Tag: Hellboy

WWW Wednesday – June 17, 2020

Ryan1 Comment
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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

The Rise of SkywalkerI’ve made considerable headway in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker by Rae Carson. When I started it I intended to set aside time I’d normally use for other hobbies to read this, but my efforts on this front have been mediocre. So, with the other books I was in the middle of finished up, I decided to give this book more direct attention and now I’m over 75% of the way through. For all the film’s flaws, I still quite like it, so I’m happy to see this novel present a better version of that story. I’ve reached many of the bigger moments from the film now, and the benefit of prose and some expansions have appreciably given the story more depth. Some of my inferences prior to reading have been vindicated as well, which is always a plus.

Recently Finished

Star Wars Rogues and RebelsOver the weekend I finished up Marvel’s mainline Star Wars series that started in 2015, set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. The 13th and final volume was Star Wars: Rogues and Rebels by Greg Pak et al, which nicely tied up the story lines of the previous volume. The stuff with the rock people got really weird (in the best of ways), and I particularly liked that the book didn’t try to stitch itself seamlessly into the beginning of the film that follows it. I guess I just like that it gave things a little room to breathe. The only thing that bristled me a little was one of the epilogue chapters, which tied into the end of the Doctor Aphra series, which I’ve yet to finish. I wish I’d known that was in there before I started, but oh well. It didn’t spoil too much.

White TearsI also finished reading White Tears by Hari Kunzru, which became quite intense as it got further into the back half of the novel. It made for a superbly unique ghost story, the main character Seth being pushed to the brink by the mashup of real-world and otherworldly forces that assail him. His search to uncover the origins of the anomalous “Graveyard Blues” he recorded, and in turn make-good with the ethereal musician Charlie Shaw, takes a decidedly dark turn as he gets closer and closer to the heart of the matter. It made for some effectively harrowing reading, and I especially liked the how disorienting the narrative became as his placement in reality became more distorted and unreliable. I posted a full review yesterday, which you can check out here.

Reading Next

Hellboy Unnatural SelectionComing away from White Tears, which uses horror to cover rather heavy, real-world subject matter, I’ve decided I want the next book I start to weigh easier on the mind. To avoid starting another Star Wars or Discworld novel so soon, I’ve decided I’ll start Hellboy: Unnatural Selection by Tim Lebbon, which is the next standalone Hellboy novel that I need to read. It should make for some good, pulpy fun as he faces off against mythical creatures turning up in major cities around the world. This will be the second multi-media tie-in novel of Lebbon’s I will have read too, after reading Alien: Out of the Shadows back in 2018. It wasn’t badly written, but I had mixed feelings, so I’m intrigued to see what he does with a less restrictive property.

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

WWW Wednesday – February 12, 2020

Ryan6 Comments
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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

Here (away from it all)I’m coming up on halfway through Here (away from it all) by Polly Hope. The story was a bit of a slow burn for several chapters, but the situation has been steadily ramping up in a way that’s become more and more interesting. As expected, humanity is disappointing me in this story. I really would like to think that in a crisis such as this, small communities left on their own wouldn’t take such a bad turn, but I do know it’s very probable. I’m a little thrown by some of the language in the book; taking place on a small Greek island there have been some names and nuanced language I’ve had to research while reading. I do wish context had just been given, but it’s an issue I can live with.

Recently Finished

Hellboy Winter Special 2019It’s been a bit of an odd week. Along with personal matters, I for some reason struggled to get my review of The Year of the Flood finished. I wanted it up Friday, but didn’t finally get it posted until Sunday morning. So, I failed in finishing Here over the weekend like I wanted to. Oh well. It’s not much, but I did read the Hellboy Winter Special 2019 by Mike Mignola et al. Fairly self-explanatory by the title, it’s a single comic issue that’s a little longer than normal, featuring three Winter/Christmas-y stories. Perfect time of year for them. Only one of them featured Hellboy, but it was a great little Christmas ghost story with a nice, warm sentiment and a creepy final panel as a spooky little cherry on top.

Reading Next

I am still drawing a blank on what I want to read next…but I have decided that whatever it is ought to be lighter in tone. The Year of the Flood and Here have both been heavy stories. I could use something a little more fun and/or uplifting.

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

WWW Wednesday – December 4, 2019

Ryan11 Comments
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

ThrawnI’m making good progress on Star Wars: Thrawn by Timothy Zahn. I’m just about halfway through it now. I’m really enjoying Thrawn’s rising through the ranks, thanks in large part to the fact that the novel doesn’t go out of its way to frame the Empire as evil and menacing as per usual. They did enforce law and order throughout the galaxy, after all, and while their nasty side still shines through, Thrawn’s commendations are received for how he deals with pirates and organized crime, at least so far. I wouldn’t be surprised if rebel cells make their way into the story in some way, but I like this angle for a villain’s origin story. I prefer the idea of him being an admirably cunning, even honorable character, who doesn’t shy away from doing bad things if it suits a goal, rather than being just another overtly malicious figure.

Recently Finished

HellboyKrampusnachtLast night I read Hellboy: Krampusnacht by Mike Mignola and Adam Hughes. I honestly feel a little guilty about counting this on my Goodreads Challenge for 2019, but even with its inclusion I’m not going to reach my goal, so I’m just going to let it sneak in. I feel this way because it’s only about a single comic book issue long. A volume is normally composed of at least 4-5 issues, if not more. It was a fun little Christmas story nonetheless, giving an interesting little twist on the Krampus figure, though a little formulaic for a Hellboy story at the same time. I’ve no regrets about reading it though, and discovered when I was done that they’ve released a Hellboy Winter Special issue every year since 2016, so I’m probably going to get those now too. Probably won’t count those though.

Reading Next

Lords and LadiesIt has occurred to me that I wanted to try to read more Discworld books this year than I did last year, but I cannot do that if commit to reading The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. There is a good chance, if I have the time for it, that my final book for the year will be Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett instead. I’ve only matched the number of books I finished last year. If I clear that one I can beat it. I will simply push Atwood’s book to January. My Gaiman backlog has been around longer, though, so I do still intend to read Stardust after Thrawn.

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post, or what you’re reading, down below.

WWW Wednesday – November 20, 2019

Ryan4 Comments
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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

Oof, this is going up late, isn’t it? Nothing I’m currently in the middle of, which is part of why this is going up so late. My schedule is a weird, tiresome, mess sometimes. I need a bit of a mental palette cleanser.

Recently Finished

Dreams of Terror and DeathI have finally finished Dreams of Terror and Death by H. P. Lovecraft. Oh boy, do I have polarizing feelings about this book. I can’t quite remember the last time I struggled with a book that I still concede has enjoyable and artful qualities. Such an awkward spot to be in. The bulk of the reading over the last week was the story “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” the longest in the collection. While there are many details I really liked, it also highly exemplified a problem Lovecraft has. He would foreshadow something, seed clues throughout the story that made it obvious to me, then proceeded to keep building up clues and draw out the story and “mystery,” despite the fact that I’d already figured out what was going on. Woof. I should have a review up soon. Need to get some things posted finally. So much for finishing this book in early November.

Reading Next

Marley's GhostThrawn by Timothy Zahn and Stardust by Neil Gaiman are in my near future, but Christmas is fast approaching too. I don’t usually go out of my way to crack open a holiday read, but as it turns out I’ve got a couple that I need to actually get to. The first is Hellboy: Krampusnacht, which is a short issue that has Hellboy clashing with a Satanic Santa-like figure. The other is Harvey Kurtzman’s Marley’s Ghost, which is a graphic novel adaptation of A Christmas Carol (my go-to Christmas story, because I go against the grain ;)). I’m going to finally read those this year, I promise. The Christmas Spirit is forgiving, but it’s disappointment in you can be crushing.

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

Book Review – Hellboy: Odder Jobs edited by Christopher Golden

Ryan2 Comments

Hellboy Odder Jobs

My second book for Frighteningly Good Reads 2019 is Hellboy: Odder Jobs, the 2004 sequel to the first Hellboy anthology Odd Jobs, once again edited by Christopher Golden. This book collects 16 stories by a variety of authors including one by Frank Darabont and another co-written by Guillermo del Toro. Each story is accompanied by an illustration by Mike Mignola. My history with Hellboy anthologies has been a little out of chronology; when I first started checking them out I read Odd Jobs (1999) and An Assortment of Horrors (2017) within months of each other, the latter being the most recent release. I was excited to finally continue the “odd jobs” trilogy (as I’m dubbing it) properly, hopeful that my positive experience with the two books I’d previously read would continue.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – October 9, 2019

Ryan7 Comments
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 Odder JobsOn Saturday I started reading Hellboy: Odder Jobs, the second anthology of Hellboy short stories. I’ve only read the introduction and the first story so far, but already I’m enjoying it. The first tale was a poignant ghost story about gunfighters from the Old West and one spirit who stubbornly hasn’t passed on. I really do wish the films captured Hellboy as a character as faithfully as he’s represented in the comic books and prose. He’s typically depicted as a lug and a bruiser, which is accurate to an extent, but there’s also a dry, subdued quality to him to that the movies haven’t touched. This story especially highlights how he doesn’t just solve problems by smashing them with his fist. There’s a grace to what he does sometimes too.

Little HeavenI also started reading Little Heaven by Nick Cutter, which has thus far been a lot different from what I was expecting. The opening chapter describes something malevolent rising from the earth and possessing living things, starting with the lowliest aphid. Moving up the food chain it becomes an amalgam of animals, morphing into a many-limbed, haunting thing of indistinct shape. I’m slowly being introduced to characters that somehow have a connection to this thing and whatever malignant force controls it, so I have no idea where this story is going now. It seems much different than what the summary suggested, though I’m not complaining.

Recently Finished

Last week I finally finished Doctor Sleep by Stephen King, my first Frighteningly Good Read for 2019. You can check out my full review here. I’ve not got much more to say about it, except that I left it a little disappointed. I loved the characters, but the villains never got scary for me.

Black DossierI also just finished The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill. I’m going to be honest, I literally just finished this book before writing this post. I work nights, as I’ve mentioned before, and wanted to get it finished before posting today, but I didn’t manage to do so last night. Add some general fatigue after I got home and everything is coming up in the afternoon today. The book has been a trip, in any case. One section of prose I read last night was only comprehensible read aloud, while the last several pages of the story required 3D glasses, which the book provided a pair of. I understand now why this is considered a bridge between volumes, and I look forward to continuing now that I’m further caught up.

Reading Next

I am very tired, so for this week I shall just refer to my post outlining my Frighteningly Good Reads for the month. I have no intention of deviating from this plan.

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

WWW Wednesday – September 25, 2019

Ryan12 Comments
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

Doctor SleepI’m still in the middle of Doctor Sleep by Stephen King, which I’ve decided will be my first official Frighteningly Good Read for the 2019 Halloween season. Check out the link to learn more. According to Goodreads I’m about 44% of the way through the novel, which isn’t bad considering how slow my progress can be sometimes, but I do wish I was further along all the same. The last couple of days my reading has waned a little. I’m enjoying it a lot, nevertheless, and I’m looking forward to when things really come to a head. It’s been a slow burn so far, building up character and laying the groundwork for the conflict ahead. It’s only been a few years since I read The Shining, and despite the greater gap in time between the publication dates it really does read like a sequel.

Black DossierI also started The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill last night. It’s a little jarring to find Mina and Allan so far removed from where we left off, though still interesting. It’s 1958 and the government of the novel 1984 had had a decade or so controlling Britain, their regime now over and the country still reeling from it. The duo had a run-in with James Bond in what I’ve read so far (going by Jimmy), who is represented about as unflattering as I’d expected considering Moore typically brings to the forefront the worst about these characters. This read is really going to be an undertaking, as the titular Black Dossier is a document we read as the characters do, with sizable sections of prose being the most daunting.

Recently Finished

Nothing this week, I’m afraid. Doctor Sleep is long.

Reading Next

Hellboy Odder JobsI still plan to read Little Heaven by Nick Cutter next. Hopefully that will be within the next week or so. It all depends on how much reading I manage to get done. In the meantime I’ve also been thinking about Odder Jobs, the second anthology of Hellboy short stories. It’s another book on my scrappy to-read list this year and I’m sure it will qualify as a Halloween read too. It could make for a great supplemental book, though I think I will need to finish The Black Dossier first. It’s more than filling that position itself already.

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

Book Review – Hellboy: On Earth as it is in Hell by Brian Hodge

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On Earth as it is in Hell

Published in 2005, On Earth as it is in Hell by Brian Hodge is the third novel based on the Hellboy comic book series and the first not written by Christopher Golden. Unlike the previous two novels, this book is considered to be outside of the accepted canon of stories. It does however work off of established Hellboy continuity up until the point that it was published.

Hellboy, Abe Sapien, and other agents of the BPRD are brought to the Vatican after a fiery attack upon the archives kills a number of people, destroying many priceless texts from history in the process. One survived, however, which Hellboy believes to have been the true target of the attack: The Masada Scroll, purportedly written by Jesus of the Nazarene himself decades after the crucifixion. The culprits? None other than seraphim, having unleashed devasting heavenly fire. But why would agents of Heaven enact such death and destruction? In trying to keep the scroll safe for the Vatican, Hellboy and company come up against heretical fanatics, diabolical deities, and a conspiracy to bring about Hell on Earth.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – May 22, 2019

Ryan9 Comments
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! Feel free to leave a link to your own down below as well.

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

Mutiny at Mon CalaLast night I decided to start reading the next volume of Marvel’s ongoing Star Wars series that I need to get to, which is Volume 8: Mutiny at Mon Cala by Kieron Gillen, Salvador Larroca, and David Marquez. I’ve been an especially big fan of Gillen’s work in the new Star Wars comic books and this book continues that trend. Previous volumes in this series have been all right, but always left more to be desired. In this volume the crew of the Millennium Falcon are trying to rescue the Mon Calamari king from prison, hoping this will help in getting them to pledge some of their fleet to the Rebel Alliance. I’ve reached a critical point where their plan has been compromised and I’m excited to see where things go.

Recently Finished

On Earth as it is in HellOver the weekend I finished reading On Earth As It Is In Hell by Brian Hodge, the third Hellboy novel. I should hopefully have a review done before the end of the week. I’m having such oddly mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand I think it had the most intriguing plot of all the Hellboy novels I’ve read so far, but on the other I was pushing myself to finish it finally. I did not feel a natural drive to power to see what happened next. I liked the story, yet I was largely motivated by my desire to move past the book entirely. I’m a little vexed by this, but hopefully I can get these feelings fully sussed out for the review. All the same, there were really good things about this book I hope the novels that follow it have taken cues from.

Reading Next

The Hidden Life of TreesI’ve decided the next book I will read shall be The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. This is pretty close to my previous science read, but I loved the last book so much that I’ve decided to just take the plunge with this book. It’s a topic I know almost nothing about, yet I’m curiously fascinated by it all the same. I do hope that it doesn’t disappoint.

Feel free to leave a link to your post below.

Until next week, thank you for reading!

WWW Wednesday – May 15, 2019

Ryan5 Comments
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! Feel free to leave a link to your own down below as well.

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

On Earth as it is in HellI’ve read a little bit more of On Earth As It Is In Hell by Brian Hodge since last week, but admittedly it has not been very much. What I have read has begun to flesh out the predicament Hellboy and company are in a little more clearly though, which I’m continuing to find interesting. In a nutshell, a rogue element of the Roman Catholic Church has been using dark rituals to summon demons and the dead to inflict punishments and interrogations upon them in the name of the church, but in meddling in such forces they have become heretical. This faction has apparently found a way to summon seraphim, and is directing them to try and destroy an ancient document that challenges widely held truths to Christianity, which the BPRD is now tasked with protecting.

Recently Finished

Planting Gardens in GravesLate last week I finished reading Planting Gardens in Graves by R. H. Sin. In a number of ways I really did enjoy reading this collection of poems. I liked the little rhythm I got into as I went along, but the content of a the poems themselves left a lot to be desired. I think there’s a lot of ground to cover with the idea of investing feelings in the wrong people in life, but his poems typically manifested this sentiment in one of three ways: women are wronged by men in relationships, the poet is wronged by unappreciative women, or men generally don’t appreciate women. An unfortunately narrow set of viewpoints that seemed to dominate the collection.

TheAmazingScrew-OnHeadI also read through The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects by Mike Mignola over the weekend. I loved this book a lot more than I was expecting, especially the story featured in the title. “The Amazing Screw-On Head” is a tongue-in-cheek pulpy story about an android who serves President Lincoln and is charged, time and again, with saving the world. It was brimming with humour, yet played itself straight at the same time. Other stories in the collection took on a similar tone as well, while “The Magician and the Snake” was great to revisit, a tale that continued to be perfectly brief and poignant. The book is mostly just a collection of curious story ideas Mignola has had, but they were such fun to read. You really can be most surprised from unexpected places.

Reading Next

I’ve been visiting family for the past several days, so I must say I’ve given little to no thought on what I plan to read next. I promise that once I do make up my mind you’ll be the first to hear about it.

Until next week, thank you for reading!