Considering I went to Fan Expo this month, the amount of new books I’ve gotten is surprisingly small. As I’ve gotten more into buying digital comics I’ve seen less of a need to pick up lots of books there, and honestly that attitude seems reflected in what is available at conventions like that now too. There used to be considerably more vendors with great deals on comic books and graphic novels and each year there seems to be less so. Two of the books I got this month I wanted to find at the convention and couldn’t even locate them.’

That all being said, on to the new books!

New Books

The above-mentioned comic books I’d been searching for at Fan Expo were the next two The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books I needed: The Black Dossier and Century, both by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill. It’s been a minute since I read the first two volumes and I really have been meaning to continue along with the series. Century is especially good for it’s price, being considerably thicker than a standard comic book volume but only a few dollars more.

I also got Bloodborne: A Song of Crows by the illustrious team of Aleš Kot, Piotr Kowalski, and Brad Simpson, who did the previous volumes. These have been the high watermark for video game to comic book adaptation that I’ve personally ever read and I have high expectations for this book, following a popular non-player character from the game.

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus I bought on a day I just felt like hitting up my local bookstore. It’s just nice to go out to the bookstore sometimes. I didn’t plan on picking this book up when I did, I just happened upon it. It was on my radar at all thanks to a video essay I saw on YouTube about Rick and Morty, of all things, and what I gleaned from that video had me interested in reading more about it

Star Wars: Myths & Fables by George Mann I featured in “Novel Discoveries” last month. I pre-ordered it shortly after discovering it because I love the idea of in-universe myths in the galaxy far, far away and the art style for the illustrations was evocative of old classic fantasy paintings. Turns out it was a middle grade collection of stories (not inherently a bad thing) that were unfortunately a little uninspired, for the most part. You can read my complete thoughts on it here.

Novel Discoveries

Aiôn by Ludovic Rio is a comic book I heard about on another blog’s WWW post close to the beginning of the month. I know it involves space and time travel, but beyond that I honestly cannot remember much else, which is fine by me. I’m still curious about it, though I’ll likely pick it up digitally.

Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse is a bit of a conundrum for me, though as it turns out I’ve pre-ordered it anyway. To my knowledge it is both the first new Star Wars novel to be set after The Force Awakens, as well as the first to serve as a sort of link between a pair of the new films. Part of be really wants to read it in prep for The Rise of Skywalker, yet I also kind of want to go into that film with no more primer than I was left with from The Last Jedi. If I did skip it until after I see the film, however, I wonder if I’ll still be interested in reading it at all. Still haven’t made up my mind on this.

Lastly, I came across Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss in the store window of my local bookstore. This is one of those instance of the cover of a book grabbing me, but looking it up I became intrigued by the premise, which involves some people in an anthropology group reenacting how iron age Britons lived, their situation descending into some dark places. I will probably borrow this book from the library when I do get to it.

Closing Thoughts

Has anybody else been in a situation with a book that I’m finding myself in with Resistance Reborn? Once upon a time, I read all of the Gears of War novels because they actually served to bridge the gap between games 2 and 3. I enjoyed them and like having some insight into developments, but my interest in that series was not nearly as passionate. I’m just so concerned about something outside of the films more significantly colouring my expectations for the new one. At the same time, there hasn’t been a novel about the new characters yet and I’d love to experience that. I hate my indecision about this, but I won’t belabour the point further.

Thank you for reading!