, and there's numerous plot threads in the StarCraft EU that have never been resolved, that we get yet another "to be continued" is irksome to say the least. And it comes off as a wasted opportunity that our Nerazim criminal isn't Ulrezaj - it's been pointed out that she's arguably a darker version of Zamara, but even if that's true, Zamara was an engaging character and had a trilogy of novels to be fleshed out. This lunatic doesn't. Oh, and the UED teases that happen throughout the comic? Never ammount to anything. I'd be more enthused if not for the fact that the idea of UED sleeper agents was teased back in 'War Stories' via the Project Blackstone viral campaign, and that still hasn't come to anything.

But, okay, let's look at the comic in isolation. I commented that it was kind of funny that Dark Horse, known for its Alien/Predator comics, would handle StarCraft and give it similar treatment. Because like so many stories in the Xenopedia universe, it's basically a case of "terran scavengers board derelict protoss ship, bad stuff happens that involves scavengers and marines dying in horrific ways." Replace the races and terminology, and you get a pretty similar story. Still, it's dark. I've seen some say that the 'theme' of it is that our protagonist realizes that the people around him are all terrible and pays the price for it, but, that isn't really an arc. That's just nihilism. And nihilism can fit universes like StarCraft and Xenopedia without a doubt, but nihilism isn't anything deep. Furthermore, I've also seen people saying that this is a "back to basics" approach to the series, trying to recapture the supposedly lost 'grit' of SC1. I've seen people saying that they miss the space western atmosphere of SC2. All I can say is that I'm fine with a variety of tone, just give me a good story with good characters. And on that front, Scavegngers is...okay. Honestly, at this point, I much prefer Shadow Wars. That took awhile to get going, but while Shadow Wars arguably has a bunch of arseholes as protagonists as well, I find them more engaging assholes than the assholes here.

 

[Hawki]

Mistborn: The Bands of Mourning (3/5)

So at this point the Mistborn series is a lot like Avatar, both in context and in quality. You start with a trilogy of books/seasons that's all around solid. Then you get a time jump of decades/centuries to a more advanced time (30s/19th century steampunk) in a quartet of seasons/novels. As you go through this second era, you realize that it isn't as good as the first. Still, unlike Legend of Korra I at least made it to book 3 (gave up after season 2 in LoK's case), but at this point that's not saying much.

Thing is, of Mistborn: Era 2, I actually quite liked the first novel. It was a fun adventure. Then book 2 came and it was...okay. But by book 3, I just don't really care anymore. It's not that these books are bad, but I just don't feel...anything for them really. The original Mistborn trilogy, if nothing else, made each book feel unique, whereas all of Era 2 has the same feel, and it's not nearly as engaging. Nor are the characters as engaging. The protagnists, the antagonists, it's just...okay. Even at this point in time I could barely describe the plots to you, and while I'd have some difficulty with era 1, that was more because of time passed and how complex they were, with plot twists galore. Here, when there is a plot twist, my reaction is "meh" rather than "oh my God!"

But okay, all that aside, is there stuff I like here? Well, if nothing else, I will say that Sterris finally gets some character development...sort of. The whole Steris-Wax-Marasi 'thing' has been kinda weird when you think about it. Book 1, we have Steris and Wayne coming together for what's effectively a political marriage, but Steris gets kidnapped, Wax goes after her, and it's kinda hinted that it might do the whole 'true love' thing with Marasi, but that never happens. Book 2, Sterris is absent for the majority of it. Book 3 is where we finally start exploring Steris as a character, and she's...okay. Nothing special but okay. But apart from that, the other characters remain the same - servicable. Fine. Reasonably entertaining. But these aren't the characters from book 1.

Kinda sucks that I've spent so much time comparing things, but that's it - I just don't really have anything to say on them. Thing is, I don't think Sanderson's lost his touch per se - I've read the first seven chapters of Skyward and Spin is an engaging character in the same way that Vin was. But I can't deny that having started reading The Way of Kings, I'm nervous as to whether Sanderson's 'got it' anymore. Skyward was good (of what I've read) but other stuff I've read since the original trilogy has been pretty average, even if times enjoyable. Maybe it's Sanderson, maybe it's me, but at this point in time, I can only call the Bands of Mourning average, and it takes the second last place in my ranking of the Mistborn novels.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

"The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima. 3/5 - Okay.

Saw it in my library's classics section; never heard of it, or the author, and it looked like a short quick read so I gave it a go. It was pleasant enough; there's very little in the way of any real drama, just a little love story set in a remote fishing village in post-war Japan. It's miles out of my usual reading comfort zone but I enjoyed the change all the same.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Herbert West - Reanimator (1922) by H.P. Lovecraft

Serialized in six entries from 1921 to 1922, this is Lovecraft's idea of parodying Frankenstein. The story reads like a farce of cautionary tales about mad scientists, and while pretty straightforward it benefits from Lovecraft's budding penchant for hazy yet evocative descriptions and gruesome imagery. However because of the serial nature of the work each "chapter" in the novella begins with an extensive and repetitive recap of all things preceding, which proves irksome. The cliffhangers are very hit and miss and you can tell Lovecraft was none too keen on cooking them up. Not his best work but definitely memorable.

 

[Hawki]

A Short History of Africa: From the Origins of the Human Race to the Arab Spring (3/5)

First thing to note is that when this book says "a short history of Africa," it means "a shot history of Africa. As in, it's covering its entire history over the span of about 150 pages. And as you might expect, that means it can't go into as much depth as it might otherwise have managed.

Which is a shame really because of all the kingdoms it touches on, any one of them could have provided the basis for a book in of itself by the sound of it. Egypt of course gets a mention. As does the likes of Mali and Ethiopia. But there's various other kingdoms that have risen and fallen, either due to climate change or being swallowed up by other kingdoms. If anything, the book kind of provides a counterpoint to its own theory, the idea that Africa has forever been a continent that's been exploited by other peoples. And while there's certainly elements of truth in this, as the book highlights the various conquests of Rome, Arabia, the Ottoman Empire, and Europe (the colonial period getting the lion's share of the book), what we also see is that Africa's history in of itself is very dynamic. Again, Egypt comes to mind, but there's lots of smaller ones that I can't name off the top off the top of my head.

What's also a shame is that it barely even touches on the Arab Spring beyond "oh yeah, this happened, we'll have to see what the results are." Which is a again, a shame. It's a short history of Africa, and it's focusing on the period of history I'm already most familiar with. Not that this is an irrelevant period on Africa's history, but the book itself poins out it's just a blip in the history of the continent. ​

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

El angel ajeno (1983) by Ivan Onate.

Poetry book from Ecuador. I'm no good at appraising poetry, but I enjoyed it. What little I ask of poetry is that it make me want to read it aloud - full marks for that. The poems are brief and unsentimental yet filled with that kind of "pining pain" younger poets default to. The title poem is definitely the strongest.

Asterix and the Secret Weapon (1991) by Albert Uderzo.

The mere act of picking up an Asterix book and lounging in the couch to read it is sheer delight. So it's not one of the better ones - the series never quite recovered from Goscinny's passing. Whatever. Watching all these beloved characters go through the routine pantomime of bickering with each other and fighting off Romans was good enough for today.

 

[CaitSeith]

The Dunwich Horror (1929) by H. P. Lovecraft

Spoiler: It contains pretty much everything that makes eldritch horror interesting

It starts with an unsettling premise including rituals and paranormal events (a freakish looking precocious kid named Wilbur whom at the age of 4 and a half years already looked like a 15 years old teen), reveals the involvement Cthulhu Mythos and supernatural cosmic entities from other dimension (in this case, the tentacle horror Yog-Sothoth) waiting to take over the planet, a frenetic decryption of coded sinister texts that nearly leads the scholar into madness, and a direct face-off against an imposing spawn of such beings (a giant invisible tentacle monster, who happens to be son of Yog-Sothoth and Wilbur's twin brother).

Unfortunately the pace and horror is tampered by the Dunwich locals' rural accent (which is so bad that one could mistake it for speech impairment). Seriously, it kinda felt meta trying to decipher their dialog as if it was a made up language to mask plain English text, just to get a grasp of the horrors described in it; and there could be an argument to be made about the forced slow in pace making the intense parts more effective. But it ends up just being frustrating (and almost maddening), because they do a lot of the exposition once the shit hits the fan.

In conclusion, The Dunwich Horror is an effective horror story hindered by the lousy transcription of rural accent.

Score: Incomplete Necronomicon / 5 (real score: 3.5/5)

 

[BrawlMan]

Currently reading Lord of Light . It's basically Asura's Wrath, if it were a novel and is more Hindu influenced than Buddha themed, thought the latter is in the story too.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Dunwich Horror (1929) by H. P. Lovecraft

Unfortunately the pace and horror is tampered by the Dunwich locals' rural accent (which is so bad that one could mistake it for speech impairment). Seriously, it kinda felt meta trying to decipher their dialog as if it was a made up language to mask plain English text, just to get a grasp of the horrors described in it;

The irony being that H.P. himself was often very critical of the kind of forced, stilted dialect-to-prose dialogue other weird authors would employ for the sake of authenticity, such as "the sort of pseudo-archaic 18th century English" used by W.H. Hodgson.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Just finished Plus-Sized Elf V1. It was entertaining enough and I'll try the 2nd issue for sure when it comes out. I'm actually curious if the stretches and exercises detailed in it are worth a damn though.

3.5/5 for the first issue.

 

[Hawki]

Book of Adria: A Diablo Bestiary (3/5)

...well this was a letdown.

There isn't too much to say about this book, because at the end of the day, there isn't really too much to cover. Book of Cain and Book of Tyrael both had clear reasons for existing - the former was primarily a summarized narrative of the lore of the Diablo universe, from its origins to the aftermath of Diablo II. Book of Tyrael partly serves as an interquel between D3 and Reaper of Souls, but does dedicate a lot of its time to worldbuilding, such as the timeline, factions, and characters. Book of Adria however? Well, it's got "stuff" in it, but it's treading a lot of old ground. Despite its namesake, it's not really some kind of master bestiary, as it only touches of some of the creatures in D3. Touches on the Great Evils and Angiris Council as well, but doesn't really tell us that much new. And while it gives us insight into Adria, we're not really getting any new revelations that previous games or books didn't provide. I mean, there is some new stuff, such as the months of the Anno Kehjistani, but it lacks the 'oomph' of previous volumes.

Art remains good as usual, but it does feel a bit toned down in places. The Cain/Tyrael books held no punches in its depictions of demons and the like, but here? Not so much.

 

[Callate]

Most of the reading I'm doing these days is between the periodicals that roll through my e-book app (The Atlantic, Edge, Cook's Illustrated) and reading the Artemis Fowl YA series to my daughter.

The Atlantic makes more of an effort to offer politically diverse articles than many news outlets, having published work from both Henry Kissinger and Ta-Nehisi Coates in the last year. I appreciate the opportunity to be exposed to different points of view, these days, even if some of the individual work makes me want to attack the articles with a red pen.

Edge remains one of the more thoughtful video game magazines out there, though I wish they could overcome their tendency to do things like spend half an article complaining about Soul Calibur costumes and find new ways to crowbar the word "bespoke" into their prose.

Cook's Illustrated recently took on a new managing editor, and the last couple of things I made from their recipes were... sadly... not great. I'm hoping this isn't a trend. Older CI recipes remain in heavy rotation in my household, especially some of the roasted vegetable recipes. (You wouldn't think cauliflower could be that good.)

Artemis Fowl... Eh. It's got some interesting ideas, and I appreciate that it's trying to have its characters evolve and change over the course of the stories. But having read through the entire series now in relatively quick succession (arguably not the best way to make any reader more forgiving), certain approaches and weaknesses in the writing become rather glaringly apparent. A female counterpart to the hero is introduced, seemingly as a potential love interest, and as quickly brushed offstage and never mentioned again, seemingly to be replaced with a rather cringe-inducing romantic tension between the hero and a character who a) has an enormous age difference with the hero and b) is of a different species. A high-powered magical character is brought in and the series subsequently has to bend over backwards not to make them the skeleton key that solves every problem. Time travel works in ways that are inconsistent and unlikely, yet serve to drive significant portions of plot. The dwarves are suddenly show to have never-before-mentioned powers when it's handy (and otherwise serve largely to provide a never-ending stream of fart jokes).

For all that, I like many of the characters, especially Butler, who seems like he could front a whole series of his own (perhaps one without the restrictions of a YA series published by Disney). It's one of those series that simultaneously makes you want to reach for the old "it's probably just fine for the intended audience/age range" and makes you want to chide it for not being that extra bit better that would make such excuses unnecessary. Which probably, as a whole, means it rates on the upper slope of works of the genre.

 

[Baffle]

Catcher in the Rye (so-so/10).

Holden Caulfield is basically a young Aldridge Prior the Hopeless Liar.

 

[Hawki]

Artemis Fowl... Eh. It's got some interesting ideas, and I appreciate that it's trying to have its characters evolve and change over the course of the stories. But having read through the entire series now in relatively quick succession (arguably not the best way to make any reader more forgiving), certain approaches and weaknesses in the writing become rather glaringly apparent. A female counterpart to the hero is introduced, seemingly as a potential love interest, and as quickly brushed offstage and never mentioned again, seemingly to be replaced with a rather cringe-inducing romantic tension between the hero and a character who a) has an enormous age difference with the hero and b) is of a different species. A high-powered magical character is brought in and the series subsequently has to bend over backwards not to make them the skeleton key that solves every problem. Time travel works in ways that are inconsistent and unlikely, yet serve to drive significant portions of plot. The dwarves are suddenly show to have never-before-mentioned powers when it's handy (and otherwise serve largely to provide a never-ending stream of fart jokes).

For all that, I like many of the characters, especially Butler, who seems like he could front a whole series of his own (perhaps one without the restrictions of a YA series published by Disney). It's one of those series that simultaneously makes you want to reach for the old "it's probably just fine for the intended audience/age range" and makes you want to chide it for not being that extra bit better that would make such excuses unnecessary. Which probably, as a whole, means it rates on the upper slope of works of the genre.

With Artemis Fowl, I only read as far as The Opal Deception back in the day, so a lot of the references are ones I get (e.g. ArtemisxHolly), but I can't comment on others. That said, I do get your point about the intended audience range thing. Artemis Fowl kinda straddles the border between junior fiction and YA fiction (to borrow library classifications), but unlike, say, Harry Potter, I never really got a sense of the books maturing as I read on (compare Goblet of Fire to Philosopher's Stone for instance), nor is there anything deeper. What you see is what you get. And what I got was fun, sure, but nothing more beyond that.

As for Butler though...um, not really sure about him carrying the series. Butler is defined by his relationship to Artemis and Juliet - devoted to both, follows Artemis without question. Course this is just in the context of the first four books only, but I can't imagine Butler as a protagonist of anything without significant changes to his personality.

Also, side-note, but as someone who works in libraries, it's kinda noticable how Artemis Fowl has fallen on the wayside. Stuff like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson are as popular as ever for instance, but if we're looking at the realm of JF/YA, Artemis Fowl doesn't seem to have the pull it once did. Make of that what you will.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Artemis Fowl... Eh. It's got some interesting ideas, and I appreciate that it's trying to have its characters evolve and change over the course of the stories. But having read through the entire series now in relatively quick succession (arguably not the best way to make any reader more forgiving), certain approaches and weaknesses in the writing become rather glaringly apparent. A female counterpart to the hero is introduced, seemingly as a potential love interest, and as quickly brushed offstage and never mentioned again, seemingly to be replaced with a rather cringe-inducing romantic tension between the hero and a character who a) has an enormous age difference with the hero and b) is of a different species. A high-powered magical character is brought in and the series subsequently has to bend over backwards not to make them the skeleton key that solves every problem. Time travel works in ways that are inconsistent and unlikely, yet serve to drive significant portions of plot. The dwarves are suddenly show to have never-before-mentioned powers when it's handy (and otherwise serve largely to provide a never-ending stream of fart jokes).

For all that, I like many of the characters, especially Butler, who seems like he could front a whole series of his own (perhaps one without the restrictions of a YA series published by Disney). It's one of those series that simultaneously makes you want to reach for the old "it's probably just fine for the intended audience/age range" and makes you want to chide it for not being that extra bit better that would make such excuses unnecessary. Which probably, as a whole, means it rates on the upper slope of works of the genre.

Yeah, Time Paradox was the one where I just stopped reading. With the weird relationship thing between Artemis and Holly, what I felt was the overuse of Opal Koboi, basically every time travel cliche being loaded in there and Artemis being treated as an action hero when literally every other book had stuck to him being the brain not brawn, it really felt like someone other than Colfer had written it

Also, side-note, but as someone who works in libraries, it's kinda noticable how Artemis Fowl has fallen on the wayside. Stuff like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson are as popular as ever for instance, but if we're looking at the realm of JF/YA, Artemis Fowl doesn't seem to have the pull it once did. Make of that what you will.

I mean, its getting a movie sometime soon (first trailer is on the interwebz somewhere) so maybe it'll get another boost in popularity

 

[Hawki]

I mean, its getting a movie sometime soon (first trailer is on the interwebz somewhere) so maybe it'll get another boost in popularity

Yeah, I saw it. Can't say I'm overly enthused. As its own thing, it doesn't look that interesting. As an adaptation...well, this is subjective, but when a film adaptation is released nearly 20 years after the release of the book it was based on, you tend to have a pretty strong image of said book's characters and settings, and it doesn't gel. I mean, I like the look of Haven, but the sight of Artemis wielding a gun...bleh.

Also not counting on a revival in interest. I mean, I wouldn't mind it happening, but the book doesn't have that much clout these days, and the movie itself doesn't look too enticing.

 

[Callate]

As for Butler though...um, not really sure about him carrying the series. Butler is defined by his relationship to Artemis and Juliet - devoted to both, follows Artemis without question. Course this is just in the context of the first four books only, but I can't imagine Butler as a protagonist of anything without significant changes to his personality.

Also, side-note, but as someone who works in libraries, it's kinda noticable how Artemis Fowl has fallen on the wayside. Stuff like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson are as popular as ever for instance, but if we're looking at the realm of JF/YA, Artemis Fowl doesn't seem to have the pull it once did. Make of that what you will.

Butler's actions are mostly defined by his relationship to Artemis and Juliet, but he has enough implied backstory to make me wonder what he would get up to if he wasn't bodyguarding the former or hovering over the latter. He's abandoned his real name, he's apparently seen action in numerous militarily-sticky world hotspots, he has connections in both the underworld and the bodyguard community, he's completed a course of intense combat training that apparently eliminates or kills a significant number of people who enter it. He's outlined by shadows that could be fascinating to fill in. He's kind of Alfred if Alfred was actually Batman. I don't necessarily think he should carry the series (as in, another Artemis Fowl series), but I could imagine an interesting series with him front and center.

...But that's entirely a mental exercise. I don't actually envision in happening, and as I said, I think to reach it's full potential it would have to squirm out from under the constraints of Disney-published youth fiction.

 

[Hawki]

I don't necessarily think he should carry the series (as in, another Artemis Fowl series),

Doesn't the series end with the world reduced to a technological dark age?

I mean, I'm guessing that's the kind of world Butler would thrive in.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Been awhile since I was deep in my books. I thought it was time to rectify that lapse.

Since the movies have been playing on cable quite a bit, I went back and re-read the Lord of the Rings books. After having read them again, I can definitely say two things. 1) The movies did an excellent job of keeping to the spirit of the books even when they made fairly large changes to some of the scenes and characters. And 2) that most of the changes were actually needed. While I love the books, Tolkien has some limitations as a writer and the books have a great deal that works relatively well in the written medium but that would fall flat in a visual one. Still love the stories, though.

Skookum: An Oregon Pioneer Family's History and Lore by Shannon Applegate [1988] A lovely find in my local used-book store, this work is a family tribute by the author for her own family's history from their arrival in Oregon back in 1843 to the present day. Apparently, the word "skookum" is a Yoncolla Amerindian word meaning something akin to "trusted friend" and was applied to the family when they moved into the area and befriended to locals. It was a friendship that lasted generations. While Applegate tends toward dramatizing events in order to draw in the reader, I didn't mind the writing style. If nothing else, it highlighted the passion she held for her own family's history and I can respect that.

The Politics of Piracy: Crime and Civil Disobedience in Colonial America by Douglass R. Burgess, Jr. [2014] The British Empire grew out of a number of factors, one of which was the extensive use of piracy as a weapon of war and defense. However, what happens when the Empire needs to put that particular weapon away but the overseas possessions/colonies still want to use it? Burgess dives into that dilemma and reveals a particularly interesting work on the realpolitik of the late 1600s and early 1700s, the limitations of governance made by distance and the vagaries of the circumstances as the Empire and colonies evolved in their own particular trajectories. I highly recommend this one for anyone who has any interest in pirates or the time period. Fascinating stuff.