I've been a slacker for the last while, mostly playing with LEGO. I have sorted through a couple of hundred sets. I still been readin', just not so much writin'. I'll try to keep this long winded as possible. I figure to work on it over the Thanksgiving day weekend. It ain't over til it's over. Someone said that. It wasn't me.
I was reading The last Harry Potter book as September came to an end. Sometime just before that Half Price Books had a 20% off weekend. I was looking in the clearance bin and found this fun mystery novel. It was only a buck, or 80 cents after the percent off. In the store I was more attracted to the cover than the story.
If Looks Could Kill by Jeanne Lazo turned out to be a pretty good read. Nothing special, but I enjoyed it. I might keep it, for now. Maybe read it again, maybe not. The writing is ok, not great, but ok. As I said, I do like the cover, part of which made me think of Larry Todd's paintings from the 70's. So I have a pleasurable experience running my eyeballs over it. The painting is by Cristina McAllister, and those are the kids halloween costumes. Much brighter color on the actual book, which came out in 2005 from Stargrazer Publishing. I thought it might be a vanity book, but they are a real, small publisher, which seems to have a very small stable of writers. Lazo was on some earlier version of the authors page but she's not mentioned on the current site, nor are they selling her books anymore. For some reason I find that odd. Not really odd, just a bit. I guess I always have liked a mystery. So do some of the kids in this book. All the kids are 14 and pals. They find a dead body in a tree. Those red shoes are a clue. The girl telling the story starts investigating the murder and her friends join in. There's a couple more murders before the figurin' it out gets done. I liked the kids pretty much. That's them on the cover.
Beyond the Deep Woods, co-written byPaul Stewart Chris Riddell, is the first in The Edge Chronicles series. I bought a couple of these, two or three years ago, when I was on a young adult fantasy buying jag. I thought they might be good but I never got around to them. They sat on the shelf collecting others in the series. There are 7 right now and more due. The series started in 1999 in the UK, the US editions started in 2004. That's the US edition on the right and the UK cover to the lower left of where your eyes are now. I wasn't sure about the book while I was reading the first chapter, all the names seemed to be forged from latin and filled with x's, or too cute, or odd in some other way, but I got over that and the series turned out to be rather good. Twig Verginix, our hero, is a human kid living with some woodtrolls called Trogs. He was found as a baby and raised by this Woodtroll family in the Deep Woods. As he gets older his family fears the sky pirates will take him, and they send him deeper into the Deep Woods to live with some seldom seen relatives. Twig gets lost after straying from the path, nearly gets eaten, and has a three book adventure. The story rushes along at a pretty good clip. There's always something new on the next page and there isn't any reason to be bored.
There are a lot of nice illustrations by Chris Riddell through the book. I found them to be helpful and charming. For his day job Riddell is the political cartoonist for The Observer, sister paper to The Guardian. Some of my favorite artists have been political humorists, or humourists, in this case. Giles, another Brit, has been a favorite for over 30 years. I have collected his annual collections since I started working and could afford to buy way to many things. Riddell's illustrations really bring out the reality of these characters, both human or not, and their strange homeland. The creatures are varied and interesting. I liked the banderbear. That's him on both of the covers. Some of the creatures will eat you, others will just kill you, and a few will screw with your head. Plenty of hazzards on The Edge. There is a fair bit of violence, but none of it too excessive. A few people get killed, some weird stuff happens, and Trig ends up with the sky pirates. They fly ships through the sky. Ships held up with weightless rocks. There's a whole new world on the Edge, which seems to be a huge cliff edge surrounded by clouds and open to an endless sky. A little pocket world that's not your neighborhood, that's for sure. Still pleasurable enough to want to return again, especially when you are watching it from the edge. Safer here.
The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean by Alexander McCall Smith was a nice find over at HPB. It's a book from 1990, but just released here recently. That and the 1991 sequel, Harriet Bean and the League of Cheats, were both remaindered. Both are hard covers and the only copies I saw on Amazon were paperbacks. The two books I have, have no price on them, and they have reinforced bindings. It says so right on the back cover, right next to Made in Mexico. I wonder if they are library editions. There's a third book listed on Amazon, written in 2006, but released last month. I don't have a copy yet. Smith is the writer of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series and many more books. This series is cute and a bit slight. Barely short stories, with big letters and margins, and some nice illustrations by Laura Rankin. In the first book Harriet's dad tells her he has 5 sisters, which is news to her. Her dad's a dope, how does that just come up. Harriet, naturally, wants to meet them, but dad doesn't know where they all are. He has one clue and the quest is on. Will Harriet find her five aunts? I bet she does. In the sequel Harriet becomes a jockey to find out who's cheating down at the racetrack. These little books are quick reads, I polished them off in one short sitting, but they were entertaining. Better if I were 10. I don't know if I would have read them then. I wonder, but not very hard.
The Kingfisher Treasury of Witch and Wizard Stories were chosen by David Bennett. Many were pretty good. I got this remaindered at HPB. I thought the cover was cute. There are lots of illustrations by Jacqui Thomas but I didn't think they were any great shakes. The stories are betterthan the art on average. I recognized some of the writers; Diana Wynne Jones, Alan Garner, Lynn Reid Banks and Terry Jones. The rest were all strangers. I don't read too many short stories, so it was unusual to read two collections in a row. The Wizard's Den is edited by Peter Haining. Both have stories by Diana Wynne Jones and Alan Garner and both were bought at a HPB 20% off sale. Instead of illustrations TWD has a long introduction to the book, short introductions to each story, and a wee bit o' biography for each writer. Haining mentions the current influence of J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter at least 13 times and there are glasses on the cover. Luckily the stories are pretty good, perhaps a bit better than the Kingfisher Treasury. There's even an E. Nesbit story, a favorite childhood author of J. K. Rowling, and I was interested in reading one of her stories to see if I might like to get some more. I did and soon after I found many of her books for free at The Gutenburg Project. I have not read any of those yet. I am even considering printing them out on paper to read.
The Troll Witch And Others is the 7th Hellboy collection. It's by Mike Mignola and others. Too busy to draw all of exploding Hellboy universe Mignola often writes or plots a story and has someone else take care of the rest. Here's the contents from the Dark Horse web page:
With a new Hellboy series on the stands, fans of the world's greatest paranormal detective can find older favorites collected for the first time in the seventh volume of the Hellboy Saga. Hellboy: The Troll Witch and Others collects short stories from The Dark Horse Book of the Dead, Witchcraft, Hauntings, and Monsters, the 2004 Hellboy: Wizard 1/2, as well as the critically acclaimed 2006 miniseries, Hellboy: Makoma by Mignola and comics legend Richard Corben, and a previously unpublished Hellboy story by P. Craig Russell and Mike Mignola, along with sketches and story notes.
It's nice having the stories collected together like this. I have some of the books that these stories came from but not all. The Dark Horse Book Of series are pretty good on average but I really bought them bacause they had Mignola work in them. I missed the Wizard Hellboy 1/2 but did get the Richard Corben illustrated Makoma miniseries. That was pretty darn good, that story, especially the Richard Corben art. Corben's style fits the Hellboy universe so well. I buy all the comics as they come out, reading each installment, forgetting partially what happened month to month. Then I buy the collection when it's come out some months or years later. Mostly I have forgotten what the stories are and they are somewhat fresh. By buying both editions I can feel I support the comics and that helps keep the trades coming. I don't mind helping. It's more stuff to have, stuff into a bag and store away for the future, only to be tossed away after I die. Often the trades have new material to make them more appealing.
Next I read the third in The Wyrd Museum series by Robin Jarvis. The Fatal Strand has a battle royale at the museum between the sneaky Odin and the sisters of Fate. One by one the sisters are picked off and the kids save the day with the help of a stuffed crow. I still don't think I will re-read this series again. After that I read vol 21 of The Spirit reprints. More of the same from the last half of 1950. Still many good stories and nice art in this volume. Volume 22 is out but I have not read it yet. Only 3 more to buy. Yeah.
I picked up Half Magic by Edward Eagar on a whim. That was a couple of years ago. It just climbed to the top of the pile and I read it. I liked it. The kids are ok, there are some adventures, and a magic coin that grants half a wish. You could see how that could lead to complications. The kids have no dad and they meet a man that might be ok for mom. They travel back into the past. Some people out of the magical loop are confused, and mom thinks she has gone crazy, but it all works out for the best in the end. This is the 50th anniversary edition, a nice hardcover replica, which is now selling at $24.99 plus on Amazon. I got mine at HPB for 9 bucks. You can buy dozens of copies of different editions, mostly paperbacks, for a buck each on ABE. There is one guy selling the 50th Anniversary edition for full price $18.95 and a few people selling the 1954 edition for less than I paid for my new one. In the first chapter Eagar mentions the kids in the book are reading E. Nesbit's The Enchanted Castle. The introduction also mentions E. Nesbit and her influence on Eagar. The night that I finished Half Magic I downloaded several E. Nesbit's books. If they are as good as this I will be pleased.
In The Secret Of The Lost Tunnel by Franklin W. Dixon, the Hardy Boys, and Chet, travel south to solve a Civil War mystery. Before they even leave the boys car gets burned up. Then Frank gets hit with a hammer. Nearly killed him. Fenton Hardy buys his boys a nice new roadster. Which gets water put into the gas tank. Man, someone really wants the boys to stay home and not help General Smith. Chet tags along for the ride, takes the occasional picture, and eats. This time Frank and Joe are kidnapped and stuffed into hole in the ground. Chet has to find them before they starve to death. And that's only the first chapter. Just kidding, there's still the last half the book to go, clues to get and bad guys to capture. That's the copy I got at HPB for 2 bucks, and I got three more for the same.
The Flickering Torch Mystery was one of those $2 books. It's the 22 in the series by Franklin W. Dixon, and it was nearly the last of the books written by Leslie McFarland. The Hardy Boys get summer jobs out at an experimental farm. They have some conflict with the other farm hands and there's a big ring of thieves who work construction sites. Stealing material vital to the war effort and reselling it. There's a tunnel, a weird doctor, some bad guys, and Chet's appetite. Joe is kidnapped in this book but he's out in a few hours. Then the criminals better watch out. Once caught, they won't be out in a few days.
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