WWW Wednesday – June 12, 2024

www_wednesdays

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?


Currently Reading

Hellboy The Dragon PoolAfter a lot of humming and hawing, I finally decided to start reading Hellboy: The Dragon Pool by Christopher Golden; though I made up my mind late last week, I didn’t manage to get a start on it until Monday night. There are some other series that I arguably should be getting to instead, but I realized that I haven’t read a Hellboy novel since summer 2021, so it’s nearly been 3 years. After this one, I will only have four more left to read, and this will be the last one published by Pocket Star Books before the publisher switches back to Dark Horse. I’m enjoying it well enough so far at nearly 60 pages in, though it’s doing its usual setup with the characters so the novel is accessible enough, so the story hasn’t quite gotten going yet. I’m most intrigued that Dr. Anastasia Bransfield is appearing again, an old flame of Hellboy’s that first appeared back in the first novel The Lost Army.


Recently Finished

Nothing this week.


Reading Next

Marvel 1602I’d still really like to read Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman soon, which I will likely get to before anything else. Reading another Hellboy novel finally has me thinking about other books related to this series that I really need to start reading; I’ve owned the first four omnibuses of the BPRD books for a number of years now, and I really ought to start reading that series finally. Part of me wants to start trying to read another book concurrently with The Dragon Pool, but I need to quell that a little so I can just get that book finished with faster.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – June 5, 2024

www_wednesdays

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?


Currently Reading

Nothing at the moment, as I’m happy to report I’m completely between books right now.


Recently Finished

RoadsidePicnicOver the weekend I pushed myself to finish reading the last quarter or so of Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. I really enjoyed this novel, which felt like it packed in a lot despite ultimately being rather short. One chapter interestingly moved away from the main character, giving us a different glimpse into how things operate in this town and including a conversation with a drunk scientist where the concept of the “roadside picnic” is brought up overtly. The other character openly resents the notion that it may just be a bunch of crap aliens left behind without a care, that this insults humanity. Though maybe a little on the nose, I feel this is a very realistic reaction and discussion; people who believe in the inherent exceptionalism of humanity would be insulted by the mere suggestion that aliens visited and moved on without a care, that the stuff left behind must be a test for us.

What If 2In a surprise turn, I also managed to finish reading What If? 2 by Randall Munroe yesterday while sitting in the waiting room while my car was getting looked at. I don’t have much more to say about this book; I really liked it, and I was surprised to find how breezy of a read it actually is once I actually sat down and read a lot of it at once. I rated it exactly the same as the first book, which makes sense to me. I wasn’t so in love with these that I would give either five stars, but they’re both solidly good enough that they deserve four, and this book seamlessly continues what the first book was doing, which is for the best. Looking back at my own review of that first book, it’s funny to realize that a review of this one probably wouldn’t sound that different.


Reading Next

I still need to read comics I’ve been repeatedly saying I’d get to, but I’m giving myself a break considering I was able to get two books finished this week. I still need to make up my mind what I’m reading next though, as I’m actually feeling a little stuck on that. I want to start Authority by Jeff VanderMeer for instance, but I’m feeling a bit of a break from science/science fiction first. We shall see.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

New Books & Novel Discoveries (May 2024)

May was nearly a historic month for these monthly posts; since I started them in 2018, I’ve always had at least a new book or two to share every month. May 2024 was very nearly the first month in all of this time where I didn’t get any new books whatsoever. I was almost excited about it, in a weird way. Money being a little tighter due to car trouble has been the main reason, but it hadn’t happened before either, so it was remarkable in its way.

Enough dawdling, let’s see what managed to sneak in.Read More »