Review: Floodgate: A Novel

Floodgate: A Novel by Johnny Shaw
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Down and out ex-cop Andy Destra uncovers a decades old conspiracy that will shake Auction City to its core. Who really runs the city and how does it connect to how Andy was booted off the force?

I got this from Netgalley.

New Johnny Shaw books don't fall out of the sky every day and I jumped at this one the instant Shelby tipped me to it being on Netgalley and dropped what I was doing to read it.

However, things were off to a rocky start. I was discouraged for the first 10%. The plot moved slowly and gone was the trademark Johnny Shaw wit. My motivation flagged. My lady friend urged me to continue despite my misgivings, noting that I'm a crabby bastard when I don't get my reading time. As in most things, she was right. I stuck with it and things really took off.

Floodgate is the story of the people behind the curtain, the people that keep Auction City's various factions from killing one another and destroying the city. In a way, Auction City reminds me of a modern version of Deadwood and the people called Floodgate are Al Swearengen.

Andy Destra isn't too far from the usual Johnny Shaw leading man, a guy that many would consider a loser. However, he stands up for what he believes in despite being in way over his head. While I was bored by the book initially, Johnny Shaw really did a hefty amount of world building, with Rocco, The Flood, Kate, and the rest.

One of my favorite lines was "The last time he masturbated, he fantasized about a previous time he masturbated." Pure Shaw.

Anyway, the book was a slower build than Shaw's other work but had a bigger payoff in the form of the orgy of violence that was the last 30% of the book. While I wouldn't recommend this be anyone's first Johnny Shaw, it's a very solid book. Four out of five stars.

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Review: Weird Shit: True Stories to Shock, Stun, Astound and Amaze

Weird Shit: True Stories to Shock, Stun, Astound and Amaze by Mark Leigh
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Weird Shit is a book of interesting facts.

I got this from Netgalley.

Weird Shit is a short book of weird facts, organized into sections like Animales, Religion, Sex, Celebrities and Art. If you're into that sort of thing, it's pretty entertaining.

Did you know the barnacle has the largest penis to body ratio? Or that Winston Churchill started smoking cigars at 15? Or the average person poops 350 pounds worth over the course of his or her lifetime? Those are just a sampling of the facts within.

It isn't all poop and penises, though. I tipped to a bogus fact early on. Charles Manson didn't audition for the Monkees. He was too busy being a prison inmate at the time. That soured me on the collection a bit but not enough that I couldn't enjoy the rest of the book.

As someone who regularly seeks out interesting facts, I found this book to be average. For someone who isn't such a nerd, it would probably rate higher.

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Review: Silver Surfer, Vol. 1: New Dawn

Silver Surfer, Vol. 1: New Dawn by Dan Slott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Silver Surfer, sentinel of the spaceways, finds the Impericon, the city where anything is possible. Why does the Never Queen want it destroyed? And what does an Earth girl named Dawn Greenwood have to do with anything?

Confession time: The Silver Surfer is one of those characters that I was always semi-interested in but never quite understood when I was a lad. When I saw Dan Slott, the man who made Spider-Man interesting again, was helming it with Mike Allred, creator of Madman doing the art, I just couldn't resist.

New Dawn is a very quirky take on the Silver Surfer. Slott is a big Doctor Who fan and his portrayal of The Silver Surfer and his companion, Dawn, feels very Who-esque. It's a humorous but still respectful take on the Silver Surfer and I found it way more enjoyable than the twelve or fifteen issues of the Surfer I tried reading in the late 1980's.

I liked the Impericon concept and the Never Queen but my favorite part is the relationship between Dawn and the Surfer. While the space stuff was awesome, I loved when the Silver Surfer visited Anchor Bay with Dawn to meet her family. Sure, Doctor Strange and the Hulk showed up but it was still really cool. I have to wonder if Mike Allred had some influence on the characterization of the Surfer because his quirky innocent nature reminded me of Madman a few times.

It's not perfect but I don't really have anything bad to say about New Dawn. I always thought of the Surfer as a stuffy character but Slott and Allredy breathe new life into him. Four out of five stars.

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Review: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the interest of finally reading something written by Harlan Ellison and also to teach myself to better write short stories, I decided to take this short story collection on.

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream: The title story of the collection is the tale of a mad AI computer that has been torturing the last five humans alive for untold centuries for its own amusement. This was a pretty chilling tale of a hellish future. I loved the surprising ending.

Big Sam was My Friend: This is the story of a teleporting interplanetary circus performer looking for his lost love. After the first tale, I was surprised to find it a somewhat sweet tale.

Eyes of Dust: In a world where physical beauty is the norm, the two flawed people have a kid together who is doomed from the start. Horrifying and not that far-fetched.

World of the Myth: A ship crashes on a far-off world and the three crew members encounter a hivemind of ant-like creatures. Horror ensues. This one was another chilling tale in which the worst horror comes from within.

Lonely Ache: A lady's man think's there's a monster living in his apartment. This was a dark tale and yet another horror story where the worst horror comes from inside.

Delusion for a Dragon Slayer: A guy gets hit with a wrecking ball and a lot of weird shit I had trouble sorting out happens. Not a fan of this story.

Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes: A down and out gambler finds a slot machine that keeps hitting the jackpot for him. This one reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode, complete with twist ending.

My first Harlan Ellison experience was a good one. Some of the stories seem like products of the time they were written, though, in regard to the way women and minorities were portrayed. Ellison sure knew how to weave a short story. Four out of five stars.

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Review: Miracleman, Vol. 1: A Dream of Flying

Miracleman, Vol. 1: A Dream of Flying by Alan Moore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After an almost 20 year absence, Miracleman reappears, throwing his alter ego Mike Moran's life into chaos...

Back in the day, before he was Alan Moore: Supreme Curmudgeon and Master of Beards, Alan Moore was simply a cutting edge comic book writer. Miracleman was his ticket to the big time, before Swamp Thing, before Watchmen, before whatever it is he's doing these days besides seemingly being pissed off all the time.

Miracleman started life as Marvelman, a 1950s British Captain Marvel homage/ripoff. Moore, Alan Davis, and some others brought him back in the pages of Warrior, a UK comic magazine. How does one revive a ripoff character from the 50s and make him relevant?

Spectacularly! That's how. Moore takes essentially a kid's comic, breaks it down, and shows what superheroes might be like in real life. I love how he deconstructs the Captain Marvel-like hero and actually makes it believable. Also, this volume nicely illustrates the carnage super heroes would create in the real world.

I do have a couple gripes, though. This volume is super thin for what it costs. Also, I'd much rather have a couple more issues included instead of the Warpsmith material and the sketches, especially considering I still have a couple issues of Warrior and Miracleman lying in some dark corner of the Dan Cave. The story itself is a little dated, more by the writing style than the cultural references. For a comic, it was pretty wordy.

All things considered, Miracleman is still pretty damn good and a cool piece of 1980s comic book history. Four out of five stars.

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Review: The Necromancer

The Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In a bid to win back his soul, necromancer and scientist Johannes Cabal runs a demonic carnival in order to win the souls of a hundred people to exchange for his own. With the help of his vampire brother, can he find one hundred people willing to sell their souls?

This is one of those books that I'm having a hard time verbalizing my opinion on. I'll give it a shot, though.

The Necromancer is a funny tale about a man trying to win back his soul. I found the dark British humor right up my alley. Johannes Cabal is a delightful asshole and his relationship with his brother Horst was one of my favorite parts of the book. I like the idea of a demonic carnival. Who knows where carnies go after they leave your town? I'm surprised Stephen King hasn't written something about that with his recent carnie obsession.

The dialogue is great and, as I said before, I loved the humor and the brothers Cabal. The story itself was a little too linear for me. The carnival travels for a year and Johannes collects souls. That's pretty much it. There weren't really any twists until the last 20% of the book and those were a little telegraphed in my opinion.

So I guess this book is firmly in 3 territory. I liked the characters quite a bit but I was never compelled to take a day off work to read the book in one sitting and I'm not sure I'll read the rest of the series.

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Swamp Thing, Vol. 2: Family Tree

Swamp Thing, Vol. 2: Family Tree by Scott Snyder
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The Swamp Thing takes on Anton Arcane and the Rot in this disjointed collection of somewhat unrelated issues...

Despite thinking Scott Snyder is the alligator's Adam's apple, I did not enjoy this collection. There were several contributing factors.

1. It's been years since I read Swamp Thing Volume 1.
2. Some crossover with Animal Man throws a wrench into the flow of the storyline. The Animal Man issues were not included.
3. Hasn't Old Swampy gone up against Anton Arcane enough over the years?
4. Swamp Thing has tree limb antlers.
5. Since when is rot not part of nature? Things decomposing are part of the ecosystem.

It wasn't without its moments but Family Tree wasn't a great collection. It feels slapped together, like filler in between two more coherent volumes. Okay, I'm guessing volume three is more coherent than this.

Two stars. It wasn't great but I needed something to read while I was doing laundry.

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