* The Blood Mirror* by Brent Weeks *

4th book in the Lightbringer series with memorable characters and an awesome magic system.

Finished this one in record time, can't wait for the next installment:(

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Douglas Adams)

It's perhaps a bit hard to give a summary of this book without entering spoiler territory, so I'll just say it's my favourite Douglas Adams novel, and definitely recommended.

Bryan Ward-Perkins: The fall of Rome and the end of civilization.

Very interesting book about the end of the Roman empire and what it meant for the general level of civilization; argues against recent trends in historiography that seek to downplay the violence and disruption caused by the Germanic invasions in the 5th century. Has a strong focus on economic conditions which is refreshing. Some of the conclusions are pretty shocking, e.g. in Ward-Perkins' view the level of material culture and economic complexity in 5th and 6th century Britain regressed not just to levels of the time immediately before the Roman conquest (1st century AD), but to Bronze age levels! He concludes that the fall of the Roman empire really was a civilizational catastrophe and that in Western Europe the complexity and prosperity of Roman times was only reached again 800 years later, in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Highly interesting book for anyone interested in ancient and medieval history, also not too long (about 180 pages), can recommend it.

Thanks for the review, put on my wishlist ;)

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

So I finished the Silmarillion, and let me tell you it was not an easy read.

But it does tell me this, Morgoth and Sauron really are the most asshole-ish antagonists in Fantasy.

- "Hell House" by Richard Matheson. It was meh. The characters were annoying and I think he milked ccertain components of the story far beyond the realm of reason, but the writing itself wasn't too bad. I'd give it 2.5/5 stars.

Now back to Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series, book 2 "The Drawing of the Three".

I am genuinely curious what people like about these books (and by genuinely, I mean genuinely).

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The most assholish* antagonist in (non-interactive popular) fantasy is the evil pink teacher from Harry Potter.

*Probably the only meaningful criterion for fantasy antagonists. Actual atrocity is measured in human lives, but lives in fantasy and related genres like space opera are cheap flavor.

It sure does, I'm currently at the end of the fourth book and have read all four back to back these last few months. And I can honestly say they get better with every new one. First one (The Gunslinger) is more like a collection of short stories combined to make a novel, but the others are pure novels that feel like parts of one huge novel - next book starts where previous one left off. As far as the acid trip goes I think we can attribute that to King being 19 when he started this series and doing all kinds of drugs and fun stuff young people did back then. I can wholeheartedly recommend the series to any one who likes fantasy/adventure.

I read a few books and more comics this year:

Books:

Dark Tower I-III (and almost read IV) by Stephen King They are a very interensting read and they are making their way to number one spot on my favorite series list (I don't know if I can let them take the number one spot form LORT yet though). It's a very interesting mix of fantasy/western/adventure that blends together really great and has quite a few moments of awesomeness. I mean it's a series about an aging gunslinger who travels post apocalyptic world with an ex junkie, crippled racist black woman with split personality and a kid from 70s New York. Also there's a short story that serves as a sort of prequel to series that is also a good read.

It by Stephen King Yes, it was a Stephen King year and It is a great story that combines horror, childhood friendship that lasts for life and it really captures growing up/having childhood in small town well.

Comic boks:
Aside from monthly issues that are ongoing, which I am reading maybe too many, I read a few collections.

Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman I am reading it as it goes out in single issues but bought the three omnibuses (omnibi?) and I can say that it' my favorite comic book. Yes it started as a zombie survival story but it evolved to a story about people trying to survive in a wolrd torn apart, and then about people living in that world making communities, establishing trades, even waging wars. But what I like most is not the zombie part, it's the emphasis on people relations and adaptation to this whole zombie situation which by now is mostly a nuisance not a threat. The most frightening and at the same time genious thing is that there is a group of people that kill and skin the zombies and wear their skins so they can blend in and live among them and survive.

Saga by Brian K Vaughan A story about a war between two alien races on a moon. And two aliens from opposite sides fall in love and have a baby together. So naturally they have to escape everyone across the universe. It's a mix of Star Wars, Game of Thrones and family story and it works. The art is colorful and fantastic, characters are all well developed and story pulls you in and rarely lets go. I bought the first hardcover this year and reread it. Not really for kids (as all comics listed here) mainly cause of nudity and violence but it's mostly a story about keeping the family together in space while avoiding war and capture.

Punk Rock Jesus by Sean Gordon Murphy About a group of scinetist who clone Jesus from DNA on shroud of Thurin. And then he rebels and starts his own punk group. It's a fun read to kill an afternoon with cool art.

Plutona by Jeff Lemire About a goup of kids who find a local superhero dead in the woods. It's also a one afternoon, even one-two hours read, with a great twist ending. Great thing is that each kid has a distinct personality and it kinda reminds me of Goonies or even more Strager Things.

Y: The Last Man by Brian K Vaughan Story about last man on Earth - Yorick Brown, and his pet capucin monkey - Ampersand (also male) who (after the shit has hit the fan and all the males died) set on a journey from USA to Australia to find his fiancee (and the truth about current sitation also). This i one of my all time favorite comics because of not only the premise, but the way the premise unfolds and the journey. And also the art is wonderful, mostly drawn by Pia Guerra who is also a co-creator, but there are a few issues drawn by other artist of which I will mention Goran Sudžuka mostly besacue he is Croatian but he is agreat artist none the less.

Ghosted by Joshua Williamson About a old eccentric rich guy who hires a former (now jailed) thief to steal a ghost for him. It's like Ocean's Eleven if they stole ghosts in Ocean's Eleven and not money from casinos. It's a good read which starts as a supernatural heist story and becomes more supernatural/horrory with each new issue.

There a few more comics, but I think it's enough for one post.

Do game manuals count? They have story...sometimes.

Haven't finished any books recently because I've been mainly picking at reading old comics...primarily old Marvel stuff.

Avengers Epic Collection: Under Siege. This collects a big chunk of the classic Roger Stern/John Buscema run from the late 80s. The early part of the volume is consumed by Secret Wars II tie-ins, which are woeful, but the rest of the book builds up to the mansion siege storyline and is fantastic. Stern IMO is probably the most underrated writer Marvel has ever had. He excelled on nearly every character he wrote and the only real knock on him is that he usually ended up being the second best ever writer for his characters; e.g., he's the second best Dr. Strange writer...behind the Lee/Ditko era. Despite Buscema's brilliance as an artist, I find this period of his art somewhat underwhelming because he was working under the restrictions of the Jim Shooter regime, which always stressed "clear yet boring" art over more exciting work.

Iron Fist Epic Collection. Pretty much collects all of the original Iron Fist run from the 70s. This isn't necessarily bad work - there's a lot of prime John Byrne art here, and some nice work from Larry Hama and Pat Broderick, too - but Chris Claremont is a hard writer for me to agree with these days. His scripting style is just really awkward and every character sounds like they're meant to be performed live by William Shatner. Claremont also drives me crazy whenever he handles Asian or martial arts-based characters because he just sort of pretends that Chinese and Japanese distinctions don't matter, with Japanese being dominant (I think Claremont was probably really heavy into James Clavell at the time). He has Iron Fist, a kung fu master, use techniques with Japanese names...Colleen Wing, a Chinese character, is a "lady samurai"...stuff like that. I give writers of the 60s a pass with this stuff because they didn't know better but by the mid-70s there's no excuse.

Skull the Slayer. "Classic" mid-70s Marvel chaos. There's a pretty fun idea behind this series - Vietnam vet and some bickering companions fall into a timewarp back to the dinosaur times, but there are aliens and cavemen and other crazy shit there, too - but it suffers from constant turnover of creative teams. The most hilarious part is when Steve Englehart takes over for an issue and promptly massacres the entire supporting cast, then leaves and Bill Mantlo comes on and immediately resurrects everyone and restores most of the status quo. The art's pretty good throughout, at least.

Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu Omnibus vol. 1. Yeah, this is the stuff. There's a bit of a rocky start as Englehart, the regular writer on the early issues, seems bent on doing a comics version of the Kung Fu TV series, all slow-moving detachment and introspection, with villains that feel like castoffs from 70s detective shows (In this exciting episode, Shang Chi battles riverboat gamblers!). Doug Moench takes over and after a shaky start it seems like he suddenly realized that the series was kind of dull (either that or he finally got around to watching some of the actual kung fu movies being played in New York at the time), so he and Paul Gulacy decided to shake things up, introduce more characters, put Fu Manchu on the backburner, and do some beautifully drawn kung fu espionage stories. It's freaking awesome.

In my case, the different worlds created and presented, the scale of powers and events that exceed anything possible in this one, and overall escapism. Know this world, it sucks, don't want to remain in it while experiencing creative stuff as well, thank you very much.

Only human lives? Who ever gave that definition?

This sounds fun, but boy is the book pricey /:

Yeah, unfortunately because the series used Fu Manchu and other characters licensed from the Sax Rohmer estate, Marvel has never been able to reprint it until now, and it appears that these omnibus volumes are going to be one-and-done with extra printings or editions in cheaper formats unlikely to come. I'm burning a lot of my disposable income picking them up.