Graphic Novel: Superman '78

Superman '78 (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

Last summer, I was in my local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, and while there, I picked up 3 graphic novels. I read part of this one, and then put the pile on the side. I've been renewing them every three weeks since then.

Superman 78 is a vit of an anomaly. Batman 66 holds a place in the hearts of many in a generation who grew up with reruns of the classic series day after day. At the same time, many of those same people, or their older siblings, grew up with the Adventures of Superman from a decade earlier.

While people have fond memories of Christopher Reeve as Superman, there were only four movies to work with, the last time being a little different from the first two, and the mythology isn't quite the same as the comic book. Granted, some of that mythology has been adopted into comics or television every now and again, but DC Comics had made a habit of rebooting their entire line-up on a regular basis.

Basically, we have a bunch of Superman stories with movie lookalikes. The book consists of six issues of the a series of the same name, starting after the movie took place. Luthor is released to work on science for the betterment of the world instead of the betterment of Luthor. Next, Brainiac comes along. He's been collecting pieces of planets in his museum. When he detects a Kryptonian on Earth, he demands Superman surrender himself to prevent the contamination of Earth. Superman reluctantly agrees. We then find the Bottle City of Kandor on Brianiac's ship where Jor-El and Lara have survived. Superman eventually escapes with the help of Lex Luthor, who needs to prove that he can succeed where Superman failed.

It was an interesting group of stories, but nothing special. Just another take on territory well-traveled. I was happy to see that the date was only 2021-2022, so that explains why I wasn't familiar with the comics existence.

One more graphic novel to finish.

Graphic Novel: Power Girl: Power Trip

Power Girl: Power Trip (2014)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

Last summer, I was in my local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, and while there, I picked up 3 graphic novels. I read part of this one, and then put the pile on the side. I've been renewing them every three weeks since then.

I finally spent a couple hours getting through the rest of Power Girl so I could return the book already.

Power Girl has an odd history. For anyone past the half-century mark in their life's journey, they will recall that Power Girl was the Earth-2 Supergirl analogue, back when there was an Earth-2.

Then in the mid-80s, DC Comics decided to "simplify" something that many of their fans didn't find all that complicated. (Yes, there were some contradictions that could've been cleared up by Fiat, but that's another issue.) When the "Crisis" ended, many characters that existed on both worlds were combined into one, some disappeared completely, and in cases such as the Flash, the Golden Age and Silver Age heroes co-existed.

The problem is that the Earth-2 Superman went away but Power Girl remained. There were attempts to give her new backstories until one would stick. I remember from back then when Arion, king of Atlantis. This book addresses that and other theories. It then dismisses them as delusions of the Psycho Pirate. I don't know if that part happened back then.

As a graphic novel goes, it got off to a choppy start and then got a bit smoother. Afterward, I checked, and that was because the last 12 chapters of the book were taken from a single series, when the opening chapters came from a few different sources.

Power Girl takes on the Ultra Humanite who wants her for her body. Literally. He wants to put his brain in her indestructible body. It doesn't go so well, but he'll make a return appearance, as will some of his allies. Also in the background is Dr. Sivanna from Captain Marvel (Shazam!) stories. He's not an active menace to Power Girl but makes his presence known.

The surprise character (for me) is the new Terra. Not to be confused with the Teen Titans traitor Terra, this teen is actually from deep underground but also earth-moving powers. The two team up well.

I enjoyed this, for the most part. The explanation about the hole in her uniform was a little silly. And there were plenty of references to staring at her boobs, which is to be expected.

Lessons in Chemistry (Garmus)

Lessons in Chemistry
by Bonnie Garmus (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a pandemic book club pick. It received a mixed but mostly positive reviews.

I watched the series while I was waiting for the book to become available at the library. I think I'm glad that I did it in that order. For one thing, it preparted me for the intelligent dog that was abandoned from the military. For another, had I read the book first, I might've been bothered by some of the changes made for the book, including an entire subplot that was created for the show.

Elizabeth Zott is a chemist except that she doesn't have her PhD because of an incident in school. She stabbed the mentor who tried sexually assaulted her and then wouldn't apologize for hurting him. She works as an asistant at the only place that would hire her, Hastings Research Institute. There she meets their star chemist, Calvin Evans, who mistakes her at first for a secretary. The two become involved and fall in love. He then dies, but only after a) putting her name on the deed to his home, and b) getting her pregnant despite their precautions. Neither wanted children and Elizabeth did not wish to be married and change her name.

With Calvin no longer present, the powers that be at Hastings make her life miserable and she is finally let go when it's discovered that she's pregnant (and unmarried, too!). She makes money consulting with the chemists who bring work to her.

She gives birth to Mad, aka, Madeline and tries to balance motherhood with everything else, including building a lab in her kitchen. This is how she meets her neighbor from across the street, Harriet Sloane. A few years later, Mad is in school (early because of some document alteration). Mad is given her lunch to another girl who is the daughter of a TV producer, who is coincidentally looking for a new TV show to fill a void in the afternoon. When he's confronted by Elizabeth, he realizes that she could host a cooking show for the network. She finally agrees for the money.

Zott is difficult to work with because she won't confirm to how things are done. Despite this, her show is a big hit, even though the head of the studio wants to get rid of her.

I enjoyed the book for the most part, and can appreciate some of the changes that were made in the series. I prefer the younger Mr. Pine of the show.

My book group's reception was mixed but more positive. Many of them would've liked more of the cooking show than all the backstory we have to sit through. And when Mad has a family tree assignment and wants to find out more about her father's past, that might've been the time to discover everything about Calvin.

One thing I have been told by editors in rejections for some of my short stories (and sometimes I get an extra sentence or two) is that they want to see the growth of the protagonist. Well, Elizabeth Zott doesn't grow. At all. If any, she becomes more annoying because she seems stuck in the same rut with the same outlook she had 300 pages earlier. (And this is the opinon of the female members of the book club.) Everything eventually falls into place for her with a lot of luck and sheer coincidence. (Some of the coincidence gets a little bit explained, mind you, but it's still a bit out there.)

When asked how we would describe the character, I said, "Sheldon without the support network." I later thought of Temperance Brennan ("Bones"). Both of those characters were highly intelligent but lacking in social skills and somewhat unaware of how to act in certain situations. The two with better support networks grew over the course of their TV shows many seasons. In contrast, the only change we see in Zott is that she might go from being unaware how things actually work and knowing but not giving a damn. She will never budge an inch -- we assumed because she felt owed by this point. If she feels it's the right thing to do, that is all she will do, regardless of the consequences. Luckily, most of the times, things work out. And when they don't, she can pull a huge kitchen knife from her bag to give some a heart attack.

I enjoyed it, but it wasn't as good as it could've been.

Stake and Eggs (Childs)

Stake and Eggs
by Laura Childs (2012)

[No Image, Audiobook]

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This is the fourth book in the Cackleberry Club series. For some reason, it was not avaible in ebook form at any of the three library systems in NYC. It was not available in book form in either Brooklyn or Manhattan. (I don't have a Queens branch near me.) And it was only available as an audiobook from the New York Public Library system through the SimplyE app, but not the Libby app. It was a total accident that I found it. I'd been searching Libby, but when I searched the libaries' website catalogues, I finally found it.

SimplyE is an app that hast been on my iPad for quite a while. I don't remember downloading it and I can't say that I've ever used it. Maybe it was the app I used when I downloaded comic books many years ago. I can't say. But I put it on my phone and used it.

IT IS A TERRIBLE APP. USELESS. It doesn't always save your place, backing you up to the last time you started listening. And when my book was due, I returned it and downloaded it again, and it restarted me at Chapter 1. I had no idea exactly where I was, but it doesn't matter because THERE'S NO TABLE OF CONTENTS MENU. Actually, there is, but any time I tapped on it, it brought me to the NYPL Catalogue page.

I was so desperate that I actually asked my wife, who may have been a little miffed at me at that particular moment, if she could show me how to do something on my phone. Appealing to her sense of, not so much superiority, but of I-married-an-idiot-ity, got her to put miffed aside and try. I almost didn't get my phone back because she was working under the assumption that the interface, though primitive, made some kind of sense. It did not.

Okay, now about the book, which was fine enough, but I'm not spending money to buy a copy.

First off, I've realized that the names don't mean a thing. There are no stakes that I recall in the entire book. The murder is committed with a piece of fence wire. Previously titles also didn't seem to matter. Also, it takes place in winter, so the election that we never got to in the last book is already behind us. Spoilers, the crooked mayor and the dogged Sheriff Doogie both won.

This review has been sitting here for a few weeks, unfinished. I'd forgotten about it, honestly. And I'm forgetting more about the book, but here's what I remember.

Toni finally decides she's going to divorce Junior, after he was a hero in the last book. The other two ladies are happy about this but aren't sure if she'll actually go through with it. Junior shows up with a car that has his new invention: the car cooker, which is an oven built into the engine that cooks as the car goes. It's a running gag throughout the book, with food needing a few more miles until it's done. He says that he has investors looking into it. His cooker car will, of course, play a part in the finale, as silly as it sounds.

The Winter Fair is coming and there is a radio competition to find a medallion hidden somewhere in town. The clues are all vague and refer to ice. The initial ones of course should be vague, but they don't get any better or more specific. I mention this because one note I did leave myself from a couple of weeks ago is that where the medallion is found makes absolutely no sense for the rest of the story because the place it was in at the end didn't exist at the beginning.

So the bank president is killed on a snowmobile with a wire strung between two trees. He's head is found in the woods sometime after the snowmobile crashes into the back of the Cackleberry Club. Meanwhile, a teen runaway had seen the man who hung the wire, so he's laying low because he's afraid he'll be next. He switches jackets with the busboy who works at the cafe, and manages to sneak in for some food. He gets caught. Joey, meanwhile, gets attacked and is hospitalized. Suzanne comes to realize it's because the two boys switched jackets.

All of the regulars put in appearances, and a few people are vying to be the new bank president.

In the end, the runaway identifies the killer, who then steals Junior's car and the chase is on.

I won't say that the series is getting stale just yet, but it's almost done for me. I'll take some time off before the next book. I'm not even sure if the next book is available for loan.

DNF: The Zoo of Intelligent Animals (Holdsworth)

The Zoo of Intelligent Animals
by D.A. Holdsworth (2021)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This may be the first "Did Not Finish" book that I've listed. It's certainly the first that I labeled "DNF". Usually, I decide at about 10% if it's worth continuing, and sometimes I ask again at 20%. Other times, I know in the first few pages. Unless I promised to give feedback, I've learned to cut my losses rather than suffer through -- and likely avoid reading anything in the process. (Games, videos, whatever.)

I stuck with this book until I was almost halfway through. Things were finally starting to happen ... and I found myself totally uninterested. And if you're going to start with a trope like an alien zoo filled with humans, you need to make it a lot more interesting a lot sooner. And I might've stayed the course, but this was a 400+ page book. I had basically an entire 240-page book to go.

I knew I'd be cutting out of this book soon any way because I have a Book Club selection on hold. But while checking my place in line the NYPL suggested a collection of stories by Jane Yolen, who I've read before (although I didn't complete that collection -- perhaps it's time that I did). I started on that book, which, again, I'll drop out of when my other book arrives. And I'll get back to the collection. And maybe I'll get back to this.

Aside from dullness, it made an error in the science, something which could've been hand-waved, but not like this. All but one of the main characters are people out of time. That's because they've traveled through space and suffered the effects of time dilation. That much is fine. If the explanation had been that they'd past through a different dimension, again, that would've been okay. Had they traveled long distance and near light speeds, that would've been permissable. But instead the explanation was that they'd spent time on other planets in this universe where time passed differently. And the explanation for that was that the planets are traveling at higher speeds through space.

Gentle readers, if there are any of you out there, this is poppycock. The planet, and the star is was circling, would have to be moving at over .95c to achieve the time dilation effect described. Stars don't move like that and planets that somehow did wouldn't support life. And the fact that there's no suggestion of just how fast the planet (and star) must be moving tells me that the author didn't consider it and that he expected that the reader wouldn't either.

And the worst part of the offense is that the exact reason probably didn't matter but there needed to be on because the timelines on the two planets wouldn't match up otherwise. And these late 19th century folks would be very out of place in the early 21st century.

The book was a free download, not a library book, so there's a chance (slim as it is) I will pick it up again and try to continue because I was a little curious where he was going to go with his zoo, but by no means hooked.

And since I got this, I've been getting emails to buy his first book, which, oddly, isn't a free download. Usually, the first is free to get you to buy the second. Or so I thought.

I'm Glad My Mom Died (McCurdy)

I'm Glad My Mom Died
by Jennette McCurdy (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a book club choice, but it got 0 votes, which is surprising because I thought I'd voted for it. It was the first one available for the library. I read it, without the audiobook. I get the feeling that the audio might've been difficult to listen to, both storywise and the way it was told.

Jennette appears to have OCD but she is diagnosed as Mormon. That attempt at humor as about on par with the tone of the book. Her mother dreamed of being a star and wanting that for her daughter. Jennette has older siblings, but she is the one that got pushed into acting. And she always did everything her mother wanted because she loved her mother and her mother loved her and wanted the best for her. Or so she believed to be the case at the time. Much of the narrative is written in the naive voice of a person who came to an ephiphany much later in life.

Unlike other Disney stars who came from wealthier background, McCurdy's family was poor, and her mother, a hoarder, delayed paying bills and kept the creditors away as best as she could. She also leans heavily into the story that she's a cancer survivor. McCurdy's big claim to fame, as far as her resume was concerned, was her ability to cry on command. THis was something casting directors looked for and it got her many parts.

Problems arose at puberty when her body started to develop and she wouldn't be able to play kiddie parts any more. Her mother encouraged her to become anorexic. Other mothers notice and told her mom, not realizing that she was the cause of it. Anorexia later gave way to bullima when McCurdy got more successful and got start binging on food.

Her big break was, of course, iCarly, where I know her from, although I likely saw at least some of her earlier bit parts. She refers to the person in charge there simply as "The Creator" and never names him. The Creator is able to control her with the promise of her own show when "iCarly" wraps up (years in the future). The first time he meets with The Creator alone, without her mother (whose cancer has returned), he gives her an alcoholic beverage, which she drinks because she wants to make him happy, and this is followed by some massaging. Not many details are giving here but when the show ends, her "team" (lawyers, agents, whoever) on a conference call tell her that there's a $300,000 bonus for her so long as she never talks about the Creator's behavior. To her credit, she calls it out as hush money and refuses to take it. To her further credit, in the book she includes her reaction after the call as "did I really just turn down $300,000?" Even after a successful series, McCurdy may be well off but she isn't exactly wealthy.

She goes into details about Sam & Cat, the followup show she did with Arianna Grande when she'd been promised her own show. McCurdy was denied chances to pursue a movie career while shooting "Sam" but Grande was allowed to leave to do singing performances. One time, she missed so many days that the episode was rewritten so that her character was locked inside a box for the duration of the episode. McCurdy had to act opposite a box and Grande's line were dubbed in later. A final straw happened when McCurdy's promised directorial debut was canceled because someone threatened to leave the show if she directed it. (Grande isn't named here, but no one else had that clout.)

Along the way, we read about her first kiss, her real first kiss, her first adult relationship, losing her virginity, and her therapists. The book is divided into Before and After her mother's death, and it's quite a while into the after that she starts to piece everything together.

This was an interesting and a quick read. I don't know if I would've read it if it hadn't come up an option for the book club (and was immediately available). Had it been a different actress, say from any of the children's shows that I didn't watch with my kids, I probably would've returned it to the library as soon as I knew that it had lost the vote.

I also write Fiction! Thank you for finding and reading my page. You can now order my newest book Burke's Lore, Briefs: A Heavenly Date / My Damned Best Friend, written by Christopher J. Burke, which contains the aforementioned story and a bonus story. Order the softcover or ebook at Amazon.
Also, check out In A Flash 2020, by Christopher J. Burke for 20 great flash fiction stories, perfectly sized for your train rides. Available in softcover or ebook at Amazon. If you enjoy it, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon or on Good Reads.

Raising Caine (Gannon)

Raising Caine
by Charels Gannon (2015)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This is the third book in the "Cainverse", which started with Fire With Fire> and Trial By Fire, and in fact follows immediately after the events of Trial By Fire where we meet the representative of the Slaasriithi (a big reveal for book 2). While the Consolidated Terran Republic is near the Arat Kur homeworld, a K’tor ship arrives. We learn more about the K’tor, which takes some of the mystery out of them, and their own representative states the same thing. This causes the Slaasriithi to move up their scheduled trip home because they fear K'tor treachery. As a result, Caine finds himself en route to the current Slaasriithi homeworld.

At the same time, there is a renegade bunch of K'tor who have been, basically, disgraced in the eyes of the familes (to use a Mafia analogy in place of the scientific/genetic one). There are sleeper agents in place that are activated who help take over a Republic ship and try to ambush the Slassriithi ship before Caine can reach their homeworld.

I enjoyed this one a little less because there were spots that it got a little bogged down. For example, it was pretty obvious that the K'tor renegades were going to take over the Republic ship, but it dragged out for several chapters at the beginning of the books, with several POV characters, even though I knew that half of those characters were going to die and their defense would come to naught. The only reason for the protracted struggle, I'm assuming, was so that the ship would have a particular amount of damage and so much of its resources would've been consumed or destroyed. A second contention was the two Slaasriithi planets that the Caine and company set down on. The Slaasriithi don't terraform exactly. They shape their biomes by introducing their own.

The science is over my head, but to its credit, from what I've read outside the book, the science is spot on, making this hard scifi and something that's been hand-waved. One planet is tidal locked to always face its sun, which leaves a habitable ring around the perimeter. Again, there are elements to the story here, and stuff will happen that may make a difference later on, but it seemed to take to long. Ditto for the second planent, until it occurred to me that the book would finish here and that they wouldn't make it to the homeworld before it ended. Caine's previous encounters with the primitive Slaasriithi proved invaluable to his survival as well as defending a water strider on this planet. Even as a saboteur was in their mix.

I did enjoy the book, and Caine and company are still pressed into service, if only because they know that going back to Earth and rejoining civilization is impossible. They'll all wind up in some "retirement community" where they'll be watched over for the remainders of their lives, no matter what anyone promises.

I did try to finish this be the end of 2023, but there were still 100-200 pages remaining, so it became the first of 2024.

Other stuff to read before I move on to "Caine's Mutiny". Gannon has a way with titles.

Disclosure stuff: I've met Gannon on a few occasions at a science fiction convention. We've hit some of the same parties. "Acquaitances", not "friends".

I also write Fiction! Thank you for finding and reading my page. You can now order my newest book Burke's Lore, Briefs: A Heavenly Date / My Damned Best Friend, written by Christopher J. Burke, which contains the aforementioned story and a bonus story. Order the softcover or ebook at Amazon.
Also, check out In A Flash 2020, by Christopher J. Burke for 20 great flash fiction stories, perfectly sized for your train rides. Available in softcover or ebook at Amazon. If you enjoy it, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon or on Good Reads.

Signal Fires ( Shapiro)

Signal Fires
by Dani Shapiro (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a pandemic book club pick. It received a mixed reviews.

A car accident and its subsequent coverup affect the lives of a family of four -- and likely the family of the deceased -- as well as a family that doesn't even move into the neighborhood for years.

The book opens talking about all the possible future of Misty Zimmerman should see survive this night. I thought we'd see some of this. We did not. The girl who dies is pretty much an afterthought except for when (some characters believe) she extends her influence from the beyond, enamating from the tree under which she died.

The book then jumps to the 21st century. And then back to 1999, and 2010, and all over the place. I was curious if this book would work better as a linear narrative, not that I would read a copy of it should someone present me with one, but it sees like the structure and the feelings replaced the plot of the novel, as little of it as it was.

Biggest complaint among the club members is that not one of the characters were likable, least of all the fellow you weren't supposed to like, the only one always referenced by his last name, Shenkmen. The mothers in the book get short shrift. They get pushed aside pretty quickly without much to do.

Shenkman is not a great father, and it doesn't help that he doesn't know how to get through to Waldo, who appears to be on the spectrum, which may have been a result of the umbilical cord being wrapped about his neck during his delivery on his kitchen floor by Dr. Ben from across the street. Note that after his birth, the two families apparently never spoke to each other again despite living across from each other for a decade.

After Waldo runs away and gets rescued, Waldo explains about super galactic clusters. Rather than getting upset again, Shenkman has a change and calmly asks Waldo to tell him more about the super clusters. In any other novel, this would be a significant turning point. Instead, ten years later, Shenkman, suddenly a widower, is the one reaching out to Waldo (not that Waldo ever reached out to his dad), and Waldo is basically a little shit. If the point was too little, too late, something should've been said ten years earlier that Waldo was going to resent his father forever.

Instead, Waldo finds friendship in the man who delivered him, who is the same man who covered up a crime in 1985. He's not a particularly good man, especially when compared to Shenkman. Again, basically no one was found to be a likable person in this book.

It was interesting but there was much to it. Just a lot of jumping around, two off-screen deaths, and an affair that gets forgiven (offscreen) and leads to a confession at an AA meeting without any consequences. The one thing that everyone appreciated was that it did take the Covid shutdown into account in its timeline and it affected the characters. Needlessly inserting politics wasn't appreciated.

This was another book that I listened to (read by the author) and read concurrently. This may become a thing for me.

I also write Fiction! You can now order my newest book Burke's Lore, Briefs: A Heavenly Date / My Damned Best Friend, written by Christopher J. Burke, which contains the aforementioned story and a bonus story. Order the softcover or ebook at Amazon.
Also, check out In A Flash 2020, by Christopher J. Burke for 20 great flash fiction stories, perfectly sized for your train rides. Available in softcover or ebook at Amazon. If you enjoy it, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon or on Good Reads.

2023 Year in Review

This is a summary of the books that I read in 2023. A couple of blog entries have not been made yet.

The following books were Pandemic Book Club books

• Signal Fires - (This entry has not been written yet.
• Clown in a Cornfield (Cesare)
• Elder Race (Tchaikovsky)
• A Terrible Fall of Angels (Hamilton)
• Cult Classic (Crosley)
• Wrong Place, Wrong Time (McAllister)
• The Daughter of Doctor Moreau (Moreno-Garcia)
• The Atlas Six (Blake)
• Eggs in Purgatory (Childs)
• What Moves the Dead (Kingfisher)
• The Sea Beast Takes a Lover: Stories (Andreasen)

Of these, Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Eggs in Purgatory and A Terrible Fall of Angels were my favorites, but the latter was too much set-up with a lot going on. A couple were quite dreadful. The rest were interesting. Some of the other group members read more books by Blake or Kingfisher.

I've read three books in the Eggs series by Childs. I stopped after three because I couldn't get paper, ebook, or audio for book 4 from any of three libraries. I recently discovered that NYPL also uses SimplyE, which has rights to distribute some materials that Libby does not. So I started book 4.

Several of these books, I listened to as well as read, which helped get through some of them. Also, they were good to listen to as I was walking.

The following books were Pandemic Book Club alternatives, meaning that they didn't win the vote, but I reserved them from the library before I knew what the winning book would be. They looked interesting, so I read them as well.

• The Library of the Unwritten (Hackwith)
• Witches of New York (McKay)

I enjoyed both of these as well as the book of the month. It was a good month (or two).

These books were Audio Only. I listened to them while I was out for walks. I would like to read them at some point.

• Gods of Manhattan -- audiobook (Mebus)
• U is for Undertow (Grafton)
• A Dead Djinn in Cairo (Clark)

Obviously, I will read the Sue Grafton book at some point. The other I will nominate for the book club the next time it's my turn. The Djinn novella is a reread. I searched for audiobooks and it popped up. There are, I believe, 4 novellas, of which I have read 2. Hopefully, I can listen to all four of them.

The following books were my own picks. Some were free downloads. Some were library books. Some were from Kickstarter campaigns.

• Yeti Left Home (Rosenburg)
• Pumpkin Blend (Layne)
• The Fox's Fire (McPhail)
• Bedeviled Eggs (Childs)
• Harald's Adventure Wares (Redd)
• Steampunk Leap Year / Steampunk New Year (Lucci)
• Hobbies for Androids (Fenn)
• Trial By Fire (Gannon)
• Eggs Benedict Arnold (Childs)
• Cibola Burn (Corey)
• Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Doidge)
• T is for Trespass (Grafton)
• Fire With Fire (Gannon)
• The Bookshop and the Barbarian (Stang)
• ePulp Sampler, Vol 1

Oddly, almost all of those are series books. Two are Chuck Gannon (and I'm just finishing the third book). One is James S. A. Corey, which surprises me because I thought there were two of those. One Grafton mystery and two Childs cozy mysteries (Cackleberry club).

Magna

• My Hero Academia Volumes 32-25 - up to date
• My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Volumes 1-15 - the complete series (the first 13 books were read in 2022, but nothing was recorded in the blog. Libby has details.)
• My Hero Academia: Team-Up Missions Volumes 1-2 - this is what I'd like to see more of in the series, side missions outside of the big picture story line.
• One Piece Volumes 39-40 - I've been away from this for years and couldn't find where I left off, mostly because so of it was unfamiliar, but I remember Water 7.

Miscellaneous

• More Gaming Books - mostly a bunch of stuff written by Phil Reed. I need to document this stuff so it can inspire my writing.
• A Firkin of eSpec Books - this is not posted yet. I've been reading more Kickstarter freebies.
• Some of the Best From Tor.Com 2016 Edition -- not finished yet, basically I'd forgotten about it from earlier this year, but I do have a draft file of what I have read so far.

Analog and Other Old Magazines

• ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact March 1973 (not much read)
• ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact February 1973
• ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact January 1973

My three-year experiment ran out of steam. It couldn't survive my book club and my delving into the Expanse and the Caine-verse.

And that's about it: 27 books (plus my own book), 9 or 10 volumes of manga, 2 1/2 old Analogs, 3 audiobooks (only) and a smattering of short stories and gaming books.

Here's looking to 2024!

Gods of Manhattan -- audiobook (Mebus)

Gods of Manhattan
by Scott Mebus (2008)

[NO IMAGE -- AUDIO BOOK ONLY]

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This title was suggested by the public library -- I forget if it was Brookly or NYPL. I was looking for another book to listen to while I was walking. I didn't realize that it was so old (or that, I just learned, it's part of a series). Once again, I listened to the first chapter twice just to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

Interesting book about a secret world of Manhatta occupying the same space as Manhattan and filled with people, "Gods", from New York's past, including Lenape Indians. It's listed on Wikipedia as a children's novel, but it's about 272 pages long. I guess that's on par with early Harry Potter books though.

I enjoyed it and plan on reading it in the new year. Perhaps I'll suggest it to my book club, so two birds, one stone.

This is a place-holder entry. I'll write the full one when I read the book. That's my new rule for the blog. I can make up and change my own rules.

Yeti Left Home (Rosenburg)

Yeti Left Home
by Aaron Rosenberg (2023)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was an ebook I purchased in a Kickstarter from eSpec Books, which also published my book In A Flash 2020. As a supporter of this book, my name appears in a list in the closing pages.

As silly as it sounds, many of these Kickstarter books go into the electronic TBR pile. I have a directory of them on my hard drive. Between my book club selections, holiday reading (whichever holiday) and older books already in my Kindle app, I sometimes go back and upload stories and books, usually starting with the shortest, looking for some quick reads. (This means I read more short stories, but then I read more authors, too.)

Happily, Yeti Left Home is from this year, so I'm not too far behind with this one.

First, side note, I told Danielle (Ackley McPhail, of eSpec Books) at a convention that the sequel should be called "Yeti Persisted". She laughed but it's not going to happen.

The story: Wylie Kang is an unassuming Yeti who desires nothing more than his isolated cabin in Embarass, Minnesota, with his reclining chair, his big screen TV and a cold breeze coming in through the window. He pays for this by catching and selling fish in town. One night, Wylie starts having dreams about running though the woods and attacking campers. He wakes up with leaves and twigs in his fur and hands, and no way of explaining it. Worse, he hears that campers were actually killed.

And, worst, a Hunter is looking for him. Hunters trap cryptids like him.

Wylie packs his chair and TV into his pickup and flees his cabin to lay low for a while. He drives all the way to Minneapolis and finds a motel, paying cash out of a coffee tin. He has a drivers license but little else.

While walking around the city, he gets pickpocketed, but the culprit is caught by a Red Cap who recognizes Wylie as something special. This fellow, Knox, takes Wylie under his wing, so to speak, and gets him settled into an apartment that will be cheaper in the long run than the motel, even if he's only staying in the city for a week. The apartment is owned by another supernatural being, and Knox introduces him to more.

Of particular interest are Brea, the Ogress, who is keeping an eye on Wylie to make sure that he isn't any trouble, and Sinead, a Banshee who tended to keep to herself before meeting Wylie. Brea suggests Wylie go to docks to look for work, and Sinead gives him directions.

Once at the docks, Wylie is immediately popular after preventing an accident that might've led to a bad injury, and because he's great at the job of lifting and hauling, even though it exhausted even a yeti like him, but in a good way. He's also popular because he puts an end to the shakedown from a protection racket. His coworkers are so grateful that they give him the heads up that there's a woman looking for him.

Note that his coworkers don't know what he is. They just think he's a big, hairy guy who can lift a lot.

He's finally caught by the Hunter but tells her that he'll find the actual killer, and the "scooby" gang is off to work.

As one can imagine, the Yeti didn't leave home. He's found one.

A quick, enjoyable read with a lot of cool characters all getting along.

Pumpkin Blend (Layne)

Pumpkin Blend
Paramour Bay #14
Kennedy Layne (2020)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a freebie from a BookBub mailing. I downloaded it and read it before Halloween, and then forgot about it. Not that it was forgettable (well, maybe a little), but I got behind in my blogging and didn't check my library for everything I'd read. On a side note, I already had book #15 in my Kindle library, which I apparently downloaded last year (or earlier), but haven't read yet. It's a Christmas mystery. There is very little chance that I will get to it by this Christmas as I have a couple of other things going already.

This will be short, and hopefully the Christmas entry will be longer. It was a little difficult to get into because it's the 14th book, so the author is free to assume that the reader should be at least somewhat familiar with the characters.

The big mystery is the disappearance of a very large, prize-winning pumpkin from a cart in town a couple of weeks before Halloween. It disappeared by magical means, but no one knows how. At the same time, the witnesses had to be convinced that they didn't see what they thought they saw. The farmers on the wagon assume that it fell off along the way.

The main character is a witch, and her mother is also a witch, but she's away and can't help with this. The witch has a cat that's a familiar and addicted to edibles and naps. The cat got confusing when he talked about his Former True Love, his New True Love, his On Again True Love, etc, mostly because at first I assumed he was talking about other cats, not actual people. Some people are aware of the paranormal, in general, and the circumstances of the main characters, in particular, but most are blissfully unaware.

The story eventually leads to a cemetery right before Halloween and the spirits trying to break through and the ones trying to prevent that from happening. Pumpkins help with that some of thing.

It wasn't bad, but two months later, it doesn't seem to be very memorable.

Here's the Good Reads synopsis, for any visitors to my site wishing more info:

Pumpkin tea blends aren't the only things that are being stirred up in the next baffling whodunit of the Paramour Bay Mysteries by USA Today Bestselling Author Kennedy Layne...

All Hallows' Eve is only a fortnight away, and the residents of Paramour Bay can't wait to get their hands on all the candy corn, caramel apples, and pumpkin tea blends this fall season. As a matter of fact, the highly anticipated Halloween Festival is about to kick off in town square with the reveal of the largest pumpkin that has ever been grown in their very own local pumpkin patch.

There's only one itsy-bitsy problem--someone has stolen the town's prized jack-o-lantern! Raven ropes Leo into solving another mystery, but he goes all in when he realizes that a pilfered pumpkin is the least of their worries!

Fill up your candy bowl, grab your favorite pumpkin-flavored drink, and get ready to solve the perplexing case of the missing prized pumpkin!

This was an ebook.