Mount TBR 2022 discussion

Alright, time for #25-#48!

#25 - X-Men: Days of Future Past Prose Novel by Alex Irvine

A surprisingly good adaptation/expansion of the original Claremont/Byrne story. The GraphicAudio production (reissued by Dreamscape) actually does a bang-up job with the casting and direction, with their Xavier sounding remarkably like Patrick Stewart, and the overall mix is spot on (and sets off my surround system into full on decoding.) The story remains more or less the same, just with extra scenes to extend it a bit. The full cast production adapts the novel with minimal cutting.

#26 - Star Trek: New Visions Volume 2 by John Byrne

The second volume of Byrne’s fumetti style “fotonovel” stories runs the gamut from traditional Trek stories to silly stuff (Byrne’s nod to the Gold Key comics is amusing) to a gentle memorial story for the late Arlene Martell. It’s generally good, though Byrne’s Photoshop work is often awkward, although the comedy shorts are…not so good.

#27 - The Curse of Collinwood by Marilyn Ross

The first of the DS books to go supernatural…maybe. While Victoria, Burke, and Mad Martin accept that Collinwood is being attacked by a pair of 100 year old zombies, nobody else wants to believe it, instead preferring to blame a couple of felons.

It’s an awfully tedious book, lathering on the gothic layers and repeating itself a *lot* — the padding is relentless.

#28 - Sleuths by Bill Pronzini

A collection of stories featuring several different detectives from across Pronzini’s works, concluding with several Nameless Detective stories (one of which is also in another collection.) Much of it is lightweight and breezy., but very well written.

#29 - Normandy Gold by Megan Abbott, Alison Haylin, and Steve Scott

The story of a small town Oregon sheriff who comes to DC to Find out what happened to her estranged sister, who seems to have become An escort. It soon becomes cleared the sister is dead, so it becomes a hunt for the killer. Until things get complicated, and the vengeance driven sheriff finds herself being pulled into a complicated and messy political situation.It’s actually an odd story, and that it evokes all of the tropes of 1970s action exploitation but also incorporates elements of paranoid political thrillers of the time, making for a bit of an uneasy combination. In keeping with the exploitation theme, the story is full of sex and violence, though it all ends on an uncertain note.

#30 - 77 Sunset Strip by Roy Huggins

Fix-up novel (barely!) made from three of Huggins’ original Stuart Bailey stories — it’s literally just Bailey as a solo operator. While enjoyable, these are definitely gimmick stories, with arcane solutions. Considerable fun for me in the middle section, as Bailey visits Tucson, AZ.

#31 - Morbius Epic Collection Vol. 1: The Living Vampire by Steve Gerber, Don McGregor, Doug Moench, others

A motley collection of stories featuring Michael Morbius, living vampire (the result of a desperate medical experiment gone wrong.) First we have his introduction in The Amazing Spider-Man, followed by team-ups, a run in Adventures Into Fear, and stories from Vampire Tales that seem to follow an entirely different continuity. As a result the collection jumps all over, never really gaining definition. Morbius is very much an antihero, though — while he can be heroic, he also has a disturbing tendency to leave dead bodies scattered around.

#32 - Star Trek: New Visions, Volume 3 by John Byrne

More fumetti from Byrne, telling more or less original stories. Byrne manages to squeeze a TOS story out of the Borg, and we get return visits with Gary Seven, the Guardian of Forever, Harry Mudd, and the androids from “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” Byrne’s CGI is, unfortunately, not too great.

#33 - Star Trek: New Visions, Volume 4 by John Byrne

Three more fumetti created by John Byrne, with a one-page gag to wrap up.

#34 - Star Trek: New Visions Volume 5 by John Byrne

Four stories this time. Includes “Sam,” in which Kirk has to figure out what the hell is going on with his brother. The stories range from dull to good, though the anti-religion tale is at least as heavy-handed as anything TOS did.

#35 - Tyler Cross, Vol. 2: Angola by Fabian Nury, Brüno

This was, unlike the first volume, hard to get through — the extremely stylized, ugly art goes with the thin, ugly story that lifts bits from the various Parker stories by Donald Westlake (as Richard Stark.) Cross is betrayed on a heist and sent to Angola prison, where he’s set to be killed. He concocts an escape and deals with the people who betrayed him. He sort of does a good deed as well, but it’s not quite that, as he’s also corrupted a good woman.

This is translated from a European release and released under the Hard Case Crime imprint — which I’m realizing can be quite hit or miss.

Hey, Steven...I'm right on your trail--just one step behind you here on Ararat at 34. Keep clearing the path for me! :-)

Bev wrote: "Hey, Steven...I'm right on your trail--just one step behind you here on Ararat at 34. Keep clearing the path for me! :-)"

Machete in hand…I shall make a trail if there is none!

#36 - Cut by Mike Richardson & Todd Herman

A young woman, Meaghan, has a fight with her boyfriend, resulting in a cut on her arm. Heading home, she’s attacked by…something. She wakes up in a locked room, held captive by something monstrous. She’s soon joined by another woman, who was injured at work, her leg cut.

So, yeah, it’s a vampire…literally a giant bat. There’s no explanation for the monster, nor for how it’s getting away with kidnapping dozens of women. The story itself is about Meaghan trying to escape. There’s a downer ending.

Aside from my disfavour of vampires, this is just painfully pointless.

#37 - Circle of Friends Cookbook - 25 Savory Pie Recipes by Gooseberry Patch

The good: lots of interesting variations on pot pies to be found here, including several I’d like to try.

The bad: most of these recipes call for canned ingredients, so for anyone preferring fresher it’ll be a matter if tinkering to get things right.

#38 - Scooby-Doo Team-Up, Volume 1 by Sholly Fisch and others

Originally a digital first series, this takes the Scooby-Doo team-up episodes and films and runs with them through a wide swathe of DC-owned properties. Initially it’s Batman, but the cartoon Teen Titans show up, the Superfriends, Wonder Woman and the AMA in’s, and do on. Tons of fun for kids, and for adults.

#39 - Star Trek: Gold Key Archives Volume 2 by Dick Wood, Len Wein, various

Original stories published by Gold Key Comics and collected by IDW. These were near legendary for barely resembling the TV show, with characters completely off (and prone to random changes from issue to issue) and daft stories. The book did get better when Len Wein took over writing, but even then things could get outlandish. These books do make for an entertaining artifact, though.

#40 - The 9th Directive by Adam Hall

The second of the Quiller books takes the covert operative to Thailand where he’s tasked to prevent the assassination of “The Person”, a member of the British Royal Family. Initially the book is as much of a noir mystery as anything, as Quiller attempts to track and stop the assassin. Eventually it turns into a twisty espionage story.

The fun thing about the Quiller books is that Quiller is highly trained, very intelligent, and quite lethal (though he usually refuses to use guns) but is no Superman — he gets fearful, he’s sometimes unable to figure a way out if a dilemma, and he feels all the physical stress (and informs the reader in detail.)

#41 - Star Trek: Gold Key Archives, Volume 5 by Arnold Drake, John David Warner, George Kashden, Alberto Giolitti

More goofy off-model Star Trek fun. This is the last of the IDW collections do far, though the Gold Key series continued on to #61, many of which were reprinted in the Eaglemoss Star Trek comics series.

#42 - Star Trek: The Next Generation - Hive by Brannon Braga, Terry Matalas, etc

Co-writer Terry Matalas is now show running “Picard” and indeed has filtered in elements of this story. Hopefully he’s not going to quite the same places…. Mostly this is a pretty rough story of the Borg finally achieving their goal, only for Locutus to decide they gave no purpose, and engineer a way to undo things…there’s a very X-Men: Days of Future Past vibe to the story. It’s not truly terrible, but it’s not great, either.

#43 - Quiller Meridian by Adam Hall

The 17th Quiller, and one of the lesser. It’s post-Cold War, but the dangers and missions remain, and Quiller must step in for a murdered shadow executive on a murky mission. It starts slowly, but picks up speed as Quiller crosses Eastern Europe, dealing with threats in a post-Soviet Russia in the throes of civil war. Then, oddly, it slows to a crawl at the end, as Quiller negotiates his way out of a seemingly impossible situation in Siberia…and the entire thing gets a bit murky.

#44 - Assignment: Earth by John Byrne

Tells five stories about Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln, though one is based on “Tomorrow Is Yesterday”, showing us the story from Seven’s perspective. Fun, lightweight, stuff.

#45 - Widows by Ed McBain

A rough time for the 87th as a weird escalating series of murders baffles everyone, and Detective Carella’s father is murdered in his bakery. Detective Eileen Burke, meanwhile, is still trying to deal with her trauma, and becomes a hostage negotiator — a job that plungers her into the deep end in a hurry, especially when cases converge.

Better than the previous two, I must say.

#46 - Star Trek: New Visions, Volume 6 by John Byrne
and
Star Trek: New Visions #17: All The Ages Frozen by John Byrne (included in collection, but read separately)

More new original series photonovels, with Byrne by now mixing up cut-and-paste, CGI, and hired models/actors for his fumetti. This collection has encounters with a crooked alien and machine intelligences from the Beta Quadrant, a bout of temporal craziness engulfing Kirk, and a planetary enigma on a frozen world. There’s also several shorts, including a mystery around Janice Rand.

Enjoyable enough, certainly.

#47 - Star Trek: New Visions, Volume 7 by John Byrne
#48 - Star Trek: New Visions, Volume 8 by John Byrne

The final collections of Byrne’s Trek fumetti show continuing improvements in his CGI work, though the stories show sighs of weariness here and there. Still fun, though, especially “An Unexpected Yesterday”, which happily embraces fun with time and space, giving us a seemingly stoned Guardian Of Forever and an alternate timeline Gary Seven.

The final volume ends with a photonovel adaptation of “The Cage.”

And I’m off to another level….