recent read; Queen Sonja, Volume 1

I read this one while on vacation in August.

The plot is a bit pedestrian fantasy, but not bad.  Sonja seeks a special sword and along way gets involved with bandits who are really royalty in exile from a conquered land.  The stakes keep rising, until Sonja becomes involved in a battle that leaves her with the crown of Sogoria.  To keep her crown she must battle against wizardry and political machinations.

I suppose if it's not the usurper tale (Conan, Kull) it would the be "farm girl learns she is the real queen and must kill her evil aunt" story.

Solomon Kane; the movie

I watched Solomon Kane on-demand last night. *sigh* I really had a hard time divorcing myself from the source material. Because of that, honestly, I spent most of the movie saying "WTF?" Maybe if you've never read the original Robert E. Howard stories, you'd enjoy it more than I did.

Like Conan the Barbarian (1982), in and of itself it is a passable adventure movie, but the Kane has no more relation to the literary Solomon Kane than Conan did to Howard's Conan.

Even on its own, though, there were things going on that didn't make much sense or were disappointing.

Here be spoilers, ye have beene warned.

Autumn 2012 is nearly here

Just a placeholder post, really.  I haven't posted much because I've been busy with stuff that doesn't relate to my typical content.  Autumn is still a few weeks away, but tonight is the end of Labor Day weekend, and the end of my having ten days off from the day job.

We had a nice time at the beach, though it appears while my daughter is a beach girl, my son could care less for the sand and oppressive sunlight.  Five minutes of splashing in the waves and he was done for the day.

One morning I took him for a stroll to a used book place and scored two John Jakes sword-&sorcery, non-Brak titles; Master of the Dark Gate and Witch of the Dark Gate.  Maybe they're sword-&-planet,  I'm not really sure.  Later that same day, I drove out to a further used book store and stumbled on a hard cover of Manly Wade Wellman's The Old Gods Waken.

I also made the mistake over the past month of getting sucked into three books at once, not counting comics and graphic novels.  Given my current reading time per day,  I haven't finished any of them.  I did complete one graphic novel at the beach, so I hope to review that soon.

Work is going to be very busy and I'm behind on numerous personal goals at home, so I might have a quiet Fall around the "social media" circles.  We'll see.

Weekend Scores at the Comic Shops

Last month, a local comic store (a mini-chain with three locations) had a sale at their warehouse, and I made quite the splash, picking up a pile of Dynamite's Savage Tales and some trade paperbacks.

This weekend, a different local comic shop had a sale on collected trade hardcovers and paperbacks.   The 'buy 1, get 2 free' sale was limited to a recently acquired collection only.  However, it was a large collection.  Mostly Marvel books, which I wasn't really looking for.  But I did end up with Skaar, Son of Hulk, and Hulk: Planet Skaar.  I am hoping for some flavor of sword-&-planet with those two.

Confession; the third book I acquired was Spider-Man/Red Sonja.  A silly team-up, to be sure.  But, I had my youngest toddler in tow.  I needed to flip through and make quick grabs.

The Return of Brak

Well, they might not be the best stories in the sword-&-sorcery canon, but John Jakes' Brak the Barbarian saga is back as ebooks. Jason Waltz, of (unfortunately defunct) Rogue Blades Entertainment somehow found this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqA_ydQhWSs&feature=share

Jakes gives a thumbnail description of how Brak came about, and also mentions that the final Brak tale is outlined and in his office safe.

It took a little link hunting from the video, but I found the two e'collections links on the third page of thumbnails.

Brak the Barbarian/Mark of the Demons

Witch of the Four Winds/When the Idols Walked

Follow the "buy the ebook" links.  $3.99 each.  Not bad at all.

Seems that Witch of the Four Winds is Brak vs. The Sorceress renamed.

Both descriptions mention the collections include additional stories.  I don't know which ones and if they cover The Fortunes of Brak or not.  And I don't know whether these complete all the published Brak tales or not.

Also, there is a link to a free Brak estory,

"The Girl in the Gem"

All good stuff.  I'll be taking a look at other authors and ebooks from Open Road Media.

Recent read; Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega is a bit of a novelty, especially for Doctor Who fans. A lost French scifi novel from 1906, it has some vague similarities to the later television show. Mostly due to some editions' illustrations that look a lot like the (First) Doctor (William Hartnell.)  The novel has been resurrected by Black Coat Press - a small press devoted to publishing English-language translations of classics of French popular literature, in the science fiction, fantasy and mystery genres.

The story is a fun, light, quick read. Typical turn-of-the-last-century style with a first-person narrative of Mars exploration - various weird flora and fauna along the way, and a few perils and escapes.

This novel was "adapted and retold" which means the translators (who are also Doctor Who fans) took liberties to add additional ties to Doctor Who - making it seem that perhaps Doctor Omega is an alternate or perhaps the Doctor himself in some form of exile. While that is enjoyable, I would still like to read a straight translation (I can't read French) so I could see the original similarities for myself.

I did enjoy it, and look forward to Doctor Omega and the Shadowmen - a modern anthology of Doctor Omega tales, also from Black Coat Press.

For a bit of fun, Black Coat Press commissioned the first cover (non-illustrated edition) to match the classic Target novelization cover of Doctor Who and the Daleks.  I'd be tempted to get it, but I don't have that edition of Doctor Who and the Daleks, anyway. (though, that was re-issued recently with a forward by Neil Gaiman.  Oh, the temptations of a collector.)

Heading into July

Nothing major to write about, this time around.  Looking forward to the 4th of July holiday and long weekend coming.  Those who know me on Facebook know my wife just went through a hysterectomy - so most of my time right now is wrangling our two toddlers even more than usual (even with other helping hands on-board at our house.)

I did make a big splash at a comic store sale last week.  I also finished reading an interesting, if quirky, lost French scifi novel, which I'll be posting about on my next reading wrap-up.

For a little bit I am going to stay off novels, finish reading the Paizo collection, Who Fears the Devil? by Manly Wade Wellman and alternate those stories with a stockpile of comics I have built-up.