Book Review: Unnatural Creatures

Neil Gaiman's 2013 short story collection Unnatural Creatures takes a number of stories written about mythical creatures over the course of a little more than a hundred years, introducing readers to some really great stories and authors.

As with most short story collections, not all are perfect hits, but there are some really great standouts, Samuel R Delany's Prismatica and Larry Niven's Get a Horse, were both a lot of fun, and the final story, Come Lady Death by Peter S. Beagle was simply wonderful.

A great starter collection for people unfamiliar with the fantasy genre, Unnatural Creatures does a great job of showing some of the heights to which the genre can reach.

Book Review: Norse Mythology

Here was everything I knew about Norse Mythology last month in a nutshell.

You've got Thor and Loki and Ordin... (mostly gleaned from The Mighty Thor comic from Marvel), Odin is the dad, Thor and Loki are brothers, and although Thor isn't that bright, he's pretty straightforward, and although Loki is pretty much a big liar, every once in a while he does something good.

There are Ice Giants (again, Marvel Comics)

There's a terrifying Squirrel (shown best in the comic series The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl - also a Marvel comic)...

J.R.R. Tolkein used a bunch of Norse Mythology when creating Middle Earth.

....and, yup.  That's about it.

So when I read Neil Gaiman's latest, Norse Mythology, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect.  What I got was a pretty nifty overview of the topic, from creation myths straight through to Ragnarok - the end of times for the Norse gods.

The stories are all quite readable, a lot of fun, and educational in a way I wasn't expecting.  It definitely left me interested in finding out more, which for a book of this type, is pretty much the goal.

A great read!

Book Review: Seven Wild Sisters

So this month, the book I read had one of my favourite authors (Charles de Lint) team up with one of my favourite illustrators (Charles Vess), for a modern fairytale called Seven Wild Sisters (2002).

The novel follows seven sisters and their dog, who begin a day with chores and end with a war between fairies, including a creature called The Apple Tree Man and features challenges, music, and adventure. The book was simply a delight start to finish.

I'd first come across Charles Vess (who you can see more of at his website, Welcome to Green Man Press ) in Neil Gaiman's Sandman, as well as in the superb Stardust, so when I heard he had collaborated with Charles de Lint for this title, I was really excited to check it out.

The main story focuses on a young woman named Sarah Jane, who begins a cautious friendship with a backwoods wise woman known simply known as Aunt Lillian, that begins with chores and ends with a dangerous journey into another world.

A wonderful book and well worth the read.

Book Review: The Scarlet Gospels

In my reading I have three favourite authors, three people who get space on my shelves no matter what, and although there are a few close seconds, so far no other author compares for space in my collection when it comes to Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and Clive Barker (Although Charles de Lint is quickly moving into a strong contender for number four).

I've re-read all three authors a few times and still go back for more, so when a new book comes out, you can bet I'm chomping at the bit to crack that new spine and get reading.

Barker's latest, The Scarlet Gospels, combines two of his most famous characters - the demon known as Pinhead (introduced in his novella The Hellbound Heart - later adapted into the film Hellraiser), and Harry D'Amour (introduced in the short story "The Last Illusion" in Books of Blood volume 6 - later adapted into the film Lord of Illusions).  

Personally I enjoyed it, but as someone who has been looking forward to this book since he first mentioned it as an idea in the late 90s, I will say I felt it lived up to it's promise, and worked quite well as an extremely creepy read.

As with most of his books, I wouldn't recommend it to the faint of heart - it is filled with some truly gruesome and horrifying content, and as it focuses largely on characters from his previous works, I wouldn't recommend it as a  first dip into the books of Mr. Barker (check out Books of Blood for that).

Book Review: Trigger Warning

Okay, fair warning - I'm a pretty big Neil Gaiman fan - I've got all the books and movies, even the BBC Neverwhere series and a couple of CDs, so short answer - I loved the book and yes you should read it.

Okay, now to go a little in depth.

The book has over twenty stories and poems; including ones focusing on Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, and even Shadow Moon (from his 2001 novel American Gods).  In addition the book includes a great fairy tale theme story called The Sleeper and the Spindle as well as a couple great tribute stories to both Ray Bradbury and David Bowie.

The book collects stories that have been published in various anthologies over the last few years, so as it's a great way to catch up on any stories you may have missed out on.

A great read.

RIP Terry Pratchett

Although I’m a pretty voracious reader, I can only think of six authors who have inspired me to read through their entire bodies of work; Terry Pratchett was my fourth.

I found my way to his work through Good Omens, co-written by Neil Gaiman (being the third author I’ve taken that journey with in my life) and absolutely loved the humour and adventure of that book. Quickly finding many of my friends had read a Discworld novel here or there, I decided to go back to his first book, The Carpet People (written at 18) and after finding it a fun read (with an even better “about the author” section*) I decided to read a Pratchett book a month until I caught up with his current work.

This took me from June, 2005 to July, 2008 - afterwards I waited, like all his other fans for each new book to come out and take to me some pretty great places.

Each month I was more and more stunned by how he could build a world from something as simple as a parody of Larry Niven’s Ringworld into something that started talking to me about my world, my life as a friend, husband, parent, and reader.

At the moment I’ve got all of his books sitting on my shelves from The Carpet People to last years The Long Mars and I can honestly say they are some of my favourites in genre fiction I’ve ever come across.

Kirk "Bookmonkey" MacLeod


*a section which stated in many of his books that “…started work as a journalist in 1965 and saw his first corpse three hours later, work experience meaning something in those days”**

**have I mentioned how much I loved his use of footnotes?

Movie Review: Maleficent

The retelling of fairy tales has always had a particular interest for me, whether as viewer, player, reader, or even attempting to try my hand at writer.  I've long been a fan of Bill Willingham's Fables, and before that the Snow White, Blood Red series, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.

So, a little burned from Disney's last attempt "Oz the Great and Powerful", my family decided to give the 2014 film Maleficent a try.

To begin, the movie looks amazing, the effects are great , the imagery is wonderful, and it visually ties in quite nicely with the 1959 Disney film.  The story works from the point of view of the "evil" fairy Maleficent, who in the original story is the one who curses Beauty to die on the day of her sixteenth birthday.

Stories told from the villains point of view are always tricky; how, in their back story, can you show the audience the reasons behind their dark deeds, and hopefully win their sympathy?  In Maleficent, they (mild spoiler) do this by introducing Sleeping Beauty's father as a character years before the events of the fairy tale.  This works really well, but does ad a certain darkness to the film that moves the intended audience up by quite a few years from that of the Disney Classic.

In the end, both of my kids loved the film, and my wife and I were cautiously optimistic about it.  It's not my favourite villain retelling of a fairy tale, for that you'd need to read Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples but it was a pretty great show nonetheless.

Book Review: Hide and Seek

Jack Ketchum has been a horror writer on my radar for some time now - actually for almost a decade, his novel The Lost went up against Neil Gaiman's American Gods for the Bram Stoker award for Best Novel back in 2001 and from that point on I thought I picked up a couple of his books here and there during used-bookstore runs over the years, waiting until I have a few in publication order to check them out.


A few months ago I read his first novel, Off Season, which was both quite good and really graphically horrific.  Let's just say I wouldn't recommend it to someone new to the genre, it was a modern (well, 1981) retelling of the legend of Sawney Bean (which you can read about here!) The book was both acclaimed by horror writers and censored like crazy.


Unfortunately, that kind of attention for a first novel meant that his second, Hide and Seek, was much harder for me to find during my expeditions to used-bookstores and eventually I simply broke down and ordered myself a copy.


Hide and Seek is a coming of age story that builds a surprising level of character development into 165 pages and ends with a grown up version of the children's game that goes horribly, horribly wrong.


The story follows a young man in a small town who has a summer romance with a girl who is both captivating and clearly emotionally damaged almost from the start.  Throughout the whole book there is a building atmosphere of horror as you know something just terrible is going to happen to this couple, and when it hits, it's really bad.


The thing that really struck me about this book was just how great the character development was, there were all these quiet moments and shocking moments and in a lot of ways it was really easy to fall into this whirlwind romance, increadibly intense and really real feeling.


If you can get your hands on it, this is a really engrossing read, but I will warn you, it gets pretty hard to read towards the end.

Episode Review: Doctor Who - The Doctor's Wife

Since I started reading Sandman comics in the '90s, I could then say that Neil Gaiman was one of my favourite authors, after years of books like American Gods, Anansi Boys, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book, I can honestly now say he's in my top three. Saturday night I watched the latest episode of Doctor Who and sat spellbound for an hour as I watched an episode written by Mr. Gaiman.

First of all, I don't want to give a lot of spoilers, so I'm going to have to limit myself on praise for the episode. Here goes:

1) This is probably my current favourite episode of the new season

2) The episode is full of nods to previous Doctors

3) The major idea behind the episode was such a great, simple idea, I can't believe I had never seen it in an episode before.

Honestly, if you're not currently watching Doctor Who, give it a shot - up here in Canada its on my local Science Fiction station, and I can honestly say it's probably the best currently airing SF show out there - also your kids will love it.

Top Five books I’ve read on Blogging

It’s been just over 10 months since my first post, and since then I’ve actually done really well at my goal - three posts a week, every week on my explorations in genre fiction film and games, as well as the occasional thing I’ve noticed.

At this point I thought it would be kind of fun to look at the books that have helped me the most in my aspirations to be a good blogger. The first major blog I began following was Neil Gaiman’s, which initially was a record of the book tour for his 2000 novel, American Gods. It had everything I was looking for in a blog at the time, a project (documenting the tour), a recognizable voice (I’ve been a fan of Gaiman since Sandman - you can read about it here), and it was easy to read. Luckily, rather than going back to his oldest posts, you can simply find the book Adventures in the Dream Trade (pictured left), which collects the initial run of his blog as well as a number of other writings.

So when I first got interested in creating a blog last summer I had been a dedicated reader of one blog and that was about it. Like everything in my life I try to do as best I can at any new project, so I started by grabbing a couple books out of the library and began to figure out how not only to create a blog, but also how to maintain one. The two most helpful were No One Cares What You Had For Lunch: 100 ideas for your blog (pictured right) by Margaret Mason, and The Rough Guide to Blogging, by Jonathan Yang. Both books gave me a lot of tips, not only on content, but on how to get my blog out there, and I have to say that a lot of the postive results I have achieved can be traced back to these books.

These days I’m actually taking a slightly more academic look into the phenomenon of blogging and have just picked up a book both intriguing and slightly creepy regarding the blogosphere. The Peep Diaries (pictured left), by Canadian author Hal Niedzviecki looks at the culture around blogging, Facebook, Reality TV, Twitter and YouTube and attempts to see what it is saying about us as a people - I like the fact that the book raises some interesting questions, but at the same time gives a lot of the positive aspect of these things as well.

My favourite part of reading about blogging is finding new authors, and my current top pick of the blogger / professional writers is definitely Jen Lancaster, blogger (www.jennsylvania.com) and author - although to be honest my wife found these books and strongly suggested I check them out. Honestly, if you only check out one of the books I’m recommending here - check out her first book, Bitter is the New Black (pictured right), as it is one of the funniest, bitchiest, heartbreaking/warming non-fiction books I’ve read this year.

It’s kind of funny, with the one-year mark in sight (only a month and a half away), I’m trying to figure out my challenge for year two - I was thinking of fooling around with podcasts - but if you have any suggestions, feel free to comment!

Keeping on top of Genre, the Weeklies

Last Friday I began looking at my process of keeping up-to-date with Genre news, focusing on my daily schedule. When it comes to keeping on top of genre news each week, there are a few websites I stop at and a bit of housekeeping to do.

The Websites:

Mania.com

Mania.com actually used to be Cinescape - the websites connected to the genre magazine of the same name. The focus is largely on SF, but they do give some space to comics, horror, fantasy and manga. The site itself breaks news down into different categories - lets users add scoops they've found elsewhere and (thankfully) allows you to search past articles. I probably could spend a lot more than just a weekly visit there - but as I try to balance my obsessiveness with my regular life, I just visit the site at lunch of Fridays.

Author Sites

One of my favourite things about Web 2.0 is that many authors not only have websites, but also have conversations with fans on those sites. I follow a number of Author sites (my favourite two are NeilGaiaman.com and StephenKing.com), which allow me to keep up with news about upcoming books or even short stories appearing in other books, but following these sites also point me to other authors and films I really dig (It was a mention by both Stephen King and Peter David in the same week that first sent me over to Robert B. Parker).

The Process:

Throughout the week I take notes on upcoming stories or movies I'm interested in (usually on whatever I'm using for a bookmark at the moment), and at the end of the week I've got to put it all together (pictured left). Basically it breaks down as follows:

Books:

Any upcoming book I've noted down gets checked out at fantastic fiction, as they usually have the relsease date noted - then I'll email the titles and dates to myself.

Comics:

As there is so much going on in the world of Comics - I do my best to follow bloggers and word of mouth (at one of my book clubs last week, the titles Unwritten and Chew were mentioned so I'll follow them up this weekend). Basically I start by seeing if my library has a copy (why pay if you can get it for free) and if not I'll look for online reviews. Any comics that I can find through friends or at the library get requested, the rest get emailed to myself.

Movies:

I use an online movie rental service called zip.ca - it's similar to Netflix in the States. You create a queue of movies you'd like to see and as they become available you are mailed them. Zip allows you to put movies on hold as soon as they get into the theatre. This allows me to keep a list of all the movies I'd like to see on someone elses site and ensures I don't miss out on as many as I did before we started using zip.

Whew - that's a lot of compiling I do each week - it never seems that big until you start explaining it. Next Friday we'll look at my monthly regime.

Book Review: Odd and the Frost Giants

For readers of this blog, it's pretty obvious that I'm a fan of Neil Gaiman - take a look over at my librarything page and you'll see that there are very few books of his I don't have. Usually I read his books almost as soon as they come out (within two months at the latest), but I've made an exception with this week's book, Odd and the Frost Giants.

I actually got this book for Christmas 2008, but as it is under 100 pages, I figured that I would save it for a special occasion. About a month ago, my oldest daughter got accepted into University, so I figured - that's pretty special, and here we are.

The story itself, which I would define as just this side of a Norse mythology/fairy tale, like something out of the Brothers Grimm but with a Young Adult focus, is a pretty basic tale. Odd is a crippled teen who feels ignored by his family (his father drowned and his mother remarried) and as the winter seems neverending, he leaves his home to try and make it on his own. Along the way he finds some new friends, some difficult challenges, and some terrifying giants.

The story involves the Norse Gods, Frost Giants, and a lot of adventure. Again, like the main character of a fairy tale, Odd is tested early in the book, by having to decide whether or not to help some trapped animals, and his life often depends on how quickly he can think his way through very dangerous situations.

The book is very fun, definitely a one-day read, and if you haven't checked it out yet, a new edition was just released - it would make a great Christmas present for a 9-13 year old, if you're looking.

Genre Character of the Week: Dorothy Gale from Return to Oz

Last weekend I saw the new Alice in Wonderland movie and while I had a lot of great things to say about it, in my review I compared it in concept to the film Hook. The thing is, when I think back to movies about people returning to magical lands they visited as kids, my favourite has got to be Return to Oz, and in no small part because of its main character Dorothy Gale.

For those of you who looked at the title of my post, yes, I am specifically talking about the Dorothy from Return to Oz, and not the one from The Wizard of Oz - that movie was fun with lots of singing and dancing, but Dorothy doesn't really do very much in it: she meets a lot of friends, gets knocked out, gets kidnapped, and defeats the wicked witch by dumb luck.

Dorothy in Return to Oz (played wonderfully by Fairuza Balk) however, is full of pluck and bravery, she meets challenges, solves puzzles, takes risks, and in possibly the scariest scene I have ever seen in a Disney movie, walks down a hallway filled with 31 sleeping human heads on display (pictured right) to steal a magical powder from a case containing the original head of Queen Mombi (which is still alive, just sleeping) and ends up accidentally waking them up - seriously, writing about it right now freaks me out a little.

In a lot of ways, I view this movies Dorothy Gale as a predecessor to Neil Gaiman's Coraline, another little girl trapped in a frightening world who decides to do something about it. So to wrap up - Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, great singer. Dorothy from Return to Oz - Genre Character of the Week.

Genre Character of the Week: Matthew the Raven

It had to happen at some point, I've been doing genre characters of the week since I focused on Miles Vorkosigan last October, and even with my very large list of favourite characters I knew someday I would have to tackle some of the major genre works out there.

Today I'm taking a look at Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Not the title character himself (wow, would that be tricky), and not the Golden Age Sandman (he'll get a post eventually). Nope, I've always had a pretty special spot in my heart for one of the minor characters of the Sandman series: Matthew the Raven (pictured left).

Matthew first caught my attention in The Doll's House storyline. Morpheus was using Matthew to keep an eye on Rose Walker, a human of some interest (I'm going to try to stay away from major spoilers about the Sandman storyline for those of you who haven't read it yet). One of the first things Matthew describes is feeling Morpheus in the back of his head while he is watching the girl, and confesses he still hasn't got used to that feeling.

This, for me, was the first time I realized Matthew was new to The Dreaming (The realm ruled over by Morpheus, a.k.a. The Sandman, a personification of Dreams), and as he seemed, strangely, to be the most human denizen of the Dreaming, he quickly became a favourite character of mine.

Matthew has got a lot of heart, and a lot of baggage, for a raven. He does what Morpheus asks of him, but is often confused at Morpheus' actions and decisions, as they don't line up with what Matthew sees as right and wrong - in a lot of ways Matthew speaks for the audience, not unlike the character of Hugo "Hurley" Reyes in Lost.

I first read Sandman as it came out - which back in the '90s meant there was no Wikipedia, only BBSs which offerred conjecture but no definite answers as to the backgrounds of characters. I had a lot of theories about Matthew as he developed over the 75 issue run of The Sandman, but I had to wait until issue 72 before my theories were confirmed (pictured right). Although I won't tell you exactly who Matthew is, I will say his character arc in The Sandman is an arc of redemption and you can begin reading his back story here.

In the end Matthew is a very human character, and sits very high on my list of personal favourites. Although there are tonnes of reasons to read The Sandman, watching the character of Matthew grow and develop is definitely one of mine.

Things I've Noticed: Weeding your Genre Collections can be fun

I'm off to do the used-book store rounds over the weekend, and that means that right now it's time for me to begin weeding my collection of genre books, movies and games.

I know that the idea of weeding your genre collection can be frustrating (pictured right), but as with weeding a garden, weeding your collection simply means getting rid of the materials that are stopping your collection from attaining its true level of awesomeness. Basically it's a pretty simple procedure that will make your collection stand out to your friends and be of more use to you.

Bookmonkey's guide to weeding your genre collections

1. Look at your collection - in a perfect world, take it off the shelf or out of the boxes where it lives and actually go through each item, figure out what you've got. Last time I did this I found multiple copies of the same book, something I definitely did not need.

2. Figure out which stuff you are most proud of (often it is not the stuff that all of your friends also own). This could be titles by the same author, titles about the same subject or that share some other characteristic. I have found that with the exception of my author collections (Neil Gaiman and Clive Barker), my collections of genre books tend to be of the rare or hard-to-find variety.

3. Get rid of titles that you are embarrassed to still own, titles that everyone owns and titles that you can get from the local library - this will open up tonnes of space on your shelves for new things.

3a. Realize that every item you freaked out about getting rid of in step three probably means something to you - keep them. I'm not saying get rid of stuff just for the sake of getting rid of them, I'm saying get rid of stuff that is clogging up your lifestyle.

4. Understand that your collection is a living thing, it grows, shrinks, and changes by nature, so don't feel bad about doing a little pruning now and then - it's likely to give you a healthier collection overall.

5. Remember, a collection with a high level of awesomeness makes for happy monkeys (pictured left).

Bookmonkey's Top 5 Holiday Stories

I'm sure everyone has them, holiday books, movies or TV shows that come out each December. As a kid I can remember re-reading The Night Before Christmas every year around Christmas. It was a simple poem that got me excited for Christmas morning and after a few years of reading it around this time of year it became a habit for my entire childhood.

These days, I've still got a few fun Christmas treats that make their way onto my shelf each year, but they have definitely gone beyond the classics.

Bookmonkey's top five Genre stories for Christmas

5. Nicholas Was...

For my first seasonal story, I like re-reading Neil Gaiman's 100 word poem, Nicholas Was. Like many of my favourite stories, it takes a common concept (Santa Claus), and shows it to you in a different way; a horrible, horrible way. I actually found this as a christmas card a few years back and sent it to many friends - some of whom still talk to me at Christmas.

4. A Very Nerdy Non-Canonical Captain S Christmas

I'm a pretty big fan of the Angry Video Game Nerd, so last year when I was working my way though his videos I came across this bizarre little gem, wherein he teams up with Captain S to save Christmas, I had to check it out. If you haven't heard of Captain S, start watching the series now! It is incredibly fun, and for those Sega Genesis fans out there, it is simply awesome. You can see the Christmas video here (just scroll down to the 5th video).

3. The Nightmare Before Christmas

I've been showing this movie to my kids since there were toddlers as a Christmas movie. It's great fun and if you have an edition that contains them, check out Tim Burton's Frankenweenie and (my personal favourite) Vincent, after you watch this freaky, but funny holiday flick.

2. The Nostalgia Chick's Top 10 Disturbing and Inescapable Christmas Songs

Every year my wife and I attempt to do all of our Christmas shopping before the end of November, why? Because we hate the non-stop Christmas music you are constantly attacked with at every store in December. When I first watched the Nostalgia Chick's (pictured right) video on these songs I couldn't stop laughing. I love the way that this video focuses on the frightening and creepy side of these holiday classics.

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1. Hold Me

This is actually a John Constantine: Hellblazer, comic (Issue 27), that takes a deeply scary concept - a ghost which whispers "Hold me" and then sucks the warmth (and life) out of its victims, and a full-time a**hole (John Constantine), and brings them together in what ends up, for me, to be a story that says everything that the holiday season should be about.

So there you have it, five quick views or reads that help put me in the holiday spirit!

Book Review: Superfolks

One of the reasons I love reading Introductions to books is that often they will point me to other books I've never heard of before. Case in Point, Astro City: Confession, by Kurt Busiek. The introduction is done by Neil Gaiman and in it, he points out a number books which focus on super-heroes but come at them from a different direction. It was in this introduction that I first heard of Superfolks by Robert Mayer.

Basically, I would describe this book as an R-Rated version of The Incredibles. The main character, David Brinkley, is a retired Superman-type character who lost his powers ages ago but now is beginning to be able to use them again. The novel does go a lot into the sexuality of super-heroes, a topic many fans speculate on, but writers (especially before this book came out) didn't really touch on. Overall the book is really, really funny, I love the action sequences and you really get a good understanding of the main character, a man who has grown up, started his own family, and is suddenly offered the chance to re-live his boyhood dream.

The book was written in 1977, and any familiarity you have with that decade, and the state of pop culture back then will help you with the enjoyment of the book. You don't need to know everything about the era to understand the story, but you may miss certain references or in-jokes if you don't.

Robert Mayer (pictured in 1977 to the right), is actually a journalist and Superfolks was his first novel. I haven't found any of the other 7 books he's written to date, I found Superfolks in my local comic book store, but I am definitely looking, as his first book was so good. It's not for kids, but a more grown up audience will really love it.

Things I've Noticed #6: 80% of Fantasy series are pointless

Growing up in the Prairie Provinces of Canada with bad asthma and where winter lasts more than half the year, I spent a lot of time indoors. While the other kids were skiing, skating, and having snowball fights, I spent most of my time doing a lot of reading, and although Horror and SF where my favourites growing up fantasy series definitely had a special place with me.

Both of my parents loved fantasy books, so you could say I have the love of Fantasy in my blood (True fact - my Dad originally

wanted to name me Conan - the fact that I ended up with at a career in libraries would have ended me). The Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance, and The Xanth Series were huge favourites of mine, and when I say huge I mean those three series alone took up most of my bookshelves.

Now, just to clarify my complaining, I am not talking about episodic series, where the main characters go on different adventures (Farfhd and the Gray Mouser or Conan the Barbarian). I like these books and many of them are still favourites of mine.

The Fantasy series I really have a problem with are the "Quest" series, which basically cut and paste from other, better books. This quest fiction, wherein some evil takes over a world, and a band of plucky youths my travel the land collecting parts of a fantastic treasure to ultimately defeat the villain is repetitive and pointless (The Sword of Shanara is a complete rip-off of The Lord of the Rings - I liked the rest of the series, but that first book shamelessly steals from Tolkein). Author Neil Gaiman actually calls this cut-and-paste process "plot coupons" and explains it very nicely here.

I think that unless the author actually has a story that MUST be told in more than 10 sequels they should go out and try something new. Heck, I would even be happy if they told other stories in their own world - I'm a huge Terry Pratchett fan, but if you break down his Discworld series into books about each character, the numbers are actually pretty conservative.

In the end, the best fantasy stories can still use the standard plots, but they do it from a new angle, or bend the rules to dazzle the readers (Fables, by Bill Willingham is a wonderful example). As of late my favourite Fantasy books are definitely stand alone ones (Neverwhere), or series that seem to be going somewhere - but in their own unique way (Percy Jackson and the Olympians).

Things I've Noticed #3: Following your favourite comic-book author may bankrupt you

A quick look at my history with comics in a convenient timeline:

Ages 4 – 10, (1980-1986): I’m pretty much limited to Archie comics

Ages 11 – 13 (1987 - 1989): My own personal Dark Ages - I only read a few scattered X-Men I found in friends basements, dentists offices, etc.

Age 14 (August 1990): Wandering into my local comic book / used book store I came across Sandman #18 (Dream of a Thousand Cats). I had a couple extra bucks and the Dave McKean cover artwork totally grabbed me so I went for it, and I've never looked back since.

Since then I’ve been a big purchaser of series, mostly collections in trade paperbacks as I don’t have the patience to wait month by month for my stories to finish.

My problem with comics actually came a few years back. Basically I had my favourite three series (Sandman, Swamp Thing, Transmetropolitan) and was looking for a fourth. As I had followed Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore into their other works I decided to give Warren Ellis a try.

I looked him up in my library and found they had two books of his, Planetary and The Authority. As Planetary was pretty much stand alone I started there – it was awesome. The libraries copy of the Authority was stolen, lost or damaged before I could give it a look, so I headed off to my local comic book store, where I was told it actually was a continuation of a previous comic of Ellis’ called Stormwatch. Figuring I should probably read Stormwatch before I started the Authority, I decided to look into purchasing the previous 8 years worth of comics (I attempted this in 2001).

Two weeks of research later and here was the problem in a nutshell:

1) I wanted to read more Warren Ellis, so

2) I wanted to give The Authority a try, but

3) The Authority was made up, principally of surviving members of Stormwatch, and

4) Ellis only started writing Stormwatch at issue 37.

5) Before that, the title was written by Ron Marz, who spent a great deal of time tying it in with James Robinsons WildC.A.T.S., to the point where I would need to read WildC.A.T.S. to understand the earlier run of Stormwatch

6) and I didn’t have the three bazillion dollars needed to purchase all these old titles

So there you have it. It’s now been almost 8 years since I decided that maybe reading The Authority would be cool and I haven’t done a thing. I’m scared that in the incredibly complicated tie-in, crossover, dingo-crazy world of comic books that I will end up obligating myself into purchasing more comics than my house can physically hold.

Instead, I’ll call it a day, and go back to my dependable, never-charnging, you can always count on me classic: Archie.

OH MY GOD!?!