Month: October 2018

WWW Wednesday – October 31, 2018

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WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

House of LeavesI’m still in the thick of House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. The last chapter I was finally able to finish was entitled “The Labyrinth” and quite astoundingly that’s precisely what the chapter was. The formatting of that chapter was literally a labyrinth in book form. Footnotes led to other footnotes, winding around and through the pages of the chapter, taking me backwards and forwards, sometimes telling me something insightful, sometimes telling me nothing and leading nowhere. It was fascinating, but also a little frustrating. When a footnote passage was clearly going nowhere I would make sure to read it through anyway just to make sure I didn’t miss something. I suppose that’s on me, but it made the whole ordeal take a long longer to get to the other side of. I’m most interested in “The Navidson Record”—the exploration of the impossible house—but it keeps getting buried in footnotes and tangential passages.

Recently Finished

The Death Of SleepOver the weekend I read through Bloodborne: The Death of Sleep by Aleš Kot and Piotr Kowalski. You can check out my review here. It was all killer and no filler, telling the more personal story of a nameless Hunter’s journey to try and escape the nightmare that plagues the city of Yharnam. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t simply a comic book adaptation pumped full of mindless action and boss monsters from the game. That wouldn’t have been a bad thing necessarily, but I’m just so happy with how faithfully the tone and intent of the game was captured here. Some light is shed on lore, but nothing too expounding. You can suss out details from what you’re reading, but nothing is hand-fed to you. This is simply one of the best media tie-ins I’ve read in a while.

Reading Next

AliceIsntDeadWith the spooky season wrapping up it’s time to start thinking about what I’m going to be reading for the rest of the year. I’ve also come to realize I can likely count on my hand (excluding comics) the number of books I’ll finish by the end of December. That means I’ve definitely got to finish the two Star Wars novels I meant to this year, but I also want to read Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink. I actually feel bad for not reading it during October; it suits the season and it showed up at my house well before the release date (yesterday). I think I can get through it quickly though, so it’ll be up next.

Until next week, thank you for reading!

Happy Halloween!

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New Books & Novel Discoveries (October 2018)

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October has been a bigger haul than I thought it would be, despite the preorders I knew would be coming. This is thanks to my birthday having been on the 9th, which contributed to nearly half of the books I’ve gotten. It’s always fun to get books unexpectedly. I was quite excited about a number of the preorders though, as most of them have made for perfect Halloween reads (though I haven’t been able to get to all of them).

Anyway, onto the books!Read More »

Comic Book Review – The Death of Sleep by Aleš Kot & Piotr Kowalski

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The Death Of Sleep

The Death of Sleep is a new graphic novel by Aleš Kot (writer) and Piotr Kowalski (artist), based on the acclaimed videogame Bloodborne developed by FromSoftware. It is set in the Gothic city of Yharnam, which suffers from an endemic plague that turns its citizens into horrific beasts. A nameless Hunter (powerful people tasked with slaying these beasts) seeks something called “Paleblood” in order to transcend the Hunt and escape the nightmare that plagues Yharnam. The Hunter encounters a strange child whose blood runs pale, and believing them to be the key to their transcendence embarks upon a journey to escape the city once and for all.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – October 24, 2018

Ryan6 Comments

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WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

House of LeavesI’m currently in the midst of House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Last week I thought to myself “I can read this before the month is over.” I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. It’s the size a textbook and nearly 700-pages long, though goodness knows how long it’ll actually take me considering the formatting, which includes both walls of text and like 19 words to a page, depending. I am enjoying the book so far, though reading it feels more like a project than a leisurely experience. I find myself compelled by each new footnote that leads me down a different narrative passageway before I must double back. It’s a lot to take in, but uncovering the mystery is fun and I like the core premise a lot too.

Recently Finished

Frankenstein Junji ItoOver the weekend I read Frankenstein by Junji Ito (check out my review here). The featured story was an excellent adaptation. While it is abridged by the medium, I was surprised with how closely he wrote the story to the original novel by Mary Shelley. It’s one of my favourite books, so it was more than welcome. If you’re familiar with the novel it is almost precisely that story, with a few unique twists and artistic flares to help it stand out on its own. The latter half of the book was a collection of stories about a 14-year-old boy named Oshikiri who lives alone in a massive house and frequently has supernatural experiences. I liked the connective narrative about other selves invading from parallel worlds, but as a collection it was a bit too disjointed for me at times.

Reading Next

BloodborneWhile I think it’s unlikely I can finish off October with a House of Leaves review, I am excited to read Bloodborne: The Death of Sleep by Aleš Kot and Piotr Kowalski. It is a new graphic novel based on the video game of the same name. I played through it over the course of the summer and loved the Gothic imagery and cosmic horrors. Seems a perfect Halloween read to me. Hopefully it will confirm some of my wild speculations about the lore of the game too, as well as shed some light on any unknowns.

Until next week, thank you for reading!

Comic Book Review – Frankenstein by Junji Ito

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Frankenstein Junji Ito

Frankenstein is the latest English translation of collected stories by horror manga artist and writer Junji Ito. The featured story of this collection is unsurprisingly an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the classic tale of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who discovers the secret to creating life. Putting his discovery to the test he stitches together a humanoid being of giant proportions and imbues it with life. It is only when the grotesque giant stirs with life that he realizes he was so obsessed with whether or could that he didn’t stop to consider if he should. Following this tale is a collection of episodic stories about a 14-year-old boy named Oshikiri who lives alone in a large, disorienting house and is constantly beset upon by supernatural experiences and otherworldly intrusions.Read More »

Book Review – Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon

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Alien Out of the Shadows

Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon is the first book in a trilogy of new original novels set in the Alien franchise. They are not a trilogy that tells a single, continuous narrative. Rather, each are designed to tie more directly into events from the existing films and explore some of the different eras in the franchise. These books also mark a slight change in branding, previous novels having been branded after the second film Aliens.

Set between the films Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986), the novel follows Chris “Hoop” Hooper and the crew of the Marion, an orbital mining vessel above the planet LV-178. Following a two-day communications blackout with the mining operation on the surface of the planet the shuttles Samson and Delilah return to the ship at full speed. While trying to contact the miners on board the crew witness horrible creatures bursting from the chests of some of the miners on the camera feed. Samson docks successfully on autopilot, but Delilah crashes into the station. With their orbit slowly degrading and their only working shuttle containing nightmares, all hope seems lost…until a long lost shuttle adrift in space picks up their distress call and comes for them.Read More »

Writing Report #6

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Goodness it has been a minute since I wrote one of these. I’m sure I’ve gone this long if not longer before, but when I wrote number five summer was still trying to murder me with humidity. Now autumn is starting to chill my bones. Despite me neglecting writing a report last month I did not completely neglect my goals. I do need to start making progress on new things, however, plus I’d like to let you know how things have gone.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – October 17, 2018

Ryan5 Comments

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WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Nothing at the moment! I just finished something last night and I haven’t started anything new yet.

Recently Finished

TreacheryOver the weekend I finished reading Treachery Robin Furth and Peter David et al, the third prequel graphic novel to The Dark Tower series.  I did enjoy it well enough, but I am growing impatient with how much getting covered is information already given in the novels. This book ends yet again at a point I’m quite familiar with. Aileen made for a fairly interesting addition, and she was apparently mentioned in The Gunslinger (unrevised), so it’s good to see her fleshed out in that case, but there wasn’t a whole lot to her so far either. I’m expecting a lot from the latter two books, since I think they’re finally getting into more nebulous territory as far as what the books covered.

Alien Out of the ShadowsLast night I pushed myself to power through the rest of Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon. Honestly, never before this book has something so soundly spoiled itself for me by being crammed into an existing continuity. There are a lot of things I like about this book, including how they write Ripley herself, but the addition of her, the crucial character from the films, taints the entire story. I didn’t hate it, but it has left me bitter. I can only take solace in the appearance that the following two not-directly-connected novels of this new trilogy of books don’t make the same mistake. I should have a review posted before the end of the week, so look out for that.

Reading Next

House of LeavesAfter a lot of humming and hawing I’ve decided that my next spooky October read should be House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I don’t know a whole lot about it, other than the bizarre formatting and meta-narrative elements, but Goodreads and other sources insist it is a horror book above all else, so I’m going to take the plunge into the weird. I’m honestly not even sure how much of the description on Goodreads is talking about the content of the book itself. Some of it? All of it? It sounds like only some of it, but I already don’t trust this thing.

Until next week, thank you for reading!

WWW Wednesday – October 10, 2018

Ryan12 Comments

www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Alien Out of the ShadowsI’m still in the early phases of Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon, though Ripley has since made an appearance and joins the crew of the Marion, the ship that serves as the primary setting so far. As a general concept Ripley’s presence is still a bugbear for me because of how it tampers with her story across the films (a problem I’m aware is not unique to me). Nevertheless, I think Lebbon has captured Ripley’s voice very well; it’s easy for me to imagine Sigourney Weaver speaking these lines in character. I continue to be pleased with how quickly things move as well. I’m really not far at all, but already the stage has been set with very little dawdling with introducing the aliens as a threat and getting Ripley involved.

TreacheryI’ve also been reading Treachery by Robin Furth and Peter David et al, which is the third prequel graphic novel for the series The Dark Tower by Stephen King. I’m enjoying it just fine, though I’m finding myself a little miffed with how redundant it has been as someone who as read the novels already. I am enjoying seeing Cuthbert and Alain a little more fleshed out as characters though, their presence in the novels being limited to the flashback story line in the fourth book. The introduction of Aileen Ritter, a young woman who wishes to be a female gunslinger (which is forbidden), has been interesting so far too, though I’m waiting to see if her story follows a more cliched path or goes to some unexpected places.

Recently Finished

The Haunting of Hill HouseOver the weekend I finished reading The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Please check out my full review here! As much as I enjoy horror with violence and gore, I do have a particular place in my heart for effective terror and atmosphere, which this novel had in spades. I grew a strong attachment to the core group of characters and the relationships forming between them. Eleanor Vance was especially fascinating. I loved how believable it felt as a ghost story too. I didn’t have to suspend my disbelief very much at all. There were plenty of supernatural occurrences that cannot simply be attributed to the psychosis of a particular character, yet nothing is spelled out or confirmed for the reader. It begged for speculation, never showing its hand too clearly.

Reading Next

Frankenstein Junji ItoMy progress with spooky reads for October is going better than I anticipated, so I’m actually not sure what I want to pick up once I’m finished with the Out of the Shadows. There is the forthcoming Junji Ito collection Frankenstein, but I don’t anticipate having it for a couple more weeks. I’ve always got some Stephen King books to choose from though. White Tears by Hari Kunzru is apparently a horror story of sorts as well, so I may crack open that book from my list open if nothing else grabs me.

Until next week, thank you for reading!

Book Review – The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Ryan3 Comments

The Haunting of Hill House

The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 Gothic horror novel by Shirley Jackson. The titular Hill House is an 80-year old estate built in an unspecified countryside location surrounded by hills. It’s original owner Hugh Crain is long dead, but the house has had a storied history of family tension, tragedy, and death. Many believe it to be haunted; the caretakers only go on the grounds during the day and the nearby townsfolk dare not speak of it. Dr. Montague, an investigator of the supernatural, rents the property for the summer along with two assistants, Eleanor Vance and Theodora, as well as the heir to the estate Luke Sanderson, in hopes of documenting any strange happenings and finding proof of the otherworldly.Read More »