July was a bit more of a low-key month, though I’m wracking my brain wondering if there’s some book or another that I forgot I picked up. Has book buying become a problem if you’re convinced you forgot buying one or two, when it really ought to be easy to remember? Nah, probably not.
On to the books!Read More »
WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!
The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
Nothing! I’m currently between books.
Very early on Monday I finished reading Different Seasons by Stephen King. I posted a full review yesterday. While it still took me most of July to read through, I’m happy I was able to get through a nearly 700-page book in about three weeks. That’s pretty fast for me. The last two stories I enjoyed quite a bit. “The Body” was a wonderfully poignant and nostalgic coming-of-age story that seemed more like autobiographical fiction on King’s part that I’d been expecting. The final story, “The Breathing Method”, held the most surprises for me as, unlike the other stories, I had no idea what it was about. One notably fun thing about it was it marked the only other return of a mysterious club in New York where members share stories with each other. This served as a narrative frame in a story in Skeleton Crew, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it again here.
Last night I also read through The Immortal Hulk: Breaker of Worlds by Al Ewing et al, the fifth volume in the series. I continue to love this series and its horrifying interpretation of the Hulk. Over the last few volumes the Hulk has been contending with a shadowy military organization hellbent on putting him down for good, and this volume has it all coming to a head in a way that brings about an end to this phase of the story. Toward the end of the volume Ewing doubles down on some of the literally cosmic horror stuff in a way that’s got me intrigued, though it was initially a little jarring. I’m excited to see where this series goes next, but am also starting to get a sense that the story’s direction may be getting predictable.
I still have every intention of starting Into the Unbounded Night by Mitchell James Kaplan soon, I just wanted a bit of a buffer between books to read The Immortal Hulk. I’ve also decided to start reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, which I’ve been wanting to check out for a while now. Hopefully reading books in tandem works out for me. I’ve come to understand it takes a lot of inspiration from Star Wars, which is always a plus for me. I also just love the tone that the title suggests. Why are the people on this planet so mad? I’ll have to wait and see.
Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.
Different Seasons is a 1982 collection of four novellas by Stephen King. At the time, this book marked a bit of a departure from horror for King, the stories within telling more dramatic tales. Each novella is headed by a sectional title that assigns a season of the year to it: Hope Springs Eternal for “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”, Summer of Corruption for “Apt Pupil”, Fall from Innocence for “The Body”, and A Winter’s Tale for “The Breathing Method”. In the first story, a wrongfully imprisoned convict manages to rise above his destitute fate, in the second a gifted teen becomes obsessed with the dark past of an elderly local, in the third four rambunctious boys go on a quest to find a dead body, and in the final a single mother-to-be goes beyond the natural in order to save the life of her baby.Read More »
WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!
The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
Gosh, I’ve gotten bad at getting these up early, huh? I’m still in the middle of reading Different Seasons by Stephen King. I haven’t made a huge amount of progress over the last little bit, but I did finish reading “Apt Pupil”, the longest novella in the book, so I’ve gotten over a significant hump of the book at least. It ended in a fairly predictable fashion, but goodness was it bleak. I did enjoy it as a thriller, but I suspect it won’t be standing out as my favourite story in this book. There wasn’t a lot of good to balance out the awfulness of the characters and what they get up to. The next story is “The Body”, which the film Stand By Me is based on, so I’m expecting a nice coming-of-age story. It’s so strange that three out of four of these novellas each went on to become a well known movie.
Nothing for this week, I’m afraid. I actually haven’t read all the much over the last five days or so. I’d taken some time off (I work weekends), and apparently extra downtime doesn’t necessarily mean more reading.
I’ve still got a couple of volumes of The Immortal Hulk that need reading, never mind the numerous other graphic novels I could crack open. With some ARCs that I’ve received releasing soon, I should probably start one of them rather soon. So, I will probably be reading Into the Unbounded Night by Mitchell James Kaplan next. I want to be able to get it reviewed for August. I’ll have to start reading books in tandem, which I don’t usually do, if I want to stay on top of my to-read list for the year as well. I’m cautiously hopeful it will all work out.
Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.
Through the Woods is a comic book collection of short horror stories written and illustrated by Emily Carroll. Each of the five tales touches upon death, transformation, and brushes with the forces of the abyss that are the unknown in our world. Three girls receive strange visitations after their father fails to return from a hunt, a young man is troubled by the return of his brother, whom he killed, a young woman learns the value of telling stories about monsters, and more. Each bears with it the motif of the woods, an enchanting yet dangerous place where such strange things can come from.Read More »
WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!
The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
I’ve made fairly good headway in Different Seasons by Stephen King, having finished “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” and already well into “Apt Pupil”, the longest novella in the book. While the former was a rather uplifting story, if a bit dreary in spots, “Apt Pupil” is unrelentingly dark. A 13-year-old boy in the mid-1970s discovers that one of his neighbors is a Nazi war criminal living in America under a false identity. Instead of turning him in, however, he blackmails the decrepit old man into telling him all the “gooshy” details about running one of the most infamous death camps. This book may not be any sort of supernatural horror, but this story goes to some uncomfortable and frightening places. That being said, I’m enjoying it quite a lot as a psychological thriller.
The other night I finished reading Through the Woods by Emily Carroll, a comic book collection of horror stories that I learned about rather recently. It was a fairly quick read, and at first I had some misgivings. The art is absolutely lovely, so I didn’t feel any disappointment in that respect, but the first story was a little unremarkable. These feelings were abated rather quickly as I got further into the book, though. One story in particular, “His Face All Red,” I absolutely loved. I was happy to discover after finishing the book that the author is not only Canadian, but also from Southern Ontario too, like myself. I should have a review up within the next week.
I’m still going to be chipping away at Different Seasons for the next little while, but along the way I’m going to continue reading volumes of The Immortal Hulk by Al Ewing et al. Beyond that, I’ve gotten some review requests and ARCs that I need to start getting to soon, so I’m thinking about starting one of those too.
Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.
Unnatural Selection by Tim Lebbon is the 4th standalone novel in the Hellboy series of books, based on the characters from the comic book series of the same name. As with the third novel, this book is apparently considered to be non-canon with the comic book series. Mythical creatures have suddenly appeared all around the world: a werewolf stalks the streets of Baltimore, a dragon perches on the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, a giant alligator lurks in the canals of Venice, and many more. Hellboy and his fellow BPRD agents (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence) are spread thin, trying to contain the situation before more lives are lost. As things go from bad to worse, however, they come to learn that the emergence of these creatures across the globe is simply a diversion, meant to distract from a more concerted plot that, if successful, could change the world forever.Read More »
WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!
The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
I started reading Different Seasons by Stephen King over the weekend, though I’ve been busy the last couple days and haven’t made any further headway. It starts with the novella “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” which has been really interesting as a big fan of the film. The film is actually quite faithful to the story, it just tells it a little more chronologically and streamlines some of the story points. Red is our sole narrator, and while he’s Irish in the book, there is no escaping hearing it all in Morgan Freeman’s voice. I think it’s all the better for that. I’ll be finished this story in the book sooner rather than later, so I guess I just have to wonder if it has any surprises in store for me that were left out of the film. The rest of the book is fairly unknown territory, at least. Regardless, it’s great to read some classic King again.
Over the weekend I also finished reading Hellboy: Unnatural Selection by Tim Lebbon, the fourth Hellboy novel. With all of it said and done, I want to say I have mixed feelings, but it’s actually weirdly straightforward. I think I’m going to remember this novel better than the other Hellboy books I’ve read so far because of how simple the story is. I don’t necessarily mean this as a strike against it, though I certainly do feel certain things could have been done much better. The premise was just simple enough, with memorable action and some evocative characters, that it will leave a better impression on me than some of the more complicated plots of other Hellboy books. I’ve been more preoccupied this week, but I should have a review up soon.
I’ll be occupied with Different Seasons for a little while, I’m sure, so no novel has been chosen next, but I do really want to start reading Through the Woods by Emily Carroll, a comic book collection of short horror stories. I recently heard about this collection in a video discussing horror graphic novels, showing it as an example of some of the better stuff that has come out of Western comics lately, which made me eager to give it a look. Flipping through the pages, the art looks lovely, and I can’t wait to read through it.
Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.
Would you look at that, 2020 is already half over. It doesn’t feel like it was all that long ago that I wrote my last challenge update, yet here we are. I’m more serious about finishing my reading challenges this year, so I still want to use quarterly updates to keep track of where I’m at. I had a lot of catching up to do in the last post, so let’s get some data together and see how I’m doing.Read More »
WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!
The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
I haven’t finished reading Hellboy: Unnatural Selection by Tim Lebbon like I planned to last week, but I am less than 100 pages away from finishing it, so I got pretty close. I’ve got weirdly mixed feelings about this rather action-heavy novel. On the one hand, it is exactly what I wanted as a palette cleanser: pulpy fun. My mind does glaze over occasionally while reading extended action scenes, but Hellboy fighting a bunch of dragons wreaking an airport does make for good fun. I’m oddly most interested in the characters introduced in this novel though, i.e. none of the series main-stays. I think the writing is best when told from their perspective. A lot of the characters come of as low-key hot for each other too, which I’ve found strange. I’ll probably have it finished and a review up in the next week.
Over the weekend I read The Immortal Hulk: Abomination by Al Ewing et al, the fourth volume in the series, and it has reminded me just how much I love these books. It’s a series about the Hulk told within the main Marvel Comics continuity, but tells it as a horror story. This story introduces a new interpretation of the Abomination, as well as a strange new form for the Red She-Hulk, both of which I really liked. The Abomination was absolutely haunting, which is amazing considering how mainstream and often cartoon-y these big hulking brutes are as superhero characters. Beyond the body horror of it all, I love how the psychology of Banner and the different personalities that reside within him are fleshed out and given depth.
It has been a week, yet before I started writing this I realized that I still hadn’t made a decision on what book I want to read next. Well, I have made a snap decision. I will finally start reading Different Seasons by Stephen King. If I remember correctly, this collection of novellas was one of the first of his books that I bought when I really started getting into his work outside of The Dark Tower, yet I let it languish while I read through others instead. It’s time to fix that. This will be a long one, but I’m hoping his writing style will help me breeze through it. My understanding is these stories have less of a horror bend to them as well, one having been adapted into the film Stand By Me and another The Shawshank Redemption.
Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.
Muse with Me 