Thread: Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?
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Old 03-19-2017, 02:04 AM   #25583
Rev. Bob
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Here on the perimeter, there are no stars
Device: Kobo H2O, iPad mini 3, Kindle Touch
For some time now, I've kept a good-sized graphic novel or two on my iPad. This is for those times when I don't bring my Kobo with me for some reason, but there's some possibility that I'll get stuck waiting for some reason and need reading material.

For the past few months, that's been Elseworlds: Batman, Volume 1. As a big collection (500+ pages) of multiple very different stories, it was practically tailor-made for the purpose. However, it has now been retired; I finished it on Friday while waiting for roadside assistance. I tossed a coin between Batman: Black & White and the final volume of the Spider-Man "Clone Saga" as the next book in the hole, and Spidey won out. Here again, it's a big volume of mostly-unconnected stories, save for the basic "Ben Reilly is Spider-Man, Mary Jane's having a kid with Peter Parker, and they all still think Pete's the clone" continuity thread.

The Batman Elseworlds compilation scored a solid three stars from me. I like alternate takes, and I like Batman stories, but some of these just didn't really click for me. I'm especially not a fan of the device where the story uses fancy lettering in an attempt to set atmosphere, but instead merely renders the words hard to read... and there were several of those in here.

So far, the Spidey collection also appears to be headed for three stars. There's not much happening with the big arc so far, and the individual stories are serviceable but forgettable. That's not really anybody's fault - on the contrary, that's how a collection of half a dozen monthly titles should go - but it does induce a certain "will you get ON with it already?" weariness as the eleventh 450-page volume in a series. Four thousand pages in, one begins to yearn for resolution...

On the prose side, I'm still chugging along with the Big Sigma books, being halfway through the third novel. After that, I've got my choice of several different books crying out to be next, not the least of which is a two-book series I just picked up about a superhero whose power is manipulating dairy products. I imagine it'll get pretty cheesy.
Last edited by Rev. Bob; 03-19-2017 at 02:09 AM.
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