Category Archives: Reading

May 3, 2026 · 5:30 am

Earth after the Hellboy-pocalypse, plus other graphic novels

It’s been a while since I read anything written rather than co-written by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN: Ed Grey and the Last Battle for England by Mignola, Ben Stenbeck and Dave Stewart reminds me how gloriously weird he is. Like a conversation between a disgruntled fae and the good half of Morgan leFay’s soul, which is now a goldfish (trust me, it makes sense).

The story, set in England after the apocalypse that ended the world in Ragna Rok, concerns Hellboy’s old foe the Gruagach regaining his former power; can Edward Grey, happy in retirement, defend England once again? I loved it.

FRANKENSTEIN: New World — Sea of Forever by Mignola, Christopher Golden, Tom Sniegoski and Peter Bergting is a sequel to Frankenstein: New World with Frankenstein and Lilja traveling across the post-apocalyptic Earth pursued by the monstrous Murk. It turns out some of the vampires hiding underground at the apocalypse survived; a trace of ancient evil found them and created the Murk, which exists to suck out the light of vril. As our two protagonists set out across the sea in search of a mysterious spirit, the Murk follows, despite the risk of being caught on the ocean in daylight. I’m enjoying this spinoff series — and both this and the Edward Grey book have been added to my Hellboy Chronology.

Kieron Gillen has turned out some great stuff, but he also wrote the dreary Rue Brittania. POWER FANTASY: The Superpowers by Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard is one that did not work for me. I’ve read that Gillen wanted to write a book with superheroes but no fisticuffs and in that he succeeded. However while the discussions of politics and power work in small doses, by the end of the book they’re quite tedious (I skipped over one character giving a long speech about the nature of power). I won’t be back for V2.

ARDEN HIGH: Twelfth Grade Night by Molly Horton Booth, Stephanie Kate Strohm and Jamie Green is the first in a series of Y/A takes on Shakespeare, set at the eponymous high school. As I love Twelfth Night (and played Malvolio years ago), I was hooked by the premise: new kid in school Viola crushes on Orsino, but she dresses very tomboy so he thinks she’s gay and so does Olivia, the school beauty he’s crushing on. Meanwhile Viola’s still dealing with the fact her identical twin Sebastian chose to stay in boarding school instead of changing schools with her.

Unfortunately the rom-com complications don’t get going until late in the game. Most of the book is about general high school stuff and, I assume, setting up for the series (the kids have fae classmates even though that doesn’t play the slightest role in the plot). I’m not the target audience but even if I was I think I’d find this a little disappointing.

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April 29, 2026 · 5:03 am

Is this a good cover?

I love this quote about cover art from The Look of the Book.

I was reminded of that quote looking at the 1958 cover below, by James Meese. Does it make genre visible?

The cover copy tells us it’s a mystery involving pearls and microfilm. The image gives us the tropics, a beautiful, worried woman in a swimsuit and a villain. Without the copy I think I’d assume it was some kind of “jeop” (‘woman in jeopardy’ story) — with the woman targeted by some kind of stalker. Or maybe a romance. Nothing about the cover says “spy” or “mystery.” Without the cover copy it doesn’t make genre visible.

However the cover does have copy so the genre comes across. I suppose it was reasonable to factor that in and go with a sexy woman as the hook (as so many paperbacks did in that era). Still, it’s at best adequate, nothing special

For another look at the same topic, one of the books I read during my recent Charleston trip was GOOD MOVIES AS OLD BOOKS: Films Reimagined as Vintage Book Covers by Matt Stevens. The premise is exactly what it sounds like. Here are more examples.

Most of the covers look cool. Some of them, like The Usual Suspects and Cast Away, are inspired. However I don’t think most of them would make good real book covers. Where The Usual Suspects is arresting, John Wick doesn’t tell us anything about what makes the movie compelling — hell it doesn’t tell us anything other than it involves a man with a gun. Ditto Say Anything on the book cover. They would not, shall we say, move the merchandise even though they’re pretty.

Part of that’s because Stevens is working primarily in the style of serious, tasteful literary paperbacks as I remember from the 1960s and early 1970s — the kind that, as Look of the Book says, doesn’t do anything so tacky as a vivid cover scene. The subtext is that you’re supposed to pick the book up because it’s Quality, not because it grabbed you with a lurid image (if you check out my cover art posts you’ll find lots of those).

The covers also have a certain sameness after a while (I’d have parceled them out over time but I had to get this back to the library). The book would have been more entertaining if we’d had more variety — the only really off-the-wall one is the psychedelic 1970s style for Fury Road. Great idea, not entirely satisfactory results.

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April 26, 2026 · 5:28 am

Books that were not what I expected

Discovering a nonfiction book is not what I expected doesn’t mean the book is bad. The CIA Book Club has little to do with the title topic; it’s still an excellent book. Similarly, ONE FINE DAY: Britain’s Empire on the Brink, Sept. 29 1923 by Matthew Parker has very little to do with that date, when Britain gaining control of Palestine meant the Empire ruled one quarter of the world (not counting oceans); Parker’s panoramic survey of the British Empire doesn’t even bring up Palestine or how the British came to take it over.

Nevertheless, the book is a fascinating look at Britain in the first quarter of the 20th century, when the Empire was at its peak — and already starting to slide off it. In India, Nehru and Gandhi are challenging British rule. In Africa, American Marcus Garvey has become an icon inspiring Africans all over to assert themselves as equals to the white man. Australia and other “dominions” are chafing at being subordinate partners, supporting the Empire for very little gain. The hypocrisy of the supposed “white man’s burden” of governing the lesser races wisely was becoming increasingly obvious. And the financial burdens of being a world power were starting to show. It was game over for the Empire, even if that wouldn’t be obvious for a while.

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN HORROR FILMS: A History of Mad Professors, Student Bodies, and Final Exams by Andrew L Grunzke sounded right up my alley — indeed, I half-wondered if the chapter on Jekyll and Hyde would make me kick myself for not reading it sooner. Again, this book was not what I expected, but not in a good way. It spends half its text talking about Frankenstein, Jekyll and Van Helsing, none of whom are known primarily as educators (only a couple of films paint Jekyll as such). When he does get to high-school horror I wasn’t that impressed, and the sloppy errors he makes like asserting Paul Massie in Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll is the first clean-shaven Hyde) make me doubt everything he says about movies I haven’t seen. Plus even though it’s a movie-centric book, I think discussing Buffy with its High School Is Hell themes would have been worthwhile. I’m glad I interlibrary-loaned this rather than buying it.

You may have noticed my movie blog posts occasionally wondering what someone in their twenties would make of this or that movie. I thought Simone Elias’ OLD FILMS, YOUNG EYES: A Teenage Take on Hollywood’s Golden Age might provide an answer. While Elias — who writes a damn sight better than I did at her age — looks at rom-coms, beach party films, film noir and pre-code films, the book is less about her reactions than explaining to people her age why old movies are worth watching, the cultural context they took place in and how much of modern film has its roots in classic Hollywood. I’m obviously not the target audience for a book like that, though (also obviously) that’s not a fault in the book, just a mismatch between book and reader.

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April 21, 2026 · 5:15 am

Two covers for Tuesday

I don’t know the artist, nor the book. It looks interesting though John Brunner’s work is very hit or miss with me.

And a cover by Richard Powers because that’s always worth posting.

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April 19, 2026 · 5:31 am

Emily Bronte, author and werewolf hunter

While I’ve seen the recent Wuthering Heights and the 1939 version, I’ve never read the book. For my birthday, TYG bought me a copy.

It didn’t work for me. That may be because it’s the kind of book that requires quite and leisure, and suffered from me cramming it in between pets and talking to tech support about our internet outage. Or it may simply be that I bounced off it because by modern standards it’s an odd novel; a strange plot, unpleasant characters and like Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, often recounted at second hand rather than shown to us directly.

For those who don’t know, a new arrival on the Yorkshire moors meets his brooding landlord, Heathcliffe. From a servant he learns how Heathcliff’s home of Wuthering Heights once belonged to the Earnshaw family, then came his tragic, obsessive, ultimately doomed romance with Catherine Earnshaw, followed by Heathcliff’s disappearance, to return later as a rich man. Cathy marries one of their neighbors; Heathcliff seduces and marries the man’s younger sister. Everyone’s a mess, obsessive, possessive — it may be the lack of anyone to root for was a factor in not liking it — and this continues into the next generation.

I can see, sort of, why the book appeals. There’s tragedy, obsession, passion, some clever writing (Heathcliffe’s death is unexpectedly anticlimactic), warped characters and the isolated world of the Yorkshire moors in that era, where your “neighbor” might be six miles off. I may try it again some time.


Tim Powers’ The Stress of Her Regard did an amazing job weaving the history of the pre-Raphaelites in with the supernatural; the sequel, Hide Me Among the Graves, was weaker but still good. In MY BROTHER’S KEEPER he attempts something similar with the Bronte family. Like Powers’ Medusa’s Web all it did was remind me of superior books of his.

When Branwell, Emily and Anne are tweens, Branwell leads the unwitting girls to make a pact with dark powers. As adults this entangles the family with the supernatural (though their father later reveals they’ve always been entangled). There’s a brooding, one-eyed, could-he-be-proto-Heathcliff werewolf. The disembodied spirit of a dead lycanthropic god. A cult that wants to awaken the deity. Angry ghosts whose ability to suck out your breath resembles consumption. And a sinister spirit that wants Branwell’s body.

I don’t mind that Powers uses the same hybrid of magic and science as multiple other books; many of them take place in the same universe, after all. I think the big problem is that the cult is too vague a threat — what will they do once they seize power? How powerful are they? — which undercuts any sense of danger. There’s a stage magician who hopes to use their knowledge to enhance his performances; that’s a great idea but he’s not developed or used enough (which hurts the big finish as he plays a large role). Overall, glad I used the library for this one.

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April 15, 2026 · 5:22 am

Covers for the middle of the week

First, Jack Gaughan’s cover — weirder, I think, than many of his, though the lack of background is typical of his work.

Second, Ed Veligursky’s cover foreshadowing the world of climate change.

Third, a nicely weird looking but uncredited cover.

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April 12, 2026 · 5:08 am

The Charlton Companion is more interesting than Charlton’s comics were

THE CHARLTON COMPANION: A History of the Derby, Connecticut Publisher and Its Comic Books by Jon B. Cooke is a fascinating read even though I never got into Charlton’s output as a kid or a teen. Its offerings were much closer to DC and Marvel than, say, Harvey Comics or Gold Key but the look and quality of the printing were off-putting, as was the lettering (I learned from Cooke that for years the company avoided paying letterers and simply typed directly onto the finished pages). Nevertheless, this was fascinating — Charlton turns out to be more colorful than, say, Quality Comics.

Company founder John Santangelo was an Italian immigrant who broke into publishing by printing songbooks, a hugely popular field a century ago. His business was more profitable than most due to the simple expedient of not paying royalties; he was eventually caught, served some time and paid up from then on. He was a generally sharp operator; after a flood wrecked the company’s offices and printing press he slashed pay rates for freelancers without mentioning all the money they’d received as relief from the government

As the songbook market slowed, Santangelo turned to all sorts of other options: music magazines, skin magazines, paperbacks and of course comics. Love stories by the ton

Horror anthologies such as The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves.

Superhero books such as Steve Ditko’s Captain Atom and Blue Beetle, a short-lived line that inspired Watchmen (Dick Giordano, the former Charlton editor who convinced Moore to come up with new heroes instead, says in hindsight he wishes Moore had used the Charlton characters as they’d have a much higher profile now). And war comics, racing comics, kaiju comics such as Konga and Gorgo … While the pay rates were crap, that left Santagelo and his crew open to using a lot of newbies (Len Wein, Steve Skeates, Denny O’Neil and others who’d go on to bigger and better things) and several interviewees said they enjoyed the freedom that went with the low rates. Though I don’t see many examples of creative freedom involved — even Ditko’s heroes aren’t radically different from DC or Marvel. Was “creative freedom” just a euphemism for “I could turn my story in and never have to change anything”? Which a number of the creators freely admitted they were doing.

Charlton could have been much bigger than it was. It had an advantage in that as part of a bigger publishing company they had their own printing presses in house; over the years though, that meant it was more expensive for them to upgrade the presses than DC or Marvel, who outsourced. And Santangelo didn’t like expensive; he was cheap. One of the many anecdotes mentions one hallway that was almost unusable because it was stuffed with old, worn-out printing plates; rather than sell them and free up space, Santagelo was determined to wait until the scrap metal price rose.

A colorful company to read about, even if the comics turned me off.

All rights to images remain with current holders. Captain Atom and Blue Beetle covers by Ditko, the other two are uncredited.

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April 7, 2026 · 5:10 am

Yep, it’s another Tuesday cover post

Another one where I don’t think either cover works.

This Stan Zuckerberg cover, for instance — I like the use of the reflecting mirror but the cop’s expression looks too dyspeptic at the sight of the woman.

Despite the swastikas, Julian Paul’s cover here looks more like shenanigans around a swimming pool than anything else.

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April 5, 2026 · 5:05 am

Two books that did not suit my needs at this present time

“Does not suit our needs at this present time” is the standard rejection phrase when markets don’t want to offer specific criticisms. Or when they don’t have a specific criticism. Frustrating though it is, there are occasions I have the same reaction to books I’ve read.

Illustrations are random shots of neighborhood plants.

THE DALLERGUT DREAM DEPARTMENT STORE by Korean author Miye Lee is a low-key fantasy about Penny, a woman who lands a job in the eponymous dream-selling business. She gets to know the other staffers, the dream creators, the market for dreams (I do like that people can come in buy dreams for pets, like giving an old sick dog a dream of their youth) … but that made too slight a tale to engage me. As it became a million-copy best seller in South Korea, I’m curious if it’s just me or there’s some essential Korean themes here I don’t pick up.

ROYAL GAMBIT by Daniel O’Malley is the fourth in a series set in a world where super-powered mutants have been cropping up in England for centuries (other nations too), though the root cause is supernatural rather than genetic. The Chequy is the British government agency that recruits/drafts the mutants as special agents to fight the renegade supernaturals and keep the true nature of reality hidden from the public.

This book opens with the death of the Prince of Wales by supernatural means (a stone pyramid materialized in his skull, reminding me of Doctor Satan). Was it an accidental manifestation of someone’s power? An assassination? Are more royals on the list? That’s a golden opportunity for Alix, whose power breaks bones with her touch; an aristocratic young woman, she moves in the right circles to become one of the new Princess of Wales’ ladies in waiting, putting her in a position to watch over the family and keep an eye out for the killer.

While I like O’Malley’s taste for giving the supernaturals bizarre abilities, this never caught fire for me; I finished, but only by skimming a lot of it. I’m not sure if it’s that urban fantasy isn’t my go-to genre, that this kind of authoritarian governmental body has been old hat since the X-Files or that the book focuses more on intrigues within the Chequy and the details of life in the royal world than the plot.

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April 3, 2026 · 3:37 pm

March was a month that happened …

Despite Plushie’s fortnight of diarrhea, it was fairly productive. Of course, as I’ve mentioned before, that’s partly because of The Local Reporter switching to monthly so I didn’t have actual paying gigs distracting me. I’ll be back to work on it next week, prepping for the April issue.

I got close to 34,000 words rewritten on Let No Man Put Asunder, redrafted “Mage’s Masquerade” and “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” and proofed the first chunk of Savage Adventures. I applied for a couple of writing jobs (remote) and started checking various short fiction markets — no luck so far. And we made it through diarrhea and out the other side er, so to speak. And the multiple trips to tire places or our VW dealer.

Yes, it’s mostly Snowdrop photos today. I think he’s worth it.

This week was choppy, with enough errands Wednesday it was a struggle to get anything done. Still, overall satisfactory. I got another 3,500 words finished on Asunder (that was what I struggled to complete Wednesday). I reread “Oh the Places You’ll Go” and I think I’ve finally finished it. I’ll proof it later this month but I’m satisfied I’ve fixed everything I didn’t like (or my beta readers didn’t like). First story finished in a long while. I read “Mage’s Masquerade” to the writing group; the overall reaction was way favorable though with several slight changes. For example it comes off as if Sinclair is waaaay older than Cecily; while that’s not out of line for a Regency plot, it’s a sensitive enough subject I’m going to make it clear he’s maybe a decade her senior, nothing more.

Finding markets for two 7,000 word short stories will be a challenge. But I can always publish them in another collection of my work.

I got several thousand words of Savage Adventures proofed and polished and I started looking for a cover artist. No luck so far.

I also began editing my Hellboy Chronology. At first I was only going to update it to add one of the new Hellboy-verse TPBs. However I wound up converting it to blocks which threw the spacing and the whole look of the page out of whack. I’ve begun correcting for that, though I’m only up through the 1960s. Please be patient as I keep working. All the information is still good.

Over at Con-Tinual I talked about The Worlds of Andre Norton, Favorite Superhero Moments, the return of Superboy, now all available on FB at the links.

Week is almost over, as I’m stopping work early to cook something for TYG. Have a great weekend, y’all.

Cover by James Bama, all rights remain with current holder.

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