Mr. Burke's Reading List

Superman Adventures, Volume 4 , Writers: Mark Millar, David Michelinie; Illustrators: Terry Austin, Aluir Amancio, Neil Vokes, Mike Manley (2018) In the past, I've complained about graphic novels that weren't novels, but rather collections of comics and sometimes not even cohesively or coherently so. And yet I continue to pick them from the library shelves. This one isn't a novel, and I'm absolutely fine with that. It is what I expected it to be: a bunch of one-off adventures, each self-contained. Basically, it's like watching a three-hour marathon of the show, which, by the way, I have never seen. (I should rectify this.) Note: I have seen all of Justice League and Justice League Unlimited , which has the same animation, voice actors and a couple of story lines, so I am familiar with it. And because of that, Lobo sounds in my head like Robert from Everybody Loves Raymond (Brad Garrett), and Kalibak sounds like Worf from Star Trek: the Next Generation ...

The Way Station , Clifford Simak (1963) Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ... I was assigned to a class that met in the library at Lafayette High School earlier this year. They had a shelf of books removed from circulation that were free to be taken. I didn't want to be greedy because these were for students. But on the other hand, some of these books, realistically, would never be taken. On of these was The Way Station , which according to the printing history was produced in 1988, and according to the final circulation card in the back was last taken out four times in 1994. After 25 years, I think I was safe in taking it, particularly considering that it was originally written and won a Hugo Award before I was born. The only Simak novel I've read (I may have read short stories in old anthologies) was City , which I purchased from the Science Fiction Book Club way back when, on purpose, not as a mistake that was s...

Q is for Quarry , Sue Grafton (2002) Not a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ... Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet, so this is the 17th novel in the series, making it the longest series I've read, by far. (I've read maybe a dozen Doc Savage novels, and I should get back to those.) This entry is a little different in that it deals with an actual unsolved murder, although he details were fictionalized, and in the book, the case gets solved. It does have information at the end in case anyone with information wants to come forward. Kinsey Milhone gets hired by Con Dolan, an old cop from the series who is currently on medical, and Stacey Oliphant, a retired cop in ill health. Those two deserve each, and they each watch out for the other's bad habits. Years ago, they were the officers who found the body of a Jane Doe in a quarry in Lampoc in Santa Barbara County. Not only was the murderer never caught but the body was never id...