American Vampire Vol 1 by Scott Snyder, Stephen King and Rafael Albuquerque

Many thanks (fangs?) to Chatelaine for the review of this trade paperback comic, it was a blast to read. It was pretty much a no-brainer anyway. Stephen King? Good. Vampires with balls? Good. Fantastic and creative artwork? Good.

So we have the story(ies) of Skinner Sweet, an 1880’s outlaw with a penchant for candy, who meets an unfortunate end at the hands of a vampire. But it doesn’t end there. Even buried and covered in 60 feet of water when the area is flooded due to dam construction, he becomes something else: a new kind of vampire. Stronger, faster and impervious to daylight. This, my friends, is the American Vampire. Once freed, Skinner sets on a path to learn about what he is and take his revenge on the Old World vampires that inadvertently created him.

Skinner also figures into the story of Pearl Jones, a country girl who has gone to Hollywood in the 20’s to break into show biz. She works three jobs and takes all the bit parts she can get. Then she gets invited to a party at the studio heads mansion, but what awaits her isn’t an opportunity of a lifetime but torture at the hands of a cabal of Old World vamps. Skinner Sweet makes an appearace and makes Pearl a vampire like him. Seeing how Pearl goes about dealing with her new reality and exacting her own revenge was a nice counterpoint to the rise of Sweet.

The stories by King and Snyder are solid and the artwork is terrifyingly gorgeous. I read this on a Kindle Fire and it was absolutely breathtaking.

Dead Beat by Jim Butcher

Hang on to your freaking hat here, because this book pulls out all the stops. It’s not long before Halloween and Thomas is bunking with Harry and it’s not going all that well. Remember that insensitive slob you roomed with in college? Yeah, all that and worse. Soon, that’s the least of Harry’s concerns because he receives a package and inside are pictures of Murphy from the attack on the Black Court lair in Blood Rites, as well as a lock of Murphy’s hair (never good where supernatural matters are concerned). The pictures will implicate Murphy both in human courts and in the supernatural world. He’s got to see Mavra and she tells him to find the Word of Kemmler. If he doesn’t, she’ll really screw with Murphy’s life and livelihood. Harry doesn’t have much of a choice.

Harry discovers that Kemmler was an incredibly powerful necromancer and that Bob once belonged to him, making him do unspeakable things. And it gets worse. Three different groups of necromancers are out to get the Word of Kemmler as well as the Die Lied der Erlking, so they can obtain powers so great as to make them a minor god.

There’s a ton of stuff that happens. Harry gets the gray cloak of the Wardens (which, it turns out, even means a steady paycheck!), works with a knowledgeable rare book clerk that turns out to be all in his head (thanks to Lasciel), really opens up to Billy and Georgia and in the final battle royale rides a zombiefied Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex to defeat the necromancers who release the erlking. Yeah, that’ll do.

The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid

I’ve got some Scottish writers I enjoy reading, like Michel Faber and Denise Mina, and am on the lookout for more. I am new to Val Mc Dermid. I’ve seen some of the PBS series Wire in the Blood,  but knew this was a stand alone book, so I didn’t know what to expect from this novel.

The story moves from Edinburgh, to Oxford and Croatia,  and involves serveral different points of view. There are two investigations: one conducted by Scottish police into the murder of a man whose skeleton are found in a turreted nook on the roof of a condemned building and the other conducted by two ill-equipped International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) lawyers, who are trying to discover who is responsible for a security leak that has led to the execution-style murders of a number of war criminals. These two investigations are related, and are woven in with the memories of an Oxford academic who lived through the siege of Dubrovnik during the Croatian War of Independence. While I enjoyed the sections with DCI Karen Pirie and her subordinate “Mint” (though really, her friend the forensic anthropologist is called Dr. River Wilde? Yeesh) as pure procedural , the part about the lawyers dragged for me. Maggie Blakes remembrances of her time in Dubrovnik, though, were rather compelling and just plain horrific at times. These three threads didn’t always gel for me, like they were three different endeavors mashed together. But overall it was a decent effort.  I listened to the audiobook and for the most part enjoyed the different accents and idioms, just had to back track a few times through particularly thick brogues.

Wonderful toniight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Me by Pattie Boyd

Man, I am just not having a good run here. Thankfully I didn’t pay anything for this kindle edition of the book, thanks to BookBub. I generally enjoy reading memoirs, getting inside somebody else’s skin, going places I never could. How could I go wrong with her tale: Spending her early childhood in Africa, then London in the swinging sixties, the tumultuous lives of artists, musicians and household names sounded like fun. All that shagging, drugs and rock and roll, right?

Well technically that stuff was there, sort of, but the execution of this book was just so dreadfully dull. A straight up “This happened. Then this happened. And that happened.” So dispassionate and wooden. Even when she’s writing about scandalous events or childhood trauma, it’s bloodless and strangely self-UN-aware. If only she had gotten a better editor or ghostwriter or something. It was honestly a bit of a chore to finish this thing off.

Ciudad by Andre Parks with Joe and Anthony Russo art by Fernando Leon Gonzalez

Joe and Anthony Russo are directors, writers and producers known for their work on the television shows Arrested Development, Community and Happy Endings. They also directed the excellent Marvel movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I figured I couldn’t go wrong with this gritty graphic novel. Sigh.

The artwork by Fernando Leon Gonzalez refined and dirty at the same time, using a good mix of wide angle movie type shots and close up, fine line work. For such a violent and bloody story, the black and white format actually adds to the drama. The story itself plays out like an action movie (natch), but a pretty hackneyed one at that. Mercenary goes to save imprisoned warlords kidnapped daughter, kills about a gazzillion guys, is betrayed by some allies, falls for kidnapped daughter, goes way beyond the mission to save her and nearly dies. He even leaves the girl a letter to be read as a voiceover during the epilogue, thanking her for making him “feel” again. Yeah yeah yeah. Didn’t Stallone/The Rock/Statham already do that movie?

I did enjoy seeing how a comic book artist would portray  some of those long and complicated fight scenes that the Russo brothers are known for. That’s why a page or two could go by with just the aforementioned “Urrh! Arrhh! Uhnn-grrguuh…….”[BLAMM] could actually be compelling.

Things We Set on Fire by Deborah Reed

Okay, so I haven’t been reading so much this week. I got caught up in Witnesses, the French mini series that came out on Netflix this week. That was pretty awesome. Go check it out. Then I found a Danish show that was intriguing. And I haven’t been listening to my books on tape because I’m getting chased by zombies now during my morning walks and runs (Zombies,Run! by Six to Start. Soooooo much fun!). So this morning I borrowed/downloaded this book for free and made some coffee and poured in a generous dollop of Frangelico. It didn’t help.

The book opens with Vivvie hiding in the woods and shooting her beloved husband Jackson to death. It looks like a hunting accident to the authorities. Cut to decades later and the fractured family is thrown together again in one horrible instant. Vivvie’s long missing younger daughter, Kate, is in the hospital after a suicide attempt and no one is around to care for her two young daughters. She calls her other estranged daughter Elin for help and together they try to deal with these tragedies, past and present.

Oh this book wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t very good. The prose was sometimes rather beautiful but more often than not veered into that shaky territory bordering on overblown, sweaty hyperbole. I just could not care about these characters, either.  I just finished the book so I could tap out this review an

Revival By Stephen King

Oh, Uncle Stevie! Whenever I fall into one of your books, it feels like home. No, I don’t mean the scary-ass places you take me, but your voice, your humanity. It’s true, you had me cowering under the covers with a flashlight when I read Carrie for the first time back in the 70’s and noticed little else than the “high school really DOES suck” interwoven with the horror.  You sucked me in with a premise I didn’t think I’d be interested in (11/22/63), mesmerized me with the peek into your mind and process with Lisey’s Story, made me laugh as much as I was frightened out of my wits with Joyland. I’ve read countless of your story collections and many of your novels and still my favorite thing is how you create characters that are so flesh and blood real, so heartbreakingly flawed and human, and for this I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You were one of the first writers who shaped me into the carry-a-book-or-three-everywhere-I-go reader I am today.

This novel was a quick and satisfying read, weaving some of Stephens own experience as a rhythm guitarist into the life of Jamie Morton. As a young boy, Jamie encounters the young new pastor of the church his family attends in a small Maine town and their lives become intertwined in ways both organic and supernatural over the years, to a denouement that is crackling with electricity (sorry, I couldn’t resist. Uncle Stevie like his lame puns, too). Throughout the book are call backs and shoutouts to the Kingverse, little gifts to his legions of fans. Count me as one of the tribe, glad that he hasn’t made good on his periodic threats to give up writing. I know he’s got many more stories to tell.

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Graphic Novel

It’s been a long time since I read the “Girl” Trilogy, but a couple of months ago I introduced a friend to the Swedish films, so I was pretty much up to speed on the story. I remember reading that Denise Mina, a terrific Scottish writer, was going to do the comic book version for Vertigo and I made a mental note to check it out. Well that was more than three years ago, but at least now I was able to get the whole run in one TPB.

Mina’s adaptation is pretty close to the source material, emphasizing that the horrors inflicted upon women are everywhere and ever present, often woven into the very fabric of society. Lisbeth’s personal experience, that of her mother and of the victims of the central mystery isn’t played for salaciousness. Lisbeth even has a great little speech about that towards the end.

Many of the characters hew closely to the book and even pop a little more. The Vangers are a seriously effed up group of people, even the low-level drama queens. Mikael’s time amongst them takes it’s toll. As for Mikael himself, he’s still inexplicably attractive to all manner of women and a dogged investigator. Lisbeth herself is terrifically portrayed; her isolation and physical appearance mask a fierce intelligence and the strongest moral code anywhere in the book.

The artwork by Manco and Mutti is alternately cold as a Scandinavian winter and sizzling with a fiery vengeance. Whether you’ve read the novels or not, I would recommend this trade, it adds depth and passion to the Lisbeth Salander myt

Death Masks by Jim Butcher

Wow, there were some seriously freaky beasties and baddies in the 5th installment of the Dresden Files. We’re used to Harry having to battle the weird and supernatural, but this stuff was really ratcheting things up a notch (or five).

Harry has a job, a rather big one: find the stolen Shroud of Turin. Yeah that one. Naturally, the Vatican wants it back, they’ve traced it to Chicago and they reluctantly ask for Harry’s expertise.

Then Susan appears. It’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other and the passion is palpable. There’s still that pesky problem of Susan’s near-vampirism, so it just doesn’t look good for these two crazy lovebirds. As the story went on and we learned more about what Susan has been through and what she is becoming, I started finding her a lot more interesting. Besides, Harry deserves to Get Some.

So yeah, The Shroud. Everyone from the Denarians, led by the ancient Nicodemus, to Gentleman Johnny Marcone wants this thing. That’s a heap ‘o trouble for our boy. Add to that the duel he’s got to fight with Ortega of the Red Court. They’re still all mad about that Bianca thing. More than that, there’s all that politicking and warmongering amongst the Red Court as well as the White Council. Two years on and there are plenty on the White Council who wouldn’t mind if Harry were dead. Since all three of the Knights of the Cross are in town, Shiro offers to be his second. Breakneck action and adventure ensues.

Once again I listened to the excellent narration by James Marsters and this story just blazed and burned with passion and action.

Dude, you have balls of solid adamantium

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

It’s 2044 and the world is a mess. Wars, famine, unrest, depleted resources, you know the usual dystopian societal and geopolitical ills.  In this world, jobs and opportunities are scarce, resources even more so. It’s a hard, ugly life for the majority of people. The bright spot is OASIS, a virtual world that everyone, and I mean everyone, is a part of. Just to participate is free to all.  It’s a gigantic, global virtual world where you can be whatever you want to be, your avatar is everything. You can go to school and work your job through the network, too.

17-year-old Wade lives in “The Stacks” just outside of OKC. It’s literally what it sounds like, trailer house upon trailer house, stacked up one on top of the other, sometimes 20 or more high. His parents are gone and he lives with his aunt in a cramped little trailer house and his only life, his only release is as his avatar Parzival, as he works his way through the puzzles set forth by the creator of the OASIS, the uber rich gaming mogul, James Halliday. Halliday stipulated in his will that his fortune was to be given to the first person who can find an “Easter egg” hidden somewhere in the OASIS. The catch? Every clue is steeped in video gaming lore, computer geekery and 80’s pop culture.

On this quest, Parzival and his friends (and sometimes rivals), Art3mis, Aech, Daito and Shoto must complete this complex series of puzzles as the world watches, trying to stay one step ahead of the evil empire of the Sixers, the minions of the corporation that is seeking to take control of OASIS. It’s not just about winning a fortune, it’s keeping OASIS free and open to all.

I’m not a gamer but I was alive and breathing in the 80’s, so even if I didn’t tumble to all the insider gaming jokes and lore, there was still plenty for me to enjoy and geek out on (a whole gaming planet based on Rush’s 2112 album? AWESOME!). There’s intrigue, unrequited love, humor and high stakes action. What more do ya want?

I screened/read this book two ways: Wil Wheaton’s highly enjoyable narration and on Kin