PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

What I Read In January 2013

The Chronicles Of The Imaginatium Geographica 2 The Search For The Red Dragon by James K Owen. Nine years have past since the last book and the trio of JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Charles Williams have settled back into their normal lives at the institutions of higher learning they frequent. The granddaughter of Peter Pan, Laura Glue, comes calling and that takes them on a new adventure. I liked Laura Glue. You say her name as one word. There's more trouble in the Archipeligo. Someone is stealing the dragon ships and Peter Pan is being tortured by the villain. The trio returns to the Archipeligo and Richard Burton (not the actor) and HG Wells get involved. There's plenty of running around in a fairly well told story with some interesting places to visit and people to see. It's illustrated but I'm no fan of the illustrations by the author. I do want to find out what happens in the next books and there are 6 out so far with a 7th due in November. I've just added the rest of the series to my library queue. Once I get through some of the other books I'm reading now I'll find out what happens next.    

Murder At Midnight by Avi is the prequel to Midnight Magic. It sets up the relationship between Fabrizio and Magnus that featured in Midnight Magic. Fabrizio was an orphan and he's just come to live at Magnus's house when the plot to kill the King comes to a head. Magnus is a stage magician in a country where real magic is banned by the king. An unkown villain has framed Magnus in an elaborate plot involving a printing press and magic. Since the story is set hundreds of years ago in Italy the printing press is almost unknown. Fabrizio pulls together all the knowledge he has and all the courage he can muster to help save his new master from the noose. Part of it is his own motivated self interest. He's honest in his narration that he'd be back in the street, along with his master's wife, if Magnus was convicted. Fabrizio's other motivation is his love for his new mother figure, Mrs Magnus. She treats him well and she's responsible for his being there in the house. Magnus only reluctantly tries to teach the boy at first. The story eventually cements their friendship and all that bladdy-blah suff. I had read Midnight Magic, which came out in 1999, a while back and liked it but was waffling on keeping it. When I saw the 2009 prequel, and it's neat looking cover, marked down to 2 bucks, I picked it up. It's was a good quick read with a well written story. I have liked most of the Avi fantasy books I have read but I'm not much interested in reading a lot of his other titles. Now I'm thinking I'll keep the pair of them and re-read them again down the road. Then I can decide if I need to keep them.

   

Icefire & Firestar by Chris D'Lacey are a couple of books that have been sitting around for a while. I got the first three books of the series ages ago. I read book 1, The Fire Within, and thought it was so-so. I still had the two books that followed and I wasn't too eager to read them. Some years go by and I figured I'd plow through those two books and put them on the discard heap. I did that. They weren't much to my liking either.

The Books Of Umber 1 Happenstance Found by PW Catanese was highly entertaining. PW is the author of several books that retell fairy tales. The Eye of the Warlock, The Thief and the Beanstalk, The Mirror’s Tale and The Riddle of the Gnome were all pretty entertaining. I didn't have a copy of The Brave Apprentice so I just ordered one. Since I liked those so much I had hopes that this new original story would be fun or interesting to read. It was. Happenstance is a young teen who wakes up in a strange place without any memory of what happened to him before he woke up. Along with Hap we learn about the world he now inhabits, the magical powers that he has and the problems that he faces. Along with Hap's shitload of problems there are plenty of characters to meet, some of whom are helpful, some of whom are not. There's plenty of interesting places to go and stuff to hear about once you get there. There are some good amount of danger and people die pretty regularly. The world is kind of medieval and the man who rescued Hap at the start of the book is leading a cultural and industrial revolution with his new ideas in engineering, music and metallurgy. Turns out he's not from around there. It moved briskly and I was glad to read it. I read the 2nd book in February and have been waiting for the third book to show up used. It hasn't so I bit the bullet and ordered a new copy over at Amazon. The paperback was only $6.29 and that and the copy of The Brave Apprentice and a dvd put me over the $25 limit for free shipping. It'll get put on the top of the reading list when it arrives, it I can reach the top, it's getting pretty high.

What I Read In December 2012

Not too many titles last December. Not sure why. Too much tv? I don't know.

 

Midnighters 1 - The Secret Hour by Scott Westerfield is about a teen girl that finds out that she can enter a secret world for an hour at midnight. It seems to be a localized thing, she just moved to the town. She meets several other people who can do the same thing. There are creatures that live in that time and space who have become more vicious than normal. There's stuff to read about and it's not too badly written but I don't think I would buy anymore. I am contemplating putting them on my library list and this post will remind me of that thought. There are several series that I might want to keep up with but don't want to buy.

Saint Overboard by Leslie Charteris is a novel length story featuring my favorite highwayman SimonTemplar. He's chilling on his yacht in the middle of the night when he hears some gunfire near by. A woman swims by and Simon, ever the gracious host, invites her on board. He hides her from Kurt Vogel and his henchmen. She tells Simon she's a Private Eye investigating sunken treasure that has disappeared. Of course Simon likes treaure and he jumps right into the story. It was a pretty good story. I breezed through it pretty quickly. I'll have to go look in the attic and see if there are any up there I might want to re-read. I know I have a couple of dozen Saint books, I'm just not sure where they are. I keep moving stuff up there around.

 

Six Cult Films From The Sixties by I B Melchoir is pretty entertaining. There isn't much too it, lots of pictures and short essays about the six films he worked on: The Angry Red Planet, The Time Travelers, Reptilicus, Journey To The Seventh Planet, Robinson Crusoe On Mars, Planet Of The Vampires. He wrote and directed the first two and wrote scripts for the all the rest. All are pretty entertaining though some are much better than others. It was another quick read. Like I said there weren't a lot of words. 

Here, There Be Dragons by James Owen is the first of a series of books in The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica. Three men are tossed into a magical world where all the places in fiction exist. They are given the job of guarding the magical book of maps that show where everything is. They don't do that great a job at it at first and there's hell to pay. People die, worlds are in danger, you know. They do come out butter side up and soon as you know it there's a sequel. It's well enough written, the characters are mostly interesting, the places they go are fun. I liked it enough to want to read some more. I didn't care for Owen's illustrations very much, though I do like the cover. Owen's drew a comic, Starchild, that I remember seeing in the comic shop but never liked enough to read.

Fablehaven 2 - Rise Of The Evening Star by Brandom Mull is the second of the series. Kendra and Seth are back at home. A kobold attacks and they get taken to Fablehaven by Victoria, a friend of their grandparents. The Society of the Evening Star is acting up and trying to break into Fablehaven for something. That starts a big fight and more people come to fight with the Fablehaven folk. The magical creatures on the secret preserve aren't too much involved. Kendra learns more about her magical powers and Seth acts like an ass. I know he's written to be a young headstrong kid who is breaking the rules for good reason but he's such a dick about it I just don't care that much for him. There are plenty of other interesting creatures and characters to keep me mostly interested. I have the third book and I'll get to that before too long.

Heck - Where Bad Kids Go by Dale E Basye was pretty entertaining. The two kids on the cover die in an explosion in their mall and they go to Heck. They are brother and sister and totally unalike as can be. Milton is nerdy and afraid. Marlo is fearless and completely selfish. She'll do anything she wants at anytime. It was that attitude, and her stealing, that got them into Limbo, the first cicle of Heck. It's where souls are judged and passed along to the other circles of Heck. Milton is totally bummed out that he, a normally good kid, is here with his sister. They have some adventures and I enjoyed their tour in the after world. I plan to put the rest of the series on my library list.

What I Read In November 2012

Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog by Ysabeau S Wilce is a novel about 13 year old girl who lives in a place not quite like our world. Her mother is a famous General who works for the Warlord. Flora is expected to go off to military school and become a soldier like the rest of her family but it's something she just doesn't want to do. They live in a magical house that has had better days. It's magical butler isn't around to keep the 11,000 rooms in order. There's a back story there. Flora finds him and gets him back to work at a cost to her health. Her other actions lead her to break the law to save the Dainty Pirate from the gallows. She could have been hung if she got caught. It all turns out mostly ok when it gets done. I didn't care as much for the style of the writing but I liked the characters and the story. I added the 2nd and 3rd books in the series to my library queue. they be coming some day.

The Wizard, The Witch & Two Girls From Jersey by Lisa Papdemetriou is about 2 girls from Jersey. They have a book report to do and both need a copy of the book. They fight over the only copy in the store and magically wind up in the book. Heather is at the top of the school food chain and Veronica is the bookish type. Heather accidentally kills the princess in the book and she has to fill in for the character as the story plays out. The two girls get to be friends and grow up a lot during their adventures. It was a pretty good read, not great , but entertaining. Both this and the previous book were in the clearance section of HPB and they cost less than a couple bucks each. I put them on the keep pile and will hold off getting rid of them.

   

Hellboy Animated - The Black Wedding / The Judgement Bell / The Menangerie are the 3 volumes that came out when they were trying to get the Hellboy cartoon off the ground. They did a couple of short features for some network but never got a series going. None of the material in the books is by Mike Mignola. The stories are a bit tamed down when compared to the regular comics. Still they were ok and I'll save them to read again. There would be good to have digital, so I didn't need to store hard copies in a box. Less filled boxes in my house, that's a good goal, somehow I keep failing.

 

Hellboy 8 - Darkness Calls collects the 6 issue mini-series that was written by Mike Mignola and drawn by Duncan Fegredo. It was a good story and pretty much the start of Mignola drawing less and less of the comic. I started to grow less and less interested in the character at that time.

Creepy  Presents Richard Corben collects the stories that Corben did for Creepy. It doesn't collect the three stories he did for Eerie, which is a shame. The stories in the Creepy collection are of various levels of quality, in story telling, art and printing. A lot of the Corben art is really great. I really liked his style and I have continued to pick up his projects over the years. Some guy took me to his house back in the 70's and I had a nice time. I got to see Neverwhere and another short he had made. Some artwork and the Corben studio. He used a method of coloring his own stories and not all the printers got it. Some of the color reproductions in Creepy just weren't that great. In the collecion several of the stories are reproduced from copies of the printed magazine, rather than the original artwork. It's nice to have a collection of this material, it's too bad it doens't look better. Lucky for me it was only 8 bucks at HPB after using my 50% off coupon. Nice, huh! I signed up to get their 20-50% Coupons a few times a year and use them most of the time.

   

The Clockwork Three by Matthew J Kirby is about three kids who live in a port town in a time like late 19th century. One boy is a poor street performer, the other boy is an apprentice clock maker and the girl a maid at a hotel. They doesn't know each other when the story starts but their meeting is the catalyst to a better life for more than just the three of them. I really liked this book. There are so many interesting places and mysteries. Mean cahracters and wonderfully nice characters. A book that is a delight to read. The cover first caught my eye and I was glad it did. Definitely a keeper and one I would recommend over nearly all the books this month.

Chronicles Of The Red King 2 - The Stones of Ravenglass by Jenny Nimmo would be at the top of the list of books this month. It's part two of the new series about the early life of the Red King. I can only say good things about Jenny Nimmo's writing and story telling abilities. Read it. There aren't many better. More camel.

What I Read In October 2012

I need to catch my ass up with all the book posts from last year and February is nearly over. Last October I read 14 books. Four were collections of comics and two were collections of art.

   

Samuel Blink And The Forbidden Forest by Matt Haig was something I found at Half Price Books. I liked the cover and the book sounded interesting. It was. Samuel and his sister Martha go live with with their aunt Edna after their parents die. She lives in a house on the edge of a small town in Norway. Edna's house in at the edge of a forest and Edna tells the kids to stay out ot the woods. Uncle Henrik disappeared there 10 years ago. Magical things happen before Martha enters the forest, Samuel follows,  they find out what happened to their Uncle. It turns out to be a pretty good story and well told. I'm keeping it.

Walt Kelly's Our Gang 3 & 4 are the last two of the series that Frantagraphics has, so far, failed to finish. These 2 volumes collects the stories that appeared from 1945 to 1947. The 4th collection came out May 2010 and so far no new ones and there's nothing on the Frantragraphics website. It was supposed to be part of a 7 volume set. Still a good couple of books for the Kelly fan and I'm glad to have them especially since I got the 15 dollar books for a ten spot each. The unfinished set thing seems to have happened to me before. Several times. You start buying the reprints of some series and it stops being issued before they finish the series. It's always a risk, if it isn't all released already. Mind you there aren't any shortages of finished sets. It would be nice if they finished the Our Gang series though.

   

The King Fisher Treasury Of Monster Stories chosen by Jane Oliver was a nice little collection of short stories about monsters. I got it in the clearance section at HPB for about a buck. It was a quick read and well worth it.

The Troll Witch And Others - Hellboy 7 by Mike Mignola collects several mini-series and one shot comics. The Hydra and the Lion, The Troll Witch, Dr. Carp's Experiment, The Ghoul, The Vampire of Prague and Makoma. The first 4 stories were illustrated by Mignola and were first published in the 4 The Dark Horse Books of... that were published between 2003 and 2006. The Vampire Of Prague was illustrated by P Craig Russell and Makoma was illustrated by Richard Corben. A nice collection of stories. Other people illustrating Mignola stories would get more common place as time past.

Hellboy Junior is a collection of Hellboy parody comics that were originally published as a couple of single issue comics. There are some pretty silly things in there and I enjoyed reading it. It's only 64 pages so it's barely a book but there you go.

   

How To Cheat A Dragon's Curse - Hiccup 4 by Cressida Cowell is another story with Hiccup the Viking and all the other Viking kids. There's some villians and a great Pirate girl. A still enjoyable series. I keep looking for the later volumes but so far no luck.

The Entropy Effect by Vonda McIntyre was a pretty poor book. Not a keeper. Wish I hadn't spent that 50 cents on it.

Heroes Of The Valley by Jonathan Stroud on the other hand was a much better book. A young teen guy lives in a medieval type society in a valley that is their whole world. Really, all the people live in this huge valley and they never travel anywhere and no one ever comes to visit them. They never travel past ihe ridges that surround the valley. There are legends of monsters. They don't go there. There's murder and our hero is right in the thick of it. There was usually something happening of interest. I'll keep this one but not the next.

Buried Fire by Jonathan Stroud just wasn't of interest to me. I did read it and then put it on the going away from here stack. I would recommend Stroud's later Bartimaeus Trilogy. Those were really much better in every way.

 

The Art Of Harvey Kurtzman by Dennis Kitchen and Paul Buhle is a nice big book I got for about 8 bucks at Half Price Books with a 50% off coupon. It's still 45 bucks on Amazon. It's a nice large book with plenty of art to look at and a fairly nice overview of Harvey's life and career. He was sure talented but he had a hard time with his career, at least until he started doing Little Annie Fanny for Playboy. It's pretty entertaining.

Norman Saunders by David Saunders is another huge art book with lots of color painting by Saunders. It too was cheap, 10 smackers, at HPB. Saunders was a pulp guy who painted lots of magazine covers and paperbacks. He later worked at Topps painting the images for the Mars Attacks cards and Wacky Packages stickers. His son wrote the book and he puts in lots of family pictures and history. Nice. 

 

Star Trek - The Vulcan Academy Murders by Jean Lorrah was a much better Star Trek book than the one I had tackled before. It was well worth the 50 cents I paid for it. Kirk, McCoy and Spock are on Vulcan. There's murder at the VA. Kirk sets out to solve the crime. It's harder on Vulcan. They are so logical they don't understand why anyone would murder. Some people are doopy, huh. It was one of the better ST books that I read. I didn't keep it but that's ok.

FableHaven 1 by Brandon Mull is the first of a series of 5 novels. Seth and Kendra are a 10 and 16. They go visit their grandparents and discover that there's one of those secret universe's out there. Lucky for them, it's one that will kill them. The grandparents are the caretakers at a large, super secret preserve that is home to lot of mythical creatures. It's a place for them to be hidden from the humans. Some of the creatures are fairly harmless and some would kill you for a bit of amusement. There are even some in magical prisons on the preserve. Seth is a bit of a jerk who keeps butting into things. His sister is more level headed. The book was fairly good and I thought I would like to read the rest.

Fourteen books. Not a bad month with some ok reads.

What I Read In September 2012

Could be a record, 18 titles for the month, I'm to lazy to go research it so I'm going to say it is. Of course a lot of them are comic titles and while they are quicker to read I still count them as books.

   

The Chained Coffin And Others by Mike Mignola is the 3rd Hellboy TPB. It was published in 1998. Wow, 15 years ago. The book collects a bunch of short stories into one volume. It's a good collection with some really nice MM art. A lot of the stories are kind of slight but the art more than makes up for it.

Ghostsitters - Arminta Spookie 5 by Angie Sage is another entertaining visit with Arminta and her family. Mom and Dad are off to Transylvania and Arminta's cousin comes to babysit. She's brought two annoying ghost teens with her. Nothing worse than teen ghosts. Sage also has been writting the Septimus Heap series. I like those a bit better than the Arminta books but they are more serious and much larger books for slightly older readers. I'll certainly save her books for re-reading in the future.

The Right Hand Of Doom by Mike Mignola is the 4th Hellboy TPB. It collects more short pieces from various comics. More good art, etc. I'm already sold on these comics but I know they aren't going to appeal to everyone.

   

The Price Of The Phoenix by Sandra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath was a Star Trek book that I picked up at DreamHaven for 50 cents. It was a mistake and a total waste of a half a buck. I could have thrown that money in the street and been better off. The book is a total piece of crap. I could barely finish it but I held out to the bitter end. Those two women are totally incapable of writing a novel. I wouldn't even take it to a used store. I just burned it in the alley.

Chronicles Of The red King - the Secret Kingdom by Jenny Nimmo is the first of a new series. This is the backstory of the Red King in the Charlie Bone series. I found it to be very entertaining. It's a fantasy set in a fantastic past with a young boy from Africa who never seems to age. He flies and travels around with his sister and a camel who is part of the family. It's a mixture of sadness, joy and beauty. I've really like Jenny Nimmo's books and would recommend any of them. At least to someone who was inclined to young adult fantasy or a good well told story. 

Herge And Tintin Reporters by Phillip Goddin is a nice big, well illustrated hardcover. It was kind of so-so. There were plenty of nice pics but the words were kind of dull. Maybe it was the translation. I'd keep it for the pictures.

   

Conqueror Worm by Mike Mignola is the 5th Hellboy TPB. It collects the 4 issues of the mini-series of the same name. It's packed with plenty of Nazis. Lobster Johnson appears for the first time.

Strange Places by Mike Mignola is the 6th Hellboy TPB. It collects The Third Wish and The Island. Mignolia is still doing all the story and art in these stories and I'm still enjoying them.

Mystery In Little Tokyo by Frank Bonham is a 1966 novel about a couple of kids who have to stay with their grandparents while their parents are out of town. The grandparents live in the back of a Japanese gift shop in Little Tokyo. There's a mystery and a feud. There's a fancy samurai sword at the center of the whole mystery. Danny and Carol Nomura solve the puzzle and the crime. Nice to see a kids novel set in another culture. An ok read.  

 

Key To The Treasure by Peggy Parish is about a family that moves into an old house. The title would indicate there is a treasure and reading confirms that. It was ok, nothing special. Very simple mystery that probably should have been solved before the kids got there.

An Awful Beastly Business 1 - Werewolf Versus Dragon & 2 - Sea Monsters And Other Delicacies byDavid Sinden - Mathew Morgan - Guy McDonald is a slight series of fun reads. Here's the description from Good Reads:

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Beasts (RSPCB) operates a rescue center for werewolves, dragons, fairies, giants, sea monsters, and other fantastical creatures. The RSPCB has stopped crimes against beasts, but there are still some people out there who will do anything to get their hands on one of these mythic animals . . . even if that means crossing the members of the RSPCB. In the first book, Werewolf versus Dragon, a dragon’s mangled body arrives at the RSPCB, and the Society knows that they’ve got a real monster on their hands. Ulf, a werewolf-boy, and his friends must stop the most evil beast hunter before it’s too late. The adventure continues in the second book, Sea Monsters and Other Delicacies, for Ulf and his friends, Orson the giant, Tiana the Fairy, and Dr. Fielding. A sea monster has suffered a life-threatening injury, and it looks like the evil Baron Marackai is back—and this time beasts are on the menu. Ulf must stop him again—the future of the RSPCB depends on it.

The first two were cheap at Half Price books. I liked them, they are quick reads and entertaining enough. I would pick up more in the , so far, 7 book series. 

   

Bran Hambric - the Specter Key by Kaleb Nation is the 2nd book in the series. We learn more about Bran and the world of magic he comes from. It's a bit dark and I found myself skimming. I doubt I will re-read these. I still have the two books but i don't think I'll keep them. I'd try another if I can find it cheap.

Hellboy - Weird Tales Volume 1 & 2 collect the comic book series of the same name. The stories are all Hellboy related but they're written and drawn by other artists. It's a nice enough bunch of horror stories. Some are much better than others. Sometimes I don't like the art very much.

   

Ulysses Moore - The Door To Time by Pier Domenico Baccalario is the first of 12 novels. Five of them have been translated into English and published by Scholastic. I found the first one cheap at HPB and thought it could be ok. It was. Some kids move into a mansion with a strange past. That history leads the kids to the door with four keyholes. Now they have to find the keys. I enjoyed it well enough to keep an eye out for future books.

Falcon Quinn And The Black Mirror by Jennifer Finny Boylan is about a kid who gets on the school bus with a couple of other kids. The bus drives out of their old lives and dumps them off at the Academy For Monsters. It's a place that will try to help kid monsters cover up their previously unknown monster side so they hide among the humans and not be rounded up for slaughter. It's sort of funny and sort of entertaining. Probably not a keeper. I did like the cover. It was on clearance at HPB during one of their frequent 20% off sales so it wasn't to costly.

Ignatius MacFarland: Frequenaut! by Paul Feig is a humourous novel about a kid who builds a rocket ship. Instead of space he winds up in a different dimension. One run by his old math teacher who's a creepy dictatior. It's pretty silly and a fun read. Paul Feig is a tv and film writer and director. He created Freaks and Geeks.

Not a bad bunch of stuff for the month. Some I'll keep and some will go away. Too bad I don't like e-books better. They would take up less space. I'm already collecting various books from the internet for the future but most of them are older public domain titles. Someday I just won't want to hold a book. I better be ready.

What I Read In August 2012

 

The Fairy's Return And Other Princess Tales by Gail Carson Levine is a collection of the short fractured fairy tales that were originally published 1999 to 2002. I had read some of them and found they were entertaining and fun to read. I wish I had found this 6 in 1 collection before I bought 3 or 4 of the small books. Now I have to get rid of those. I'd easily recommend these to most anyone who likes a fun short story. I'd re-read them down the road.

Beauty by Robin McKinley is another retold fairy tale. Not as funny as the previous volume but still entertaining. It's a good retelling of Beauty And The Beast, if you hadn't guessed that. Another one that is a keeper. I'd recommend it.

How To Train Your Dragon 1 by Cressida Cowell is the first of the series. I found it and #2 How To Be A Pirate and #3 How To Speak Dragonease at the HPB in St Paul for under 2 bucks each. While fun they are a bit the same and very slight. Lots of pictures but sadly I didn't like the art that much. The characters are mostly entertaining and occasionally the bad guy gets a good punishment. There are plenty of jokes and bodily function gags. There are plenty of dragons too. If I can find the rest cheap I'd read them too. I'd probably re-read these once again in a few years then dump them.

  

Mr Pinkerton And The Old Angel by David Frome was something that I picked up at DreamHaven for 50 cents. I know I had read a Mr Pinkerton book some years ago. I didn't remember what a waste of a character he is. He's pretty useless and I started skimming rather than read what other assinine thing he'd done. I liked the cover but that's about it.

The Case Of The Negligent Nymph by Earl Stanley Gardner is another one that I got for 50 cents. I've never been a big Perry Mason fan but I have read 6 or 8 of them over the years. My mom read all of them but isn't interested in them anymore. I shouldn't bother but it's nice to have a change once in a while. Perry gets involved with a girl where a murder was committed. It all gets solved eventually.

 

Hellboy - Seeds Of Destruction by Mike Mignola is the first of the Hellboy collections. I just looked and it's from 1994. Wow. I didn't realise it was so long ago. The trade paperback collects the 4 part SOD story, a couple of earlier shorts and a series of pinups by other artists. The longer story tells of Hellboy and his arrival on Earth during World War 2. The Nazi's were trying to unleash ancient gods to destroy the earth. Nazis are stupid. Maybe that's why they are so popular. The story jumps to 1994 and the death of Hellboy's mentor Professor Bruttenholm. A giant frog monster got him. Hellboy killed it. Hellboy starts to investigate the murder and that leads him to Rasputin. He has fight the crazy Russian to the death. Hellboy crushes his skull. It's a pretty good story and it was written by John Bryne. Mignola was drawing the comic then and that was what attracted me to the series. I decided to haul all the comics out and read them again.

Hellboy - Wake The Devil by Mike Mignola is the 1997 trade paperback that collected the 5 part comic book that originally came out in 1996. Rasputin returns. It's hard to kill that guy. The Goddess Hecate puts in an appearance. She's a right old bitch, as is that Russian witch Baba Yaga. Plenty of other people run about, some get slaughtered and some manage to survive. There's a Nazi Cyborg in there too. Mignola wrote and drew the story. I enjoyed it. I've got a few more of the trades to read and I'll get to some of them next month, you know, back in September.

What I Read In July 2012

Somehow I got 4 months behind in blogging about the books I've been reading. Some of them have been pretty good.

Deep Trouble by Debi Gliori is the 4th book in the series. I've managed to pick all of them up at Half Price Books in the clearance section. No one else seems to want them I guess. The hardcover I picked up for a couple of bucks has a fuzzy black cover that has the words and illustration embossed in silver foil. It's rather a nice book and, like the other three previous books, I have found it fun to follow along with the Strega-Borgia family adventures. There's a demon invading the house and only the magical housekeeper can do something about it. The rest of the family is busy with their things. There's plenty of humor and yelling and activity on all the pages. The butler is sick and an evil guy comes to sub for him. The critters of the household decide to earn some extra scratch by offering themselves up as medical test subjects. That leads to plenty of death and destruction rained down on just the evil gits what need it. Things get figured out by the end of the book but there are two sequels after this one so there are plenty of loose threads still to tie up. I'm going to keep an eye out for those.

  

Harry Potter Characters In The Magic World by DK/LEGO is another of the books that DK puts out looking at the LEGO minifigs. It's filled with pictures and info but I didn't care that much for the layout. Good to get for cheap at Amazon or wait until it gets remaindered. You do get an exclusive minifig of Harry that doesn't appear in a set. It's probably not that interesting to anyone without an interest in Harry or LEGO.

Dragon Kiss by E D Baker is the 7th book in the series. A young dragon falls for the human/dragon princess daughter of the princess of the previous books. He has to go through a lot of flying around and tribulations before he can get close to the girl of his dreams. It's a fun read, we meet a lot of new characters. The whole series of books has been fun and worth reading. I'll stick it on the pile to re-read down the road.

Call For The Saint by Leslie Charteris has Simon Templer in two short novellas. The King Of The Beggars has the Saint get involved with a protection racket for beggars. The King keeps the beggars money and gives them a crappy place to live. This story was used as the basis for an episode of the Roger Moore tv series. The second story The Masked Angel has the Saint in the boxing game. The Saint's girlfriend Pat and his pal Hoppy both appear in the stories. Both stories were entertaining.

The Saint And The Happy Highwayman by Leslie Charteris is a series of short stories. I don't have the paperback that is depicted there. It's a more modern reprint with a boring cover. I really like the older paperback covers from Britian in the 1950's and 60's. Here's a list of the stories from the first edition as listed on the Wikipedia:

1 The Man Who Was Lucky - The Saint steps in to save the life of a murder witness who is marked for death by a gangster.

2 The Smart Detective - Upon returning to England from a sojourn abroad, The Saint becomes interested in a stash of emeralds owned by a sweat shop owner, not realizing an ambitious Scotland Yard detective is watching his every move.

3 The Wicked Cousin - When Simon discovers an old friend has been unfairly treated by a will, he sets out to make things right.

4 The Well-Meaning Mayor - During a visit to a small American city, Simon avenges the suicide of a police commissioner by going after the corrupt civic leader responsible. 

5 The Benevolent Burglary - Templar makes a bet with a mean-spirited art collector that his collection will be stolen within a week of a gala opening, which sets Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal after the Saint in order to prevent the crime.

6 The Star Producers - After a young woman loses $4,000 in a fake acting school scam, Templar decides to enrol. 

7 The Charitable Countess - Simon engages in a battle of wits with a less-than-charitable society figure.

8  The Mug's Game - With the aid of a pair of trick glasses, Templar turns the tables on a pair of poker cheats.

9 The Man who Liked Ants - Charteris takes The Saint into science fiction territory when Simon meets a scientist who has bred giant-sized ants in order to replace humans as the dominant species.

The book I have is missing stories 7 & 8. This sort of thing happened a lot in paperback reprints of hardcover collections. Cut a couple of stories from 3 or 4 hardcovers and you've got enough material for a new hardcover. Several of these stories were made into episodes of The Saint tv series. Most of the stories were ok but I do find I like the longer length story better. They seem like sketches not full stories. The story just gets started and it's over too quickly. I think the giant ant story is the only one of Charteris stories with any sort of SF elements.

     

The Saint's Getaway by Leslie Charteris has Simon and Pat running around with book editor Monty.  It's a pretty good story with criminals and murder and stolen diamonds. Poor Monty does pretty well for someone not used to living as a criminal on the run from cops and crooks. Simon and Pat are used to it and always manage to pull their asses out of the fire. It's the 5th full novel in the huge series. Even though I'm a pretty big fan I haven't ever bothered to collect them all. I chance on the books occasionally. If I haven't don't think I have it, and it's cheap, I usually pick them up.

The Case Of The Blonde Bonanza by Earl Stanley Gardner is a Perry Mason novel. Perry gets involved with some girl who sneaks out of an island house where there's been a murder. Oh, oh. No worry Perry will figure it out. Gardner wrote a bunch of the Perry Mason books. I've read a few and this was about average. Not something I'd bother to keep. I do plan to re-read his Donald Lam and Bertha Cool series. I liked them as a teen and when I was in my 30's I read them again. It might be time to return to that world. I wonder where they are?

The House Of The Scorpion by Nancy Farmer was probably the best thing I read this month. A little boy is being raised in an isolated house set in a giant field of poppies. He can't go out to play or talk to anyone. There's a lady who takes care of him. Turns out he's a clone of the rich and evil drug lord who's leader of a country that inhabits a strip of land between Mexico and the US. It's called Opium and you can guess what they export from there, huh. The drug lord has these clones for organ harvesting and he's mighty old and sick. Looks bad for the kid in the house. So far all the Nancy Farmer books I have read have been a cut above the herd and this one is no different. I really like The Sea Of Trolls trilogy. Farmer's still got a space on the shelves in the attic. It's pretty crowded on those shelves. Occasionally someone falls off. It's tough being a writer, huh.

A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson is a 1981 romance novel aimed at the teen to young adult set. I found 5 Brit editions of her 1980's and 90's romance novels at Half Price books and picked all of them up. The was the first that I read and it was a pretty good story. It's a historical novel, set after World War I. A young Countress flees Russia and winds up in England where she takes a job as a servant in a big country home. The servants know she's royally born but she works hard and eventually makes everyone like her because she's nice. The family in the country home is poorish and needs money. The son is going to marry a rich gal who turns out to be awful. Of course the Russian girl and the son are destined to be together. The fun is getting the hook up going. It's such a well written book that I'll be interested in reading the rest of them and I don't care much for romance novels at all.  

The Story Of Walt Disney's Motion Picture Mary Poppins - Retold by Mary Carey isn't much of a version of the original novel by P L Travers. It's short and there are some illustrations. I'm putting it with the other Disney books but I doubt that I'll ever bother to re-read it again.

Porterhouse Blue

  

Before there was the 1987 tv adaptation of Porterhouse Blue there was a 1974 Tom Sharpe book. I had become a fan of Sharpe's work in the early 1980s. I was reading a lot of humor and read pretty much all of his books through 1986, I was even getting them from England when they weren't available here int he US. He stopped writing about 1986 and didn't have another book out for 8 years. By then I had moved on and wasn't reading much humor. I haven't bothered to re-read any of his books since those days. I believe I still have a fistful of his books left up in the attic. I'm forgetful of what was purged from the collection. Someday I will find them and maybe they'll get re-read. Maybe not.

Porterhouse Blue was adapted in 1987 and I missed it if it played on PBS. I did see another Sharpe book adapted to TV from 1985 called Blott On The Landscape. It played on PBS and I recorded a vhs tape off the broadcast and that later got transfered to dvdr. I haven't watched it for 6 or 7 years. I picked up the dvd of Porterhouse Blue from the library. Acorn Media has a two disc set out in the US. It's on NetFlix, which is where I found it first, but it being at the library allowed me to delete it from my queue. The show is 4 parts that run about 50 minutes each.

There's a school in Cambridge called Porterhouse that has a dying Master. He's supposed to pick his successor and he picks Ian Richardson who was a student along time ago. All everyone remember is they didn't like him very much and that he was the son of a butcher. A lot of the characters put a great store in the class system and I'm not talking about schooling. Ian comes to the college with his wife and they turn the place upside down with modern ideas like allowing women students and getting rid of the expensve dining room. Turns out the school is broke and it's biggest cash cow are the rich parents who buy degrees for their troublesome sons. Strictly bad form but the school needs the money for their excessive lifestyle. David Jason plays Skullion, the schools head porter, and he's one to stick to tradition. He's been at the school for 45 years and hope to die there. The excessive traditions of the school must go says the new Master and the fight is on. There are some other plot lines, like one concerning a sexually frustrated student, who's urges lead to him blowing up his room, himself, the cleaning lady who stirred those urges, and the bell tower. It was a slow moving program and not nearly as funny as I remember the novel. It was entertaining enough for the most part but I liked BOTL better. I don't know that I need to watch it again so it's not something that I would plan to purchase. Currently it's 28 bucks on Amazon. That's money I'm saving for some other crap.

What I Read In June 2012

   

The Night Stalker by Jeff Rice is the novel that started Carl Kolchak on his way. I got a copy at DreamHaven for a 80 cents, plus tax, and read it. It's ok, nothing great but entertaining enough for a quick read. It was optioned by the studio before the book sold and it didn't actually get published until after the 1971 pilot movie and it's 1973 sequel had aired. Agent Rick Ray thought the book would make a great movie and he sure was right. I enjoy the movie a whole lot more. There's a sequel, by Rice from Richard Mathson's screenplay, which also came out in 1974. The two books were published by Moonstone in one volume in 2010. Carl is a reporter in Las Vegas and he comes across a series of murders, all young woman, all drained of blood. As the bodies start to pile up the clues point to a vampire and Carl just can't get anyone to believe him. Eventually he tracks the vampire to his coffin and dispatches him. That doesn't go over to well with the authorities and Carl moves to Portland for the sequel.

Walt Disney Kidnapped adapted by Gaylord Dubois from the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. I picked this up for a couple of bucks to add to the Disney collection. I read it and it's a brief, 68 page, version of the book. You can read the Stevenson book at Project Gutenberg. It's a fairly good yarn with a kid, David Balfour, who's cheated out of his inheritance by a scummy uncle. David gets his own back when he returns years later to claim what's his. The book has been made into severalfilms and in 1960 Disney took a whack at it with James McArther as David Balfour. It was an entertaining movie and Disney, always interested in multiple levels of marketing, produced a book for kids and a copy found it's way into my hands 50 years later.

Nomads Of The North by James Oliver Curwood adapted by Gaylord Dubois is another Disney book produced to tie into the Disney movie Nikki, Wild Dog Of The North. It's another short quick read that barely counts as a book. Curwood wrote the novel in 1919 and it was made into a silent film in 1920. The original has mounties and huskies and murder with a bit of romance. The Disney movie has that bear and the dog for the most part. Not something I would ever read again.  

   

Tonka - Based on Comanche by David Appel - Adapted by Elizabeth Beecher is another of the same sort of book as the last couple. It's story about a horse that survived the battle of Little Big Horn. It's kind of dull. 

Tarzan And The City Of Gold by Edgar Rice Burroughs - Authorized Abridged Edition is the Whitman version of the real novel. Tarzan helps a guy who has been kidnapped by bad natives escape and they travel to the City Of Ivory. Then Tarzan is kidnapped by the queen of the City of Gold. He'll get out of that soon enough. There's plenty of books to go yet. There's lots of slaughtering in the original that just isn't there in the Whitman book. Better to read the original. I picked up the Whitman book for the cover and to read. I like their line of kids books. I read a lot of them as a kid and it's fun to read them again now. 

Lassie Treasure Hunter by Charles S Strong is another of the Whitman books. They did a whole series of Lassie books. Lassie nearly foils a bank robbery and she gets stuck in the robber's stolen car. The scummier of the two robbers pushes the car into the lake to drown her. Harsh. She's got some payback coming now, huh. Timmy and his pal Boomer find some Indian artifacts on the family farm and a man from the Smithsonian comes to look them over. It's all tied to the bank robbery and Timmy and Boomer get to close to the bad guys and they get sealed in a cave. Lassie has to save them and catch the crooks while the human's bumble around a few paw prints behind. It's not a great read, kind of slow, with so so writing. It was less than a couple of bucks so not the worst buy I've ever had. That would be China Meiville. 

     

Terror Trail - Bomba The Jungle Boy 6 by Roy Rockwood continues Bomba's search for his past. His parents were killed when he was young and a kindly old man raised him the best he could. He died too. So Bomba is pretty much on his own. He has a village he lives in and while he's on the way back there he has some troubles. He travels with a young black guy who's life Bomba saved. They help each other out. There's plenty of violence and action. Bomba even gets to ride in an airplane. The story is set in the jungles of South America. The books are fairly well written but Rockwood spends too much time having Bomba think he's got a better soul than the black guys. His soul is awake and the soul of the black man is asleep. Bomba still treats nice people well, no matter their skin tone, and he's equally loyal to the guy he travels with but he gets really excited to see another white man. I have mixed feelings about these books. I like them for their place in time and their place in the history of fiction but I don't care for the racism. Not all books of the time are like that, sometimes they just tell a good story. I might not care for their attitudes at times but it's good to read books like this, and see old movies, to give us a better idea of how far we've managed to move away from that sort of thinking. I wouldn't recommend them and I wouldn't pay more than the couple of bucks that I paid for this one for any others I come across. I haven't decided if I'm going to keep them yet. I just can't see re-reading them and I suspect down the road when I want to get rid of more stuff they will go. You can oly keep so many curiosities.

The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander McCall Smith has Mma Ramotswe and and her assistant Mma Makutsi travel into the country side looking for a guide who inherited some cash in a will. Mma Makutsi's fiance Phuti Radiphuti gets hurt very badly. The accident brings Mma Makutsi into close contact with Phuti's possessive aunt. An easy a story line to slip back into. I enjoy them but I usually wait a while before picking the latest book. That way I can always find them for 4-5 bucks at places like Half Price Books. They usually are well stocked. It's still a fairly popular series that you can find cheap on ebay too. That's why I always like to wait. The paperback list at 15 bucks each and this is number 11. That's a big investment for someone who just discovered the series.

Erec Rex - The Search For The Truth by Kaza Kingsley is the third book in the series. Eric learns more about his past while he takes care of the 3rd and 4th quests. There's plenty of villians and some good pals to help out. The writing works well enough, there's some humor, and the book reads pretty quickly. The kids aren't too annoying and I'm still curious to see what happens to them. I'm not that curious that I can't wait for the 4th book to hit the used bookstores.

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith is the 12th book in the series that I've read. There's another out in hardcover that I'm waiting to get cheap. Mma Ramotswe sees her old white van and wishes she hadn't sold it. There's a difficult case that starts with two murdered and mutilated cows. Looks like apprentice mechanic Charlie has knocked a girl up and he's run away. Mma Makutsi ruins her new and pricey wedding shoes. That Phuti Radiphuti is really a prince amongst men, Mma Makutsi is kind of annoying. I'll always recommend this series and after 12 books it's still holding up fairly well.

The Kennel Murder Case

The Kennel Murder Case started life in 1933 as a book by S S Van Dine. I read it back in the early 70's and have no memory of it. I never kept a copy when I purged books before I moved to Minneapolis and never picked up another to read again. You can read it for free on Project Gutenberg Australia. I read on the Wikipedia that the Vance character is an annoying guy with affectations and the books were seen as dated just a few years later. The movie Vance isn't that bad. Several people played him in 15 Vance films that were made. Most you can find on the Internet one place or another as well as on tv and dvd.

That same year The Kennel Murder Case came out Michael Curtiz directed the film version. Curtiz started directing in 1917 and he would go on to direct a lot of great movies until his death in 1962. TKMC stars William Powell as Philo Vance. Powell is another guy who had a nice long career in films and a nice bunch of rolls to play. He played Vance in three previous films and soon after this film he went on to one of his more famous rolls, Nick Charles in the Thin Man series. Vance has entered his terrier dog in a dog show. Archer Coe is a rival dog owner who winds up dead the next day. It looks like suicide but Vance isn't so sure. The coroner finds that a stab wound killed Coe, not the gun shot wound. The people around Archer Coe had plenty of motive to kill him. Coe's brother winds up dead, stuffed into a closet. So he's no longer a suspect. There's some running about but it's more of a talky picture. It's got a pretty good mystery, the film is well made, the story well told. Worth checking out. This is one of those 720p films that were posted recently. It looks a bit fuzzy but better than the one they had posted before.