Tag: Plastiboo

WWW Wednesday – March 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

Nothing at the moment! I am momentarily between books.

Recently Finished

Last week I finished reading Pandora’s Jar by Natalie Haynes, which I’m not surprised I loved until the very end. It really had been a long time since I read any books about Greek mythology, and this was the perfect book for getting back into it. Although I’m now really curious about reading the author’s fiction, another book in a similar vein to this one, Divine Might, recently came out and I really want to read that one now too. I should read A Thousand Ships first, though, since I have a copy. Unsurprisingly, a big takeaway for me has been a newfound appreciation for the roles that women play in Greek mythology, especially in how they are often integral to different heroes’ successes, something that feels often overlooked or downplayed in more modern retellings.

I also read through Godhusk: Rebirth by Plastiboo, another art book in the form of a game guide for a game that never existed. Unlike Vermis, this book takes more of a science fiction approach and presents a game that seems to be very much in the Metroid-style action/adventure genre. Though I love the author’s Vermis books a great deal, I came away from this one desperately wishing that the game it depicts was real. The visual style, clearly inspired by the work of H.R. Giger, made for a captivatingly bleak world full of biomechanical horrors, and the lore was utterly engrossing. Beyond that, the game mechanic of swapping out different limbs of the player character’s “vessel” to augment how the character plays and interacts with the world sounds really cool as an idea. I could vividly imagine how the game would feel playing, so it’s a bit of a bummer that it’s only a work of imagination.

Reading Next

I have decided that I will start reading Trickster Drift by Eden Robinson next, so that I can finally continue the Trickster trilogy after having read the first book nearly three years ago. I really need to stop leaving book series hanging like this.

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

Top 5 Books I Read in 2024

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I’m getting to this a little late this year, but nevertheless it is time once again to look back on the year just finished and determine which books were my top five favourite. As usual, this isn’t listing books that came out last year, just the five books I read last year that I enjoyed the most, in no particular order.

I think this may be the most difficult time I’ve had making this list; I enjoyed most everything I read last year, but a good number of them don’t really feel worthy of this distinction to me. It seems I had a similar problem last year, but I feel more pointedly dispassionate this time. At any rate, let’s see what made the cut.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – November 6, 2024

Ryan1 Comment
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

I’m between books at the moment! I regret not posting last week, but my work schedule is weird and I had people over to carve pumpkins last Wednesday, so I was unable to get a post up in time. As a result, I have a few finished books to get to.

Recently Finished

Vermis IIThe first book I finished since I last posted was Vermis II: Mist & Mirrors by Plastiboo, the second book in a series of art books structured as game guides for a dark fantasy video game that never existed. I really enjoyed the first volume, and I liked this second one even more. The first book felt a little open-ended, as if you’re following a quest line that the player could follow regardless of chosen character, but this time around it seemed to be a guide for a specific character’s journey, with more characters listed at the end, presumably with their own quests. I really liked the focus this gave to the book, keeping the game guide motif while allowing itself a more concrete narrative.

Sherlock Holmes and the NecronomiconNext, I read Sherlock Holmes and the Necronomicon by Sylvain Cordurié and Laci, another Halloween read that I borrowed from the library. This wasn’t terrible, but I don’t have a lot of nice things to say about this book either. It was competently written and drawn, but had very little going on that I found interesting. It being a Holmes story felt especially pointless, as he doesn’t do any detective work. The only real significance is that, somehow, Moriarty has returned, and he is going to use the Necronomicon to fully revive himself because of some nonsense about part of his soul being in Holmes. Actually, that was the most interesting element, as the idea is brought forth that positive changes in Holmes’s character are a direct result of Moriarty’s soul hiding in him, but this isn’t focused on enough. I likely won’t be checking out the second book.

Meddling KidsFinally, I finished Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero, my last spooky read for the Halloween season. Unfortunately, I didn’t actually finish it until November 4th, but the lion’s share of it was in October, so I’m counting it. I really like this book, I’d give it a solid four stars overall, though sometimes I want to say three and a half because the ending sections of this book became something of a struggle for me. There were some great twists and turns in the story that I enjoyed, but so much of it is this trio of burnouts fighting off a horde of amphibious monsters and it just wouldn’t stop; my eyes actually started glazing over and I had to snap myself back into focus during these continual, drawn out fight sequences. It was really good novel overall, but I can’t help but feel like Cantero wants it to be a movie, which can only really hurt a book if indeed the author doesn’t really want it to be a book.

Reading Next

Godzilla and Godzilla Raids AgainThe year is winding down, and I feel like I have to be realistic about what I’m going to be able to get to. Obviously, I can manage a good number of comics on short notice, but I have to be realistic about what novels I think I can read, especially since my work schedule may be dramatically changing soon. So, there are two books I definitely want to read before the end of the year: Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again by Shigeru Kayama and Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer. I’m going to start with the Godzilla book, as I’ve been excited to read that one, and I’ll round out the year finishing off the Southern Reach trilogy. Reading a whole trilogy in a year is rare for me; I think the only other time I’ve done it was when I read The Lord of the Rings.

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

WWW Wednesday – October 16, 2024

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

Meddling KidsJust this morning I started reading Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero, a horror novel that I did not realize until today is published by Blumhouse Books; I didn’t even know Blumhouse had an arm for book publishing. I’ve only gotten about 20 pages in, but I’m really enjoying the setup so far, especially in how it’s an obvious send up of Scooby-Doo, but the members of their little detective group so far feel unique enough that it doesn’t feel like shallow parody. The setup has revealed that while they did in fact get an old man in a costume arrested, something else, much more sinister, was really going on at that mansion on the lake. The writing style has some interesting flourishes too, the narrator often describing things as if the characters are on camera in a film, but I’m not sure how much I like this yet.

Recently Finished

FrankensteinIn a surprising show of determination from yours truly, I started and finished rereading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley over the last two weeks. I didn’t post last Wednesday because I wasn’t that far yet and it was my birthday, so I decided to take a day for myself as much as I could. At first, I was worried about how well I would fare with this novel because it has been a while since I read older literature. Once I got back into the swing of things, it made for a very enjoyable reread. This was actually my first time reading the 1831 text as well, as originally I’d only read the 1818 version. The absence of overt incest does make it better. Wrightson’s illustrations were also a great addition to this reading experience. Some of them felt a little superfluous, but it was a delight anytime he depicted the Creature. How anyone could not understand how the Creature is supposed to be a sympathetic figure is beyond me; what ended up surprising me, a detail I’d forgotten, is that Frankenstein actually does admit his shortcomings on his deathbed. He’d been such an intolerant heel the entire book I had convinced myself he dies without learning a damn thing.

Reading Next

Vermis III still have a number of books I plan to get to for Frighteningly Good Reads this year, and I think what I’ll try to get through next is Vermis II: Mist & Mirrors by Plastiboo, the second volume of an art book series that creates game guides for a dungeon-crawling dark fantasy video game that never existed. Though I’ve recently watched a video that summarized a lot of the elements this book will cover, the details are fortunately receding from my mind already; a video summary pales in comparison to actually reading a thing as well anyway, let alone appreciating all the art that is has to offer.

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

WWW Wednesday – April 3, 2024

Ryan1 Comment
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

Watership DownThough by this time last week I had actually read up to page 203, I haven’t touched Watership Down by Richard Adams at all over the past week; things have been a little stressful with car troubles and whatnot, and for some reason that has made reading this book suffer. Still, I’m continuing to enjoy it, and I was surprised by the development that they’ve already reached the titular Watership Down. Where I’m at, their concern is finding female rabbits to attract to their new home so the warren doesn’t die out, as for some reason all of the rabbits that left the warren at the beginning with Hazel and Fiver were male. I can see how this will likely introduce conflict in the narrative’s future, so I really ought to pick this back up to see where things go.

Recently Finished

Vermis IOver the weekend, I did manage to push myself to read through Vermis I: Lost Dungeons and Forbidden Woods by Plastiboo, an art book that is constructed as a guide for a dungeon-crawler game that never existed. As I knew when I picked it up, I absolutely loved the illustrations and designs in this books, and it actually ended up being a rather creative way to tell the story of a strange little journey in a strange land, as it outlines a game’s quest and thus has you progressing from point to point, encounter to encounter, outlining objects that can be found and choices that can be made along the way. The only thing I chaffed against is that this book really needed a better proofreader; for the most part it’s still enjoyable and very readable, but a lot of independent clauses are joined by commas alone instead of being separated, which reads awkwardly, and there are a lot of cases of missing articles and subject/verb disagreement.

Reading Next

I haven’t made up my mind on what to read next, though naturally I have some ideas. It will likely be a graphic novel of some sort.

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

WWW Wednesday – March 20, 2024

RyanLeave a comment
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

Watership DownI’m happy to report that I’ve made some fairly decent progress on Watership Down by Richard Adams since last week, considering that I haven’t had a huge reading window to sit down with it. I’ve finished Part One, which has me at nearly 120 pages in. Though I have no clue how things will develop going forward, I am excited by this story being an odyssey, though the promised land of the title that I presume they will be seeking hasn’t even been mentioned yet. Already they have faced many tribulations and encounters with other creatures and rabbits. I’m quite captivated by how many of the rabbits are characterized, with certain concepts being difficult for them to grasp; there’s an interesting balance between them thinking like people and thinking like the animals that they are.

Recently Finished

Nothing this week, as I have sadly continued to neglect comics and graphic novels.

Reading Next

Vermis IAs I laid out in the spring TBR I posted yesterday for Top Ten Tuesday, I want to make myself read more from my comic book backlog. Already I plan to be reading A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll soon, though this is hardly an old book that has been left waiting, but I also want to make myself read Vermis I by Plastiboo soon, a mystifying art book about a dungeon-crawler RPG that never existed. I hope I can make myself start or even finish these by next week, but we will see, as I’m not quite sure how my reading time will be divided up in that time.

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

WWW Wednesday – July 5, 2023

Ryan2 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

Nothing! I’m between books at the moment.

Recently Finished

Jurassic ParkMonday morning I managed to finish my reread of Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton; I’m really happy I was able to follow through on my prediction that I’d be able to do so by this week’s post. It was an excellent book, and I have gained the greater appreciation for it that I was hoping I would compared to when I read it back in middle school or high school. Something glaring about what motivated me to read it though was the fact that I’d seen so much hyping it up as a scarier story than the film, but it really isn’t. It’s definitely darker and a little more violent, but it doesn’t really give a horror atmosphere. Maybe I’m just harder to scare, but it still felt pretty firmly science fiction to me. Still, I’m happy for the refresher, as I want to move on to The Lost World soon.

Reading Next

Vermis II can’t remember how certain I’ve been about what I’ll read next lately, but the other morning I apparently committed to starting Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett, as I brought my copy with me in case I wanted to start it after finishing Jurassic Park. With my new-found reading time, I’m hoping I can finish this book within the month of July, but we’ll see. I’m also really considering reading through Vermis I by Plastiboo, which is a rather unique art book I recently purchased a copy of. It’s a guide book to a dungeon-crawling game that never existed, and it’s full of art that I simply adore. It probably won’t take much longer to read than a comic, and I’d really like to make myself read through it, as it’s something I could easily just let sit on a shelf like any other art book, but I really want to fully appreciate it.

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