From a joke comment about this last week's Batman Inc #1: "A bold new direction for The Batman as he, Robin, Batgirl, Batwoman and Ace The Bathound travel America having spooky adventures in a van emblazoned with “Batman Incorporated”. Yoinks! Pow! Jinkies!"

Man, I would totally buy the hell out of an all-ages Batman/Scooby Doo mash-up series...

I should really get these done sooner, I've been seriously slacking on them. And April was a pretty light month with the books read. Started with an urban fantasy series involving tooth fairies by Jennifer Safrey called Tooth & Nail. Don't remember a lot about this, beyond that the main character was an amateur female boxer, the fae were kinda callous jerks and the bad guy master plan involved mind altered kids. Also that I didn't care for it even a little...

After that I went with the second of Tobias Buckell's "Xenowealth" series, Ragamuffin. It takes awhile before the new characters meet up with the original cast, but it gives some excellent world building in its on-the-run tour of parts of the Benevolent Satrapy, where humanity are 3rd class citizens at best. Also some excellent zero-g gunfight sequences...

Next up is the second of Phil & Kaja Foglio's text versions of Girl Genius, Agatha & the Clockwork Princess. Like the previous novel, the Foglios do a great job of adapting formats, losing nothing from the original and adding just a small amount of extra info to increase the value of the book. The book covers volumes Four thru Six of the comic. And I'm hopeful that the next volume will be able to cover Agatha and Castle Hetrodyne in less time...

And then still another second volume, with Dan Well's Mr. Monster. I've been hesitant to finish up this trilogy, since much of whats going on the head of the budding sociopath teen protagonist disturbed me. Plus it involved violence against a cat which is just one of my buttons. The roommate assures me the mental state of John Cleaver improves a bit in the finale, so I'll probably get around to it fairly soon. After all I've still got some curiosity about how this whole Dexter + Buffy concept works out...

I then tried another book by Chris Roberson, End of the Century. It makes a somewhat novel take on the Arthurian mythos and has an interesting interconnected three-time period story. But something about how the ending shows that it was mostly a way to interlock several of Roberson's previous stories and characters that left me feeling fairly ambivalent about it...

Happily getting Jenny "the Bloggess" Lawson's Let's Pretend This Never Happened was a much more positive reading experience. Lawson's website is often one of the funniest things I'll read and her first book collection didn't disappoint...

Read the first of Alan Dean Foster's "Tipping Point" cyberpunk books the Human Blend and enjoyed it quite a bit. I like the set-up where much of human society indulges in wildly varying body modifications...

The next two e-books are really more novellas or even short stories than full length books. But both are quite good. Stephen King's Mile 81 is creepy and weird and he manages to give real depth to characters you only get to spend a page or two with. And John Scalzi's Election about a human running for city council seat that hasn't had a human win it in decades is just funny and clever in all the best ways...

After that I finally got around to finishing up Sherwood Smith's "Wren" series with Wren's Quest, Wren's War and Wren Journymage, a YA fantasy series focused on a teen princess and her wizard in training best friend...

Blake Crouch's Run was a very nasty piece of survival horror. The set-up is that a large portion of America's population seemingly goes crazy overnight and becomes a merciless army dedicated to wiping out the rest of the population. Regardless of what their previous relationships might have been. The struggle by the point of view family to survive both the kill-crazy mobs and nature was pretty brutal...

Next was a reread of the George R.R. Martin edited Fort Freak. I'd already read the latest Wild Card anthology, but I ordered my own copy when it hit mass-market paperback. And after that was another anthology with the May 41st edition of the Grantville Gazette (edited still by Flint and Goodlet) coming out a couple days early...

And I finished out the month with Dead is the New Black by Marlene Perez. An ok teen girl urban fantasy and start to a series that I picked up as a Daily Deal at some point. The urban fantasy bits seemed a bit hastily added into the teen girl mystery base concept. Still, an ok read but not something where I see myself tracking down the further books in the series...

Total Books: 16

Yeah a very light month. And thats with almost too short to count Mile 81 and Election added in...

A very big pull this week. Almost a dozen titles. Starting with the third issue of Saga. And Alana, Marko and baby Hazel have a meeting with the Horrors, the child ghosts of planet Cleave...

Glory begins to attempt and train young Riley in preparation for the coming danger. That doesn't go anywhere near as fast as they would like...

Over at Marvel, the Thunderbolts are confronted by a catastrophic Time Paradox. Which they work to solve in their normal way. No not with violence, but with a cunning and gigantic lie...

Daredevil finally finishes up the whole Omegadrive McGuffin story-arc. Though not before a forgotten player makes a move against Daredevil...

Sebastian Shaw is running loose at Avengers Academy, while loyalties are divided among the mutant students over the detaining of the GenHope kids...

Moving to DC, Hades and Wonder Woman prepare for a wedding, while other Olympians move around on the sidelines...

The Shade pauses for another Times Past story. This time Jill Thompson illustrates the Shade in start of the 20th century Paris and a meeting with one of his grandchildren and a violent rogue demon...

Saucer Country's cast expands across a broader spectrum of UFOlogist types. Plus creepy bunnies...

Dash and the newly freed Red Crow have a graveyard confrontation as the climax of Scalped draws ever closer. And it will be a wonder if anyone survives the way things are looking...

kaboom! latest Adventure Time has Finn and Jake cleaning up from the aftermath of the Magic Bag's destruction. And searching for a missing princess. Could the Ice King be involved in that? Cooooould be...

And finally Conan the Barbarian and Belit begin their plot to get revenge on the city of Argos. Sadly, Becky Cloonan isn't drawing this issue, but James Harren isn't a slouch in the art department...

A tolerable movie, even enjoyable at times. Depp's vampire anachronism bits were pretty good. Of course in the final act everything comes apart as minor twists are just tossed in from nowhere. The bit with Michelle Pfiefer's character's daughter especially irks me. Irks me soooo much...

Happy day to all the moms out there!

An adorable birthday to andrewfarago

I actually saw this waaay back on the 2nd but forgot to write anything about. Basically if you enjoyed Jason Siegel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall then you should like this one. It doesn't really break any new ground in romcom story-telling but it was pretty damn funny thruought. Especially dude who plays Andy on Parks & Rec and the period where Siegel's character slowly goes native/stir-crazy from living in Wisconsin...

In addition to my pull list my comic's shop held the Archaia Free Comic Book Day book for me. Its a slim little hardcover with a new Mouse Guard story as well as samples from their other titles...

The Tick returns with the Tick/Invincible where the Image hero gets summoned to the far less serious super-hero universe by a villain who's a mash-up of Marvin the Martian and the Martian Manhunter. Its even got a two-page spread parodying Kirkman's spray-the-walls violence...

Plus this week also has a regular issue of Invincible with more fall-out from Mark's recovery and escape from Viltrumite custody...

Fatale finishes up its first arc with an unexpected face-turn from one of the supposed bad guys...

Hopefully this isn't the actual last issue for iZombie since its more than a bit of a cliff-hanger...

Courtney Crumrin looks at some of the incidents in the title character's previous stories from the perspective of the normal townsfolk. Just a reminder that the effects of spells doesn't stop when Courtney stopped paying attention to them...

And finally a new Resurrection Man with a cross-over with the new Suicide Squad. I still don't like that they felt the need to give the Wall such a total physical make-over but at least her manipulative, twisty and abrasive personality is still the same...

The movie did hit the heights of awesome generally equal to the buzz about it. Lots of hero spot moments, witty banter and cute moments. And I think Ruffalo is now my favorite Banner of the three recent actors in the role. The Chitari aliens are pretty damn generic, but they're just there to be Avengered on and all the personality they lack Loki has to spare...

Being a Whedon flick of course it does have a motivational death. And the end credit reveal, while making me go HOLY CRAP will leave Marvel comics reading people, like say my mom, forced to ask the nearest comic's nerd "Who was that?"

Best birthday wishes to shaenon

A light week to start off the month with only a pair of Marvel books. First a new Daredevil, with Matt going on a date with the hottie D.A. And reminiscing about college life with Foggy...

And Avengers Academy is a tie-in to the not-so-shockingly weak-ass "Avengers vs. X-Men" event. With the various Utopian mutant youth being put in "protective custody" at the Academy. I do like the throwaway line Gage sneaks in about how maybe things shouldn't be determined by who can hit the hardest...

Since there are only a couple hours left for April, I should probably get around to doing my March book list.

Starting with Ian Fleming's Live & Let Die. Which was really surprisingly racist. I mean enough that I had to give up on it about a quarter way in. I guess I'll never know if the scene where James Bond runs across the backs of a pond full of alligators was just added for the movie...

Read the latest Grantville Gazette, the 40th and still edited by Paula Goodlet. Also picked up the eArc for the next "Ring of Fire" book, 1636: Kremlin Games by Eric Flint, Goodlet and Gorg Huff. Its set in Russia over several years and is an expansion from one of my favorite sets of stories from the Gazettes...

Borrowed a new urban fantasy from the roommate. Well magical milspec maybe. Myke Cole's Shadow Ops: Control Point is a decent first book, with basically a super-hero forced enlistment thing going on, except with magic instead of other types of super-power origins...

Then more of Sharon Lee & Steve Miller's "Liaden" space opera series. Plan B and I Dare follow various members of the series protagonist noble family as they basically go to war against the shadow espionage organization at the heart of their own government. Still lots of psychics and space stuff and swashbucklery. And Lee & Miller's Turtle aliens quickly made their way onto the top of my favorite alien races list...

Also got some new David Weber books, the newest "Honor Harrington" book Rising Thunder and the prequel young adult A Beautiful Friendship for the same setting. RT does have a lot less in the ship battles and more in the political maneuvering and group meetings. The other follows the teen-age Stephanie Harrington, one of the first humans to bond with one of the settings psychic Sphinxian Tree-cats...

After that was three eBooks I'd had on pre-order for a while. Starting with Seanan McGuire's series starter Discount Armageddon. A fun book where the lead attempts to balance her desire to be a pro-ballroom dancer with her family tradition as cryptozoologists. Then the latest from Patricia Brigg's "Alpha/Omega" werewolf series, Fair Game. With the fallout from the end of a hunt for a serial killer that preys on supernatural people looking to have a huge impact on both of Briggs' series in that universe. And lastly a new "Temeraire" series. Crucible of Gold has Temeraire and Cpt. Laurence called back into service and ending up enmeshed with the powerful Incan Empire...

A few books then from the Kindle cheap deals section. Karen McInerney's Dead & Berried was a pretty good murder mystery, part of her "Gray Whale Inn Mysteries" series. Though the tiny bit of supernatural element added into the very end felt tacked on and out of place. Kate DiCamillo's the Magician's Elephant was a truly delightful and enchanting children's book. Wonderfully evocative and charming. Leaving Paradise by Simone Elkeles was an ok if predictable bit of teen melodrama with a disappointing ending. And finally Jim Lynch's the Highest Tide was a nice enough coming-of-age story, mostly noteworthy for some interesting ocean biology stuff...

Also decided to check out a pair of choose-your-own-adventure series that have been partially converted over to the Kindle. Amazon has the first two of Joe Dover's "Lone Wolf" books and the first four of the "Fighting Fantasy" series. Flight From the Dark, the first "Lone Wolf" book worked very well and even had a lot of expanded content added. Deathtrap Dungeon had a much more frustrating save point system. Which given how easy it was to die in it caused me to give up after a half-dozen attempts...

Started on a new scifi series from the roommate's collection with Tobias Buckell's Crystal Rain. Enjoyable, once I got used to nearly everyone speaking all Jamaican style...

A Posse of Princesses by Sherwood Smith was a fun little young adult piece. With princes in disguise, kidnappings and noble balls and games and such...

The relatively short Clementine by Cherie Priest is a fun sidestory in her "Clockwork Century" series. Less of the zombies and more of the air pirates and spy-adventureress joint action...

I picked up Brian Clevenger's Nuklear Age on the cheap because I love both his webcomics and Atomic Robo. And that was in spite of Clevenger's own warnings that his rookie work was terrible. And man was he not kidding. The thing is just DIRE. Hilariously so at times. Still not amusing enough that I didn't tap out barely a quarter way in...

After that I needed a palate cleanser, so I went with a reread of Harry Turtledove's Guns of the South. Where time traveling South African white supremacists arm the Confederacy was AK-47s so that they'll win the Civil War. Good stuff...

Then another piece of alt history. Or at least alternate universe history with Matt Ruff's the Mirage. The big concept here is that the role of the Middle East and the United States are reversed at 9/11. With Christian fundamentalist terrorists based out of the U.S. hijacking several airliners and crashing them into skyscrapers in Baghdad in the United Arab States. Good story, creative twists and interesting lead characters. Though I'm still a bit unsure on how I feel about the ending...

And finishing out the month with a pair of Ed McBain's "87th Precinct" books, the Mugger and the Con Artist. Prose in these was a bit overdone at times, but I still might pick up some more of the series to give it more of a taste...

Total books: 25

Not much to end out the month so I snagged the latest collected volume for Chew. Which had more cannibalism and evil golfers and all new food related psychic powers...

While I missed last month's issue, got the Snarked for April. With child royals Queen Scarlett and Prince Rusty castaway at sea with the Walrus and the Carpenter. Only to fall into the handswings of a tribe of savage birds...

And a new Daredevil. That is the 3rd part of a 3-book cross-over with Spider-Man and the Punisher's books. Happily you don't really need to have the others to be able to follow the plot which involves every major world crime orginization after double Dee for Super-Flashdrive-of-DOOOOOOOM. Though I do kind of want to see whichever book has the other two convincing Frank Castle he can only work with them if he promises to use rubber bullets for one night...

Best birthday wishes to zoethe...