WWW Wednesday – February 19, 2025

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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

I’m still making my way through Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel, the second book in the Themis Files trilogy. At the moment, I’m exactly halfway through. I’m not sure why, but this book isn’t quite hitting with me the way that the first one did. I think part of what’s hurting things is that it’s been a few years since I read the first book, but the format of these books is such that they could just flow together. So, I’m spending a lot of mental energy on reminding myself of who people are and how I felt about them, which isn’t working in the book’s favour. This one feels a lot more action-oriented too, with less of the intrigue of the first book. I still like it quite a lot, and I’ve got half of the book to go before I truly settle in my opinion, but it’s unfortunate that I’m not liking it as much as the first one. One thing I want to do to help rectify these feelings is read the third book this year too so things stay fresh in my mind.


Recently Finished

Since last week, I read more of the stack of library books I had waiting on me, the first being Hellboy in Love by Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, and Matt Smith. Now this is a Hellboy book. I’d been reading too many of the spin-off novels lately, I think, as this reminded me of the true joys I have in reading this series and why I became a fan in the first place. It helped that I’ve had a bit of a primer thanks to those novels, funnily enough, which first introduced the love interest featured in this book, Dr. Anastasia Bransfield, but this book made me care about their relationship more than those novels ever did. Some details have been retconned too, as it turns out, but I’m fine with deferring to the comics anyway. This volume left things on something of an unfinished note, however, so I hope they plan to produce more in the near future, if they haven’t been doing so already.

I also read Like a Trophy from the Sun by Jason Heroux, a poetry collection by a poet residing in my neck of the woods in Canada. This is why I go out of my way to read poetry when a book happens to catch my interest, because I really liked this one. I’m not sure if this would be considered free verse or not, as they’re more paragraphs expressing surreal ideas/abstractions poetically rather than following more typical structure (there may be form to it I wasn’t able to notice, as I’m a bit stunted with poetry, as I’ve said) and don’t seem to be laid out in the way free verse typically is. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the way that these were written, and they evoked ideas that have stayed with me long after finishing the book. I even took photos of a few of the poems that I especially liked so I can read them again if I want.


Reading Next

I haven’t settled on any books that I want to read next, but I do have another library book that I need to read: Bomb by Steve Sheinkin and Nick Bertozzi. Adapting a nonfiction book of the same name, it tells the story of the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb. I didn’t realize when I took it out that it might be a Middle Grade book (if Goodreads labels are anything to go by), but I’m hoping I don’t find it to be too simplified. I can’t remember why I decided to take this book out, to be honest, as I believe I even reserved it rather than just happening across it. At any rate, the library has been a great resource for graphic novels I wouldn’t typically buy, so that was probably the motivator as much as anything else.

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

WWW Wednesday – February 12, 2025

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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

Though I’m in the middle of reading through a selection of comic book volumes, I thought I ought to start reading a novel as well. After giving it some thought, I decided upon Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel, the second novel in the Themis Files trilogy. It’s been nearly three years since I finished the first book, but luckily this story is taking place after a significant time skip, so it seems much will be recapped for my benefit. I’m only about 30 pages in so far, but I’m enjoying the briskness of it, especially after reading Moby-Dick. Another robot has suddenly appeared in London, and it’s just standing there menacingly, so the UN is in the process of deploying Themis to see if these  presumed visitors mean any harm. After a good deal of restraint in the first book, I’m wondering if this one will start with a big robot fight.


Recently Finished

For the better part of the back half of last week I read through 2120 by George Wylesol, and I’ve got to say, I think this book might be brilliant. A choose-your-own-adventure comic presented like a point-and-click adventure video game, this comic actually emulates the experience of playing one of those video games in book form. I got stuck and didn’t know how to progress, actually wandering halls and wondering where to go—in a book. Turns out there are many puzzles to solve along the way, and if you’re not properly paying attention to the strange, anomalous rooms you explore, you’ll have to do some backtracking to figure out how to progress. It could get tedious at times, and the story (while good) wasn’t exactly profound or groundbreaking, but I think this is a truly brilliant blend of two different media. This will easily be in my top 5 books of 2025.

I also read the comic book adaptation of Hellboy: The Bones of Giants by Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola. This story was originally one of the spin-off Hellboy novels, which I read back in 2018. At the time, I recall thinking that the story would perhaps make a much better comic, and while in some ways that is true, I actually found the reading experience to be about the same. A lot of the fat gets trimmed and Matt Smith’s work as the illustrator is fantastic, but it ultimately read like a shallower version of an already fairly shallow novel. So, I’m happy this was a library read rather than a purchase, as I don’t really feel like I’ll need to add this book to my collection of Hellboy books.


Reading Next

No plans for the next novel I want to read, but the next comic I’m going to start is Hellboy in Love by Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, and Matt Smith. This is another library book, and seeing as it is standalone and not adapting anything that already exists, as far as I know, I’m hoping it’ll tell a more enjoyable, original story.

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

WWW Wednesday – September 11, 2024

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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 TruthI made some decent progress on The Truth by Terry Pratchett this past week, sitting at well over 120 pages in now. It’s still in what feels like the “ramping up” phase of the story, but I’m enjoying it well enough so far. In the past, I found this formula a little played out, but it receded into the background as his books started to focus more on building on the characters from their respective subseries. Now, he’s come back around to it in what feels like a more refined way so far. I really liked how the story itself does a little nod to these older stories, like Moving Pictures, with the Patrician grilling the dwarf who runs the printing press about the likelihood of this new innovation wreaking similar havoc on the city/reality, bringing up several other incidents from across the series’s many books. Moving Pictures was well over ten books ago now, so it was sobering to be reminded that it really wasn’t that long ago for the people of this world. They really do deal with a lot of crazy crap.

I also made some decent headway reading Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments by Sappho. I should have it done soon, I just want to take my time a little instead of plowing through so I can appreciate it better. The translator’s notes alongside the fragments are very helpful, especially the one about a fragment that has acquired “cult status” in academic circles, simply reading “A handkerchief; Dripping with…”


Recently Finished

Batman Hellboy StarmanSometime over the past week I decided to finally read Batman/Hellboy/Starman by James Robinson and Mike Mignola, a two-issue crossover comic featuring the two iconic characters and some guy I’ve never heard of before. The story is non-canonical, so it just has fun with the idea of Batman and Hellboy meeting up. This crossover is from 1999, so it felt especially informed by the TAS version of Batman, but I could have just been projecting. It was a fun little outing involving them trying to thwart Nazis from reviving an elder god. It wasn’t especially deep as a story, but it didn’t have to be; while the Hellboy novels have their problems with that, these more basic plots thrive better as comics. Interestingly, I think the Kindle version I bought for about $4 was technically a scam? It’s not listed anymore, and there are banner ads within about it coming from a free comic book site. I think somebody made a quick buck listing somebody else’s work.


Reading Next

Once again, I’m not really sure what I’ll be reading next, but I do have a bunch of books in mind, so it’ll just be a matter of settling on one.

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

WWW Wednesday – July 3, 2024

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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

Nothing this week; I’m between books again, which is good, though I feel bad that I missed the last couple of weekly posts. Two weeks ago I just felt like I didn’t have enough to say, and last week I just ended up being way too busy to make any time. I’m happy to be reporting back in.


Recently Finished

Hellboy The Dragon PoolOn Monday I finished reading Hellboy: The Dragon Pool by Christopher Golden, and goodness I’m really not sure how to feel about this one. In many ways, the writing is perfectly competent; I can’t think of anything particularly bad or awkward-sounding, and the regulars we know and love are characterized properly without any real issues. I just couldn’t escape the feeling that the entire story was a waste of time. An ancient dragon king is unearthed, wreaks some havoc, and then they defeat him. Hellboy’s relationship with Anastasia is touched upon, but they stay separated and it doesn’t amount to more than tension between the two. There’s tension with the Chinese government a little, because it takes place in Tibet, but that doesn’t come to a meaningful head either. It just goes through the motions, written well enough, reaching a predictable conclusion and overall being rather boring. I feel it deserves a little lower than a 3 out of 5, even, but I’m having trouble actually settling on that. I don’t know if I’ll ending up writing a full review on this one or not.


Reading Next

Marvel 1602I’ve done a rather poor job of reading comics, as I continually complain about, and I’m really thinking I need to more thoughtfully go through my digital backlog and make a more concrete list of things I want to read this year. It was so much easier when I had series I wanted to catch up on/finish, but with luck I can get myself treating such a list in the same way.  Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman should still be first on the chopping block, as it were, I just need to figure out what else I want to push myself to read finally. So many of them have languished there for so long, it’s about bloody time.

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

Book Review – Hellboy: The God Machine by Thomas E. Sniegoski

Hellboy The God Machine

Hellboy: The God Machine by Thomas Sniegoski is the fifth Hellboy novel, based on the comic book series created by Mike Mignola. Religious artifacts and other random objects of worship have started disappearing without a trace, the identity of the perpetrator a complete mystery and their motives unclear. Following a tip from an unlikely source, Hellboy and Liz Sherman foil a museum heist attempted by crude, undead cyborgs, fashioned together with scrap technology and powered by the souls of the dead. These creatures were created by a small order of fanatical psychics, who plan to use esoteric technology to bring a new messiah into the world. If they succeed, it could bring about the complete annihilation of humanity.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – February 24, 2021

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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

I’m between books at the moment. I meant to start reading volume 26 of Berserk by Kentaro Miura last night, but I got sidetracked.


Recently Finished

Hellboy Oddest JobsOver the weekend I finished reading the anthology Hellboy: Oddest Jobs, edited by Christopher Golden, and I posted the review yesterday morning. None of the successive books in this trilogy lived up to my experience with Odd Jobs a few years ago, but I’m actually fine with this. I’m thinking that might have been lightning in a bottle, between the book itself and my mindset going into it. This book was for the most part consistently enjoyable, with a few more surprises along the way than the second one. I actually enjoyed this one more, as it had a couple of stories that were really something special, going to some wonderfully weird and imaginative places. This marks the first book completed for my Series Challenge for this year too, which feels pretty good.


Reading Next

The Song of AchillesAs I’ve said for a couple weeks now, I’m going to start reading The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, which I should actually start any day now. It will feel good to read a more conventional novel again (not that it’s really been all that long). I definitely want to read through Berserk Vol. 26 first, but that won’t take very long. I’ll probably read through volume 27 right after too, to be honest. Other than that, I’m really not sure what book I’ll read next. I ought to figure out the comics I’m going to read next sooner. I’ve been good about getting those read so far this year and I want to keep that momentum going.

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

Book Review – Hellboy: Oddest Jobs edited by Christopher Golden

Hellboy Oddest Jobs

Hellboy: Oddest Jobs is the third book in the “odd jobs” trilogy of anthologies edited by Christopher Golden, telling stories about the comic book character Hellboy created by Mike Mignola. This book brings together 15 different authors of fantasy, horror, and mystery. Most notable among them is Joe R. Lansdale, the introduction proclaiming his story as the reason this book started coming together in the first place. Accompanying each tale is an original black and white illustration by Mike Mignola.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – January 6, 2021

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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

Nothing this week. Been taking a little breather from reading since my blitz last week, but I’ll start reading my next book before the week is out.


Recently Finished

Hellboy 1956The night of last Wednesday I read through Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1956 by Mike Mignola et al. It had been a little while since I continued this series, and it was strange coming back because of how much the whole volume felt like filler. I liked how it tied itself in with Hellboy in Mexico, which took place in the same year, having Hellboy largely absent from the events concerning the BPRD. The death of his childhood dog being part of his motivation for going AWOL/on a bender in Mexico for six months was a nice addition too, though I wish it had had some sort of emotional payoff, since the people around him were oblivious to what he was going through. The rest of the book kind of spun its wheels, though, and connected with other books I’ve yet to read.

SpiderlightI also finished Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky last Thursday, which I largely loved. It was a strong contender for one of my Top 5 Books Read in 2020, but I ended up having really mixed feelings about the ending that I’m still trying to come to terms with. When considering the novel’s tongue-in-cheek attitude toward fantasy tropes, I kind of love what the ending does to the characters and the world itself. As something emotionally cohesive with the themes of the story, however, it felt like a bit of a cop out. I’m firmly of two minds about this, which has made tackling the review in a more timely way a little difficult. I should have it up before next Wednesday, at any rate. Still, it was a great fantasy novel with an excellent inhuman character and a highly nuanced look at the dynamics of good vs evil.

The Force Awakens The Visual DictionaryLastly, I read through The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary by Pablo Hidalgo as my 11th hour read for 2020, allowing me to complete my Goodreads challenge on time. Though a lot of the lore within I’d learned from secondary sources that used this very book for the information, it was a lot of fun to read through the primary source itself. I really enjoyed running into some snippets of information that I first ran into in novels that came out after this one, showing how long these ideas had been in place in canon. It provides some great, close-up images of props from the film too.


Reading Next

Master & ApprenticeSomething I’ve mentally committed to doing this year, as I did last year, is reading through the leftovers from my scrappy to-read list, which I put together every January. With that being the case, the next book I’m going to start will be Star Wars: Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray, which I’m still really looking forward to thanks to Gray being the author. Her Star Wars stuff has been so good so far. The other two leftovers are Moby Dick by Herman Melville and American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. I don’t know when I’ll get to them, as I expect the first will be a particular undertaking, but I am resolved to read them this year nonetheless.

Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below. Happy New Year, everyone 😀

WWW Wednesday – December 30, 2020

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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?

Decided to take an impromptu week off last week, but now I’m back and ready to read more WWWs 🙂


Currently Reading

SpiderlightI’m just about 3/4 of the way through Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and oh boy am I enjoying this book. It takes its setting and lore so seriously, yet has such a hilariously tongue-in-cheek attitude towards it at the same time. I take the characters, the quest, and their personal tribulations very seriously, but it’s also made me laugh many times. One of the main characters is a giant spider named Nth, who is made to join the band of heroes and turned into a man-spider thing by their magician. His involvement in their quest compromises the group, while he himself is miserable, and it makes for some great group dynamics. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop between him and the Chosen One of their band, as she is still far from accepting him as anything more than a thing of the Dark.


Recently Finished

During the holiday I did very little reading, so over the past few days I’ve done a blitz of reading graphic novels to catch up on my Goodreads challenge. Let’s have a look, shall we?

Shortly after my post on December 16, I read through Remina by Junji Ito, which you can read my full review for here. Though a longer book, it felt more like an expansion on a short story idea the author had, rather than something of the caliber of his other longer works. I was a little disappointed, but it still made for a decent cosmic horror story, with some fantastic imagery on two-page spreads.

I finally decided to crack open more Berserk by Kentaro Miura, reading through volumes 22, 23, 24, and 25. It’s great to be reminded again of why I love this dark fantasy series, simply by coming back to it, and it was great to see some of the veils of its world peeled back and explained more clearly than ever before, though it was a lot to take in. Manga volumes read so fast, so now I need a bunch more that I will quickly finish once I get to them.

Finally, last night I read Koshchei the Deathless by Mike Mignola, Ben Stenbeck et al, which takes place in the Hellboy comic book series. It was a fantastic little side story about the titular character’s life, told retrospectively by the old lich to Hellboy, the two of them sitting together in a bar in Hell. Unlike other books “From the Pages of Hellboy” that I’ve read, I really connected with this one emotionally.


Reading Next

The Force Awakens The Visual DictionaryIt’s safe to say that the reading plans I laid out aren’t going to come together, so no Master & Apprentice until the new year. If nothing else, I want to complete my Goodreads challenge. So, as one last graphic novel for the year I’m going to reading Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1956 by Mike Mignola et al, continuing the series set during Hellboy’s early years, after not having read any since the middle of 2019. Hopefully I can recall all the little plot threads. Additionally, I’ve decided I’m going to read The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary by Pablo Hidalgo. As of Christmas I have all of these books for the Sequel Trilogy, and decided I ought to read them instead of just sit on them. I expect it will be quick and fun, and a bit different as I don’t usually read through reference books.

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

Book Review – Hellboy: Unnatural Selection by Tim Lebbon

Hellboy Unnatural Selection

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 »