A Descent into Dullness

the Wicked & the Divine #30: Writer Kieron Gillen, Artist Jamie McKelvie, Colourist Matthew Wilson, Letterer Clayton Cowles & Flatter Dee Cunniffe.  Odin is working on a new machine, Baal is searching for Sehkmet still and Dio is trying to get the Morrigan to let him meet with Baphomet.  Oh and Persephone is holed up with Sehkmet.

Mech Cadet Yu #1: Written by Greg Pak, Illustrated by Takeshi Miyazawa, Colored by Triona Farrell & Lettered by SImon Bowland.  Who loves giant robots?  Everyone.  Everyone fucking loves giant robots.

Groo: Play of the Gods #2: by Sergio Aragones, Wordsmith Mark Evanier, Colorists John Ercek & Tom Luth & Letterer Stan Sakai.  Groo, Ahax, Taranto, Taranto's men and the religious missionaries arrive in the new land.  Full of gold and gods.

the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #23: Writer Ryan North, Artist Erica Henderson, Color artist Rico Renzi & Letterer Travis Lanham.  Nancy kind of flirts with a nice nerdy Latverian lad.  All while everyone tries to nerd-up a solution for the failing Savage Land climate control machinery.

Non-anthologious short fiction:  Twittering From the Circus of the Dead by Joe Hill was one of the most genuinely creepy stories I've read in awhile.  Dale Bailey's A Rumor of Angels is a somber bit of fantasy set during the Dust Bowl.  Grimoire of the Lamb is an "Iron Druid" story from Kevin Hearne dealing with some of the old-school Egyptian pantheon.  Warren Ellis presents a day with a hitman in Dead Pig Collector.  And It Was a Day is an old little poem by Usula Vernon...

On the actual anthology front for that month we start out with the 49th Grantville Gazette (ed. Paula Goodlett).  Sadly the story that sticks in my mind the most from that is the murder mystery one that never really seems to come together.  Glitter & Mayhem (ed. John Klima, Lynne M Thomas & Michael Damion Thomas) are scifi and urban fantasy stories with night club and/or roller derby themes to them...

I got K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr's Loki's Wolves as a give away from Tor.com.  Its a nice enough YA urban fantasy about the descendents of the Norse gods.  I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure if I really want to get more of the series when it comes out...

Herbert Sakalauck's the Danish Scheme was originally part of the Grantville Gazette anthologies, several stories about a new Western Canada colony in the "Ring of FIre".  But its now one of the re-polished into a regular novel eBooks Tor is putting out from the series...

To Be or Not to Be by Ryan North and Shakespeare is probably one of my favorite things I've got through Kickstarter campaigns.  A choose-your-own-adventure version of Hamlet.  I liked the path where Ophelia becomes the founder of modern plumbing thru her mastery of SCIENCE...

Carrie Vaughn's latest "Kitty Norville" book, Kitty in the Underworld, has her werewolf protaganist kidnapped by a small group looking to use her in an occult ritual against the ancient vampire Roman.  Which if it weren't for the whole drugged and kidnapped might have been something Kitty would have been interested in helping with...

Cold Copper continues Devon Monk's is the latest "Age of Steam" horror/western/steampunk.  Like Cherie Priest's books, prefect for any Deadlands players out there...

And still another from a continuing series with Brass Man by Neal Asher, part of his "Human Polity" series.  Though the titular android is really more of a sideshow to the ancient buy deadly artifacts, alien intelligences and A.I.s all warring on the frontiers of "civilized" space...

Young Sentinels is the newest of Marion G. Harmon's "Wearing the Cape" supers eBook series.  With the Sentinels teams recruiting new teen supers to help slow down the ever increasing super-villain threat...

Mark Del Franco's Undone Deeds is the finale to his "Connor Grey" modern fantasy series.  And I'll admit, the ending made me cry a little bit...

I read an interview with Joe Hill where he said that NOS4A2 was him just running right the fuck at writing like his dead.  And the book definitely reads the closest to being a Stephen King novel of his stuff I've read.  And not in a bad way...

Darwin's Elevator makes for an excellent start to Jason M. Hough's post-apocalyptic scifi series.  The apocalypse being an alien-delivered plague that turns humans into near-mindless savages.  Unless they happen to be within a set distance of the also alien-delivered space elevator.  Or are one of the tiny percentage of immune humans.  Like the scavenger group led by one of the book's lead characters...

While David Weber's  House of Steel does open with a short story focusing on the life of King Roger, its actually more one of those world building source books for his Honor-verse.  And mostly just the Manticore part of said universe.  Still it did prompt me into another rearead of the "Honor Harrington" series.  Starting in September with Echoes of Honor, Ashes of Victory and War of Honor...

Total books: 17

This third movie in the series feels..slighter..than the previous ones. And thats with what IIRC is a tacked on threat. Still Reepicheep was cool, the actor playing Eustace was pretty dead on and the monopod dudes turned out well. The rules for coming and going are even more arbitriary for this one. Especially the bit at the end where Aslan is all "You got to go back Lucy 'cause in your world I'm Jesus so go and worship me and spread the word and shit, 'k?"

Also seeing it so soon after reading Grossman's the Magician King is kind of..odd...

Inanana's Tears written by Rob Vollmar, drawn by M.P. Mann

Set some 5000 years in the past in the Fertile Crescent of the Tigris and Euphrates during the pre-history of humanity. Somewhat literally pre-history as part of the story concerns the birth of the concept of a written language. As well as the conflict between the old way of living as nomadic tribes and the new ways in cities built around the early mastery of agriculture. A story of religious conflict and gender roles and simple greed for power...

Inanna's Tears is less historical fiction than it is a possible fiction of what might have become history. All set at the beginning of what we might consider to be civilization...

After spending several ruminating on this movie I could talk about the strong screen presence of Matt Damon. Or Terrence Stamp. Or discuss the theme of the struggle between free will and destiny. Or about how it just brushes aside the piss poor job of guiding humanity the Adjustment dudes do. But instead all I have to say is that I totally called it being Magic Hats...

Dear A. Lee Martinez,

Lets be friends forever.

"Don't worry. I don't plan on any smiting, though itis well within my rights. But I'm not that kind of god. Never was a casual smiter. Sure, I've smote a few mortals in my day. I'm not proud of it, but it was back in the old days. Everyone was doing it, and I just wanted to be cool. But I'm past that sort of heavy-handed disciplinary action. It's good for a laugh occasionally, but I don't want to be your god because you're afraid of me. I want us to be buddies, compadres. Heck, we're practically family.

"But I'm not going to force myself on you. I don't need to. You'll see the benefits of having me around soon enough. You don't want to put me up for the night, that's cool. Though I did notice you have a very nice guest room. But I'll leave. No smiting. No wrath. Providing you make me a sandwich at least."

Teri made a bologna-and-ham offering for their new god.

Until I discovered this hymnal tonight, I had no idea Alkaline Trio was a Xtian rock band...

Praise For the Fountain Opened

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.


The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.


Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
Be saved, to sin no more, be saved, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.


E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.


Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lies silent in the grave, lies silent in the grave;
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.


Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be,
For me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me!
’Tis strung and tuned for endless years, and formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father’s ears no other name but Thine