Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[ATDrake]

Finished All My Friends Are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman, a Canadian literary fiction author who apparently has a much more famous US comedian namesake. This was the 10th anniversary edition of what's apparently a cult classic which has been translated into a number of languages worldwide, most of which it looks like I can actually get for an affordable price over at Kobo or Google Play.

As the title suggests, this is centred around an ordinary non-powered man whose entire social circle is composed of friends and acquaintances who happen to have superpowers (all of only 249 in Toronto), including his wife, who has been tricked by an enemy into thinking that Tom has abandoned her because the enemy has made him invisible to her (but not anyone else) despite his best efforts to show up in her life again before she leaves for a new life without him in Vancouver.

It's told in a series of back and forth slice-of-life flashback vignettes which describe who's who and how the entire Toronto superheroing scene works*, which is actually fairly mundane, with low-key superpowers and people who are pretty laid-back about them, interspersed with Tom's attempt to problem-solve his inflicted marital troubles according to superpower rules and how the situation came to be.

I really enjoyed this, and would recommend it if you happen to fall into (undoubtedly small) intersection/subset/whathaveyou of readers who like both experimental literary fiction and superhero comics and slice-of-life vignettes about them done in a low-key magical realism style: which is probably a teeny tiny niche. But this was cute and fun and sometimes touching and there was a nice added section as a 10th anniversary extra describing even more of Toronto's superheroes, which incidentally is available in translation as a freebie bonus from the French publisher.

* Contrary to what Marvel (well okay, mostly John Byrne) would have you think, IMHO the appearance of superpowers in Canada would be less likely to lead to the formation of an Alpha Flight or a Weapon X program for creating increasingly homicidally escaped unstable perfect assassin experiments bent on wreaking revenge than to manifest as:

THE FORCED: He can explain something that’s happened to you in a way that you’ve never thought of it before, a way that offers wisdom and insight, a fresh perspective you would never have thought of on your own – but he can only do it using quotes, characters and situations from Star Wars.

I'm pretty sure I've met this guy or one of his assorted clone/parallel universe doppelganger/robot duplicates online somewhere. <-- to a Yoda smiley, probably the closest we have

[astrangerhere]

Started Daniel Levitin's A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

Finished up The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams [2.5/5], which I have to say just wasn't for me.

If you can find it, try the BBC radio drama of HHGTTG. It's very good. Better than reading the book.

[JSWolf]

This is a MUST READ for fans of The Wizard of Oz. I've finished all of Danielle Page's prequel novellas for her Dorothy Must Die series. There are nine novellas.

1. No Place Like Oz (2013)
2. The Witch Must Burn (2014)
3. The Wizard Returns (2015)
4. Heart of Tin (2015)
5. The Straw King (2015)
6. Ruler of Beasts (2016)
7. Order of the Wicked (2016)
8. Dark Side of the Rainbow (2017)
9. The Queen of Oz (2017)

I look forward to starting the first novel. There are 4 novels.

1. Dorothy Must Die (2014)
2. The Wicked Will Rise (2015)
3. Yellow Brick War (2016)
4. The End of Oz (2017)


I'm currently reading 16th Seduction by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro.

Fifteen months ago Detective Lindsay Boxer's life was perfect—she had a beautiful child and a doting husband, Joe, who helped her catch a ruthless criminal who'd detonated a bomb in downtown San Francisco, killing 12 people.

But Joe isn't everything that Lindsay thought he was, and she's still reeling from his betrayal as a wave of mysterious and possibly unnatural heart attacks strikes seemingly unrelated victims across San Francisco.

Now the bomber she and Joe captured is about to go on trial, and his defense raises damning questions about Lindsay and Joe's investigation. Not knowing whom to trust, and struggling to accept the truth about the man she thought she knew, Lindsay must connect the dots of a deadly conspiracy before a brilliant criminal puts her on trial.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you can find it, try the BBC radio drama of HHGTTG. It's very good. Better than reading the book.

I was listening to an audiobook read by Stephen Fry. If he couldn't get me to like it, no one would. It suffered a number of issues - the first and foremost was that there was one woman in the entire book. The second was that it just wasn't funny to me.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I was listening to an audiobook read by Stephen Fry. If he couldn't get me to like it, no one would. It suffered a number of issues - the first and foremost was that there was one woman in the entire book. The second was that it just wasn't funny to me.

Trust me, the radio drama is much better than the audiobook. The BBC radio drama is full cast with sound effects. The voices just fit in very well.

[WT Sharpe]

The BBC TV production of THHGTTG was great as well, but don't bother with the Disney movie that among its other blunders made Marvin cute.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

The BBC TV production of THHGTTG was great as well, but don't bother with the Disney movie that among its other blunders made Marvin cute.

I also found the movie to be not all that good.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

This is a MUST READ for fans of The Wizard of Oz. I've finished all of Danielle Page's prequel novellas for her Dorothy Must Die series. There are nine novellas.

I look forward to starting the first novel. There are 4 novels.

I've been reading the series in publication order, but I'm still a bit baffled by the decision to publish prequels in between novels. I mean, I get that they want a steady stream of content to keep the series in readers' minds, but...

I'm a little behind on the series. I need to read the last three novellas and the last two books. That said, I've enjoyed it so far.

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

The BBC TV production of THHGTTG was great as well, but don't bother with the Disney movie that among its other blunders made Marvin cute.

The movie did at least one thing right: Alan Rickman was the perfect choice for Marvin's voice. I think I would've paid good money if they'd had Arthur spread a towel out and put a pile of junk mail on top of Ford's satchel in front of a small panel before hanging his robe on a hook and pushing a button to install a Babel fish, though.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Trust me, the radio drama is much better than the audiobook. The BBC radio drama is full cast with sound effects. The voices just fit in very well.

But, alas, I doubt it is going to fix the "only one female character" problem no matter how well its produced.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

But, alas, I doubt it is going to fix the "only one female character" problem no matter how well its produced.

Why is only one female character a problem?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

I've been reading the series in publication order, but I'm still a bit baffled by the decision to publish prequels in between novels. I mean, I get that they want a steady stream of content to keep the series in readers' minds, but...

I'm a little behind on the series. I need to read the last three novellas and the last two books. That said, I've enjoyed it so far.

I thought it rather odd as well to release the prequel novellas in between the novels. So I just read some of the prequel novellas and waited for the rest to come out. I recently read the last four novellas and I'll start the first novel soon.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why is only one female character a problem?

Would you like it if nearly all fiction had a female protagonist and a mostly female cast of characters, and only the occasional male character, usually the love interest for the protagonist?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Would you like it if nearly all fiction had a female protagonist and a mostly female cast of characters, and only the occasional male character, usually the love interest for the protagonist?

That depends on the story. I did not find anything wrong with HHGTTG in terms of character sex.

[Ravensknight]

Dreams of Distant Shores
Patricia McKillip
4 Stars

A collection of short stories and one novella. I read the novella back in '05 and didn't care for it, so that dragged the whole collection down. But the rest of the short stories were excellent.