Dawn of the Dumb - Charlie Brooker

I think Brooker is probably the funniest writer in Britain at the moment.  His Guardian columns, even when they're mediocre, are streets ahead of any other columnist.  He's also currently being much funnier than anyone else on the 10 o Clock Show.

This book is a collection of his writing from around 2005 and 2006.  The articles are taken from both his Monday column and also his weekend Screen-Burn. So, it's a nice mix of TV rants and freeform rants.

Good, honest, vitriolic fun.

Hellboy vol.1: Seed of Destruction - Mike Mignola & John Byrne

The first collection of Hellboy stories and it is cracker.  I've actually read more of the Hellboy spin-offs than I have the actual books.  I've even seen more Hellboy films than I have read the books.;  It's nice then to finally get to grips with one of them especially as I have book 2 waiting in the wings also.

The art, as you'd imagine, is beautiful and full of shade and nuance.  From the off both Hellboy and Rasputin are both forceful and dynamic on the page.  I'm not a big fan of the whole Lovecraft pantheon type stuff but here, kept to a minimum, it works well.

The story is an origin tale that gives away very little with regard to H's origin.  It has a nicely Gothic setting and things aren't quite what they seem.

Lots of fun to read and I wholeheartedly intend to catch up on the ones I don't have.

Vampire Hunter D - Hideyuki Kikuchi

I found this and a couple of his other books in a bargain bookshop the other day. They were a good  price and despite a general ambivalence towards manga I grabbed them.

It was an odd little read. I'm not sure if the writer has / had an odd style or if it's the translator who is at fault.  Some of the passages are really quite strangely written.  For instance, when D and Rei-Ginsei are fighting and D realises that he shouldn't stab at the heart D yells, "That was close" to which his opponent replies "I can't believe you changed your target at the last second...". So far so naff but then Kikuchi begins and explanation of this with...

'Here's what they meant by "That was close" and "you changed your target.".

It really is quite odd.

The story world was nicely realised though and the whole thing romped along with a vaguely spaghetti western flavour to it.  I must admit I quite enjoyed myself but i think maybe not enough to read the others any time soon.

Horus Heresy: Garro - Legion of One - James Swallow

The second of the Garro audiobooks sees him head for Istvaan III and recruit Gavriel Loken for his new un-named (Grey Knights) legion,.

It's a nifty little tale concerning Garro & his Ultramarine & World Eater companions attempts to defeat an army of plague zombies and the madness that has made the abandoned Loken convinced he is Cerberus the guardian of Death.  It's all a little daft but that's where the fun lies in the 40k (& 30k) books.

The reader, Toby Longworth, is solid as ever but even he can't make the cod-Latin sound anything other than ridiculous and clunky.

I like Swallow's writing and these two audiobookshave been fun although I thought they'd make more of the recruiting than just the two.  Be interesting to see what happens next.

Doctor Who: Dead Air - James Goss

This was the last of the David Tenant audiobooks and it's a pretty good ending.

This is the Doctor on his own, no assistant to get in the way although he does acquire a scouse DJ called Layla along the way.  The story has a Sapphire & Steel vibe to it with a Time Lord weapon called the 'Hush' trying to increase its range and power through some nicely devious machinations that only become apparent at the end.

Tenant is a great reader and he really does have his Doctor down absolute pat.  His reading is fun and quirky with some nicely done voice work that perfectly suited the story.  I enjoyed this one a lot.

Jack of Fables vol.7: The New Adventures of Jack and Jack - Bill Willingham & others

I'm not the biggest fan of the Jack books.  I've bought them mostly because the main book is so damn good. This one I rented from the library.

It's actually pretty good.  The book is split between a storyline featuring Jack of Fables slowly turning into a dragon, due to him hoarding all that gold he has hidden in his suitcase and a better storyline featuring Jack Frost as he returns the Ice Queen's powers and embarks on a life of selfless heroics accompanied by Gepetto's wooden owl McDuff.  This tale is fairly light and fluffy but does have a couple of fun notions running through it.

The tagline at the end of the book makes the claim that J. of F.'s transformation is permanent and that the book is all Jack Frost from now on but these taglines tend to lie a lot so we'll see.

Doctor Who: Snowglobe 7 - Mike Tucker

Another Earth based romp for The Doctor & Martha as they find themselves inside a giant glacier filled dome near the beach in Dubai.

Odd prehistoric markings have been found preserved in the ice and a number of the research team have either lapsed into a coma or are just plain missing.  The Doctor soon discovers that it is the last of a race called the Gappa (part spider, part monkey, part bat) which lays it's eggs in the heads of it's victims which is nice of them.

It was a fairly ragtag journey to the end with a fairly nice but awfully short zombie scene but nothing much else to recommend it.  Again though, the writer seems at a complete loss as to what to do with Martha.

Doctor Who: The Last Voyage - Dan Abnett

I've had a few of these original 10th Doctor audiobooks knocking around for a while now but hadn't got around to listening to them.  Went for a walk today with my new camera around the local park which seemed a golden opportunity to give one a try.

The story is fairly light.  The maiden voyage of some new type of drive for space travel. It all goes horribly wrong and everyone disappears except for a stewardess and a couple of other people.  Unfortunately there're also some shiny people-things appearing and melting the non-shiny people and unfortunately there's no-one flying the ship.  Into this mess walks the Doctor and sorts it out with relative ease.

It's all a little unremarkable and I really expected more from Abnett.  Still, it passed some time on my wander and Tenant reads it fairly well.

Parliament of Justice - Michael Oeming & Neil Vokes

A short one from the artist of Powers but this time it's his words paired with some other cats art.

The story is a fairly basic Batman & Robin riff.  The two characters are called Parliament and Gypsum and exist in a Gotham-esque gothic city of ultra rich and ultra poor.  The former not so much looking down upon the latter as utterly despising them.  At it's heart there is a nice little parody and the story itself goes somewhere fairly interesting but it's all a little short.

The art wasn't to my tastes.  It's not awful but I'd have rather seen Oeming's own doodles in place of Vokes.

Not as good as I was hoping and annoyingly brief but enjoyable none the less.

Powers vol.12: The 25 Coolest Dead Superheroes of All Time - Brian Bendis & Michael Oeming

And so for now it ends.  This is the last of the big stack of Powers books that I bought recently.  There is another just out but it's pretty pricey still so it'll be a while before I get hold of a copy.

This one finally brings an end to the Deena storyline as they catch the people behind the Powers virus.

It's got a fair bit going for it but I found this one to be a bit of a mess.  It never really flowed and seemed a messy sort of ending but then I suppose endings are generally fairly messy.  It was nice to see Deena get a good send off even if she does end up in tears.

Looking forward to more of these.

Doctor Who: Martha in the Mirror - Justin Richards

One of the things I like most about these books is how quick they are to read.  Started this one yesterday evening and then read the last 70 pages this morning.

Richards wrote the first of these new type Doctor books - The Clockwise Man - which is probably my favourite of all the ones I've read thus far.  This one is similar in a few ways - an unusual character around which the story coalesces, the placing of a little kid within the dynamics of the narrative and some others but it was, under these surface similarities a fun read.

The Doctor and Martha arrive in a castle in preparation for hosting a peace treaty between two warring races - a people race and a crocodile race - unfortunately the crocodile fellas have hidden an army within a dimensional portal inside a mirror left in the castle.  Even more unfortunately the mirror is more than they realise.

There's also a sub-story regarding a little girl named Janna which was fun but a bit obvious.

I really did enjoy this one though.  It was a decent romp with some good characters and a nicely twisted sort of vibe.

American Vampire vol.1 - Scott Snyder, Stephen King & Rafael Albuquerque

It took me a little while to get into this one. I had a couple of false starts before I found the vibe of it and really started reading it.

The story is of a newly created vampire. A new type of one that is particularly American.  His story is told in two parts - simultaneously.  One part (written by King) is Skinner Sweets' origin tale, his genesis.  It's set in the old west where Sweet, an outlaw, is captured, tries to escape, is turned, buried, escapes, is buried again and finally gets away.

The second tale set some 16 years later has Sweet acting out some sort of Machiavellian scheme against the old vampires.  He creates a new vamp (an actress) and sits back and watches her tear through the ranks of the old guard.

It was a strange little book this one.  It really never felt like it had any real clout.  The idea felt fuzzy and the two stories were never more than vaguely readable.  I'd check out the second volume should it ever be put in front of me but I'm glad my local library stocked this and I didn't buy it.

Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter - A. E. Moorat

Yes this was every bit as ridiculous as the name implies.

The story concerns the young Queen's ascent to the throne and the discovery that there was an age old demonic conspiracy against her and that she was unwittingly on the wrong side.

For the first two thirds of the book I was quite enjoying it. It had some nice set pieces, it played fast and loose with Victoria's life story and in Maggie Brown (the royal protector) it had a funny and engaging character.  About two thirds in though I lost all impetus to read it and the last bit became a bit of a chore.  I don't think it was the books fault, it pretty much ended as it began.  I just lost interest in it.

I did finally finish it some two weeks later and it certainly wasn't awful.  Mindless, cliched and fairly inconsequential yes. But not awful.