Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Wise up!

Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Wise Up!: An Elevating Collection of Quick Facts and Incredible Curiosities by Bathroom Readers' Institute
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For years, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader has been a tome of seldom heard facts and trivia. While the articles range size from one to ten pages, the best parts are normally the one line facts in the footers of each page. Some wished the entire book was of said one-liners. Until now...

Wise Up! is a collection of those one line facts. For instance, did you know W.C. Fields was the first choic to play the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz? Or that the US divorce rate has dropped every year since 1979? Or that the last astronaut to walk on the moon was Eugene Cernan in 1972?

Ever needed some reading material on those days after long nights of drinking beer and eating diner food? This is just what you need for those days where you can't seem to stay out of the bathroom.

And the Bathroom Reader series isn't just for the bathroom. Its knowledge is so portable that it can be read not only in any room in the house, but by passengers on long car rides!

If obscure bits of knowledge entertain you, look no further than the various volumes of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader!

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Indigo Slam

Indigo Slam by Robert Crais
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When a fifteen year old girl hires Elvis Cole to find her missing father, a printer named Clark Haines, Elvis soon finds himself snared in a web of drugs, counterfeit money, and the Russian mob. To top it off, Lucy's ex-husband is trying to sabotage her attempts to find a job and move to LA to be with Elvis. What's the World's Greatest Detective to do?

While I've been dabbling in sf and graphic novels quite a bit the last couple months, sometimes you just need a good mystery. Once again, Robert Crais delivers the goods.

Indigo Slam proved to be a lot more than I originally thought. The Haines family's status in the witness relocation program complicated Clark's missing, as did what originally seemed to be a drug habit. Crais is pretty good at misdirection and he had me going a few times during this.

My favorite part of this book was Elvis and Joe interacting with Clark's kids. I'm hoping Lucy's ex-husband makes further appearances. Actually, I'm hoping the Elvis-Lucy subplot gets resolved in the next book, one way or another. Long distance relationships never work.

As always, Elvis and Joe walk around, asking questions and stirring up trouble until things boil over. The action was great when the tidal wave finally hit the beach. The twists kept coming and though I suspected the final one, it still caught me off guard.

That's about all I can say without spoiling big plot points. Crais gave me the exciting read I was craving. Right on the edge of 3 and 4 out of five.


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Scarlet Spider - Life After Death

Scarlet Spider - Volume 1: Life After Death by Christopher Yost
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After the events of Spider-Man: Spider-Island, Kaine leaves New York to start a new life in Mexico. However, he only makes it as far as Houston before life throws complications in his way in the form of a shipping container full of dead illegal aliens, a fire-powered super villain, an assassin guild looking for revenge, a dirty nuke, and a living girl he found along with all the dead illegals who seems to have a psychic link with him. All in a day's work for your not-so-friendly neighborhood Scarlet Spider.

I'll bring everyone up to speed really fast: Kaine is a clone of Spider-Man who was a murderous super villain until the events of Spider-Island. He has most of the same powers plus a couple extras and a suit that lets him turn invisible. Everyone got that?

So I really liked this Scarlet Spider collection. It's both a tale of Kaine's second chance at life and a chance to tell Spider-Man tales that couldn't be told with Peter Parker. Kaine's got all of Spider-Man's powers but has been a criminal and killer in the past and he's struggling with the idea of being a hero but he's working on it. I like that his sense of humor is a lot more negative than Spider-Man's and he handles things with a heavier hand. Ever see Spider-Man crush a gunman's hands or use a pistol or katana on someone?

I have to admit that I wasn't expecting much from the supporting cast but I'm already digging them. There's Wally and Donald, the cop and doctor gay couple, Annabelle, the punky bartenders, and Aracely, the girl Kaine has made it his responsibility to protect. The villains are nothing to write home about but seeds are planted for future stories involving Kraven and the Assassin's guild led by Belladona, Gambit's ex-wife.

Not really anything bad to say about this one. I'll be picking up the next volume and, if rumors are true about Kane being Spider-Man soon, I'll be reading that too.

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Spider-Man: Spider-Island

Spider-Man: Spider-Island by Dan Slott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When people all over New York starting waking up with Spider powers, including his girlfriend, Spider-Man swings into action. Soon, New York is infested with Spider-Men and the Avengers are called in. But what happens when everyone starts to mutate? And who is the source of the infection? And can Spider-Man stop the epidemic before it leaves Spider-Island?

After my experience with Spider-Man: Big Time Ultimate Collection, I decided to dip my toes into another Spider-Man collection and this one sounded great. Was it?

Eh. The main concept itself was a really cool idea. People are granted Spider-powers and chaos ensues. Spider-Man and company race against impossible odds and fix everything with all the thrills of a summer block buster. What could go wrong?

Well, my main gripe is that it was too long for what it was and hinged too much on too many ancillary Spider-characters, like Venom and Anti-Venom. Coupled with that, Humberto Ramos' art seemed rushed in about half of his pages. Also, it turns out I'm not a big fan of Rick Remender's writing. He's no Dan Slott, that's for sure.

Now that I got the gripes out of the way, here's a ton of stuff that I liked:
- Mary Jane with Spider-powers
- J. Jonah Jameson with Spider-Powers
- The Shocker with six arms
- Kaine and Spidey teaming up to take on the main villain
- Kaine's final fate
- Reed Richards' involvment
- Gravity and Firestar being referred to as Spider-Man's Amazing Friends
- Shang Chi teaching Spidey kung fu
- events from The Other storyline referenced, complete with organic web shooters
- The Parker luck kicking in

With rumors of Kaine stepping into Spider-Man's shoes after Amazing Spider-Man #700, I figured I should see where it all began. While it wasn't as good as Big Time, it was still fun. It's a high three.

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Guess who got mentioned in Forbes?

That would be me.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markfidelman/2012/10/16/goodreads-ceo-these-top-25-book-reviewers-represent-the-future-infographic/

Railsea - Here thar be spoilers!

Railsea by China Miéville
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Urged on by his guardian cousins, young Sham Yes ap Soorap gets apprenticed to a doctor on a moletrain, riding the Railsea in search of moldywarpe, giant moles hunted for food. Captain Naphi of the Medes, the train Sham sails aboard, is obsessed with Mocker Jack, the biggest moldywarpe of them all, & will do anything to find her prey...

Remember that game you used to play when you were a kid, when the living room floor was either molten lava or shark-infested waters, & you had to leap from chair to couch to coffee table & never touch the floor? That's what the world of Railsea reminds me of, covered in miles & miles of rail, most exposed earth harboring moldywarpes, mole rats, worms, & many other malevolent beasties.

In Railsea, China Mieville tells a tale inspired by Moby Dick, the tale of a young orphan named Sham, a captain obsessed with a mole the size of a small building, & the other denizens of the Railsea, a world of dangerous fauna, megatons of salvage, & untold parsecs of rail.

The sheer inventiveness of Mieville's world is staggering. As in Kraken, China shook the idea tree hard on this one. As outlandish as it is, the setting of Railsea isn't all that hard to imagine.

The story feels like Moby Dick at first, but with tastes of Treasure Island & Robinson Crusoe as well. It also reminds me of a more accessible version of China's Bas-Lag books. Captain Naphi's obsession with Mocker Jack echoes Captain Ahab's, although Ahab never had pirates, angles, & the edge of the world to contend with.

Sham's meeting with the Shroakes is what makes the book veer away from being a take off on Moby Dick and become its own animal. A colossal mole, perhaps. I had my doubts about Caldera and Dero Shroakes at first but things really came together at the end. And what an end it was! I love the final image of Sham, the Shroakes, and Captain Naphi sailing beyond the end of the world.

I don't have anything bad to say about this book. It's the most accessible of China Mieville's books & a damn fine book as well. Don't let the YA label fool you. It's a solid & satisfying read at any age.

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American Vampire, Vol. 4

American Vampire, Vol. 4 by Scott Snyder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In order to fight the US soldiers encroaching on their territory, including Jim Book and Skinner Sweet, the Apaches awaken a legendary monster, the Mimteh. Greaser vampire hunter Travis Kidd is on the trail of a vampire that killed his family. Agent Poole is in the south and encounters both racism and another breed of vampire. All this and more in American Vampire Volume 4!

Here we are again, another entry in Scott Snyder's chronicles of vampires in America. At this point in the series, it's getting repetitive to say but Scott Snyder is my favorite active comic writer.

The three stories within this volume take place in different time periods but all serve the same purpose: to showcase the different species of vampires in America and expand the backstory of Skinner Sweet and the rest of the supporting cast.

I liked the pre-vampiric history of Skinner Sweet and Jim Book, and the Mimteh. She reminded me of the character Julie Newmar played in the Gregory Peck western, Mackenna's Gold, only with fangs. I'm hoping she makes further appearances in the series.

Travis Kidd, greaser vampire hunter, was another interesting addition to Snyder's vampire mythos. I love the idea of a kid being busted out of a nuthouse to be a vampire hunter, and he's one of the best. The wooden fangs he uses to bite vampires back was a nice touch, and he made a good point about Skinner Sweet near the end of his tale. I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of him.

Agent Poole's sojourn into the south met with expected results. The timeline sure jumped ahead quite a bit in this volume, all the way until the 1960's. How far is Snyder planning on taking us in the life of Skinner Sweet?

While Pearl and Henry made the tiniest of appearances, it was the most powerful scene in the book and planted even more seeds for the next volume.

If I had to complain about something in this volume, it would be that we didn't get all that much Skinner Sweet as a vampire. Still, Snyder continues to keep me entertained with one of the most overused monsters, the vampire. Now I have to wait a few months until the next volume comes out.

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