Book Guys #062

The podcast returned from Christmas break with a pretty good show, if I do say so myself.

Father Robert was unavailable, as he was checking out the goodies at CES. But Paul, Sir Jimmy, and I soldiered on bravely, joined by Brian Brushwood of ScamSchool and Mike Luoma of GlowInTheDarkRadio.Com.

We talked about a robot that writes books automatically, the implications of electronic items on traditional supply-and-demand pricing, and what exactly I would hide in a hollowed-out textbook. I mentioned that I was reading The Devil You Know, by Mike Carey. And in comic book news, we talked about what has been going on Spider-Man's life recently, and that Walking Dead #100 was the biggest-selling single issue of the year.

Check us out on iTunes or at BookGuys.ca.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!
Just do the following:
Grab your current read.
Open to a random page.
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

From chapter 12 of The Devil You Know, by Mike Carey: "You can't banish ghosts without shriving them; otherwise you could be sending innocent souls to Hell. You don't understand what any of this is about. You're like a blind man wandering down a busy street and firing a handgun at random into the crowd."

Book #1

Ender's Shadow Ultimate Collection. By Mike Carey, Sebastian Fiumara, and Guilia Brusco. Based on the novel by Orson Scott Card.

Like the Ender's Game adaptation, this book was broken into a pair of 5-issue mini-series, Battle School and Command School. And like the other adaptation, I wonder if someone unfamiliar with the source material would be lost. But that having been said, the story is terrific, and this adaptation moves at a very nice pace. 

Mike Carey is an excellent writer, both of comic books and of novels. The Unwritten series that he co-created and writes is one of the best ongoing series today. His scripts (and Sebastian Fiumara's art) in this series manage to walk the fine line of respecting the basic story of the novel, while turning that novel into a solid series of comic book issues. Each issue contains a readable part of the story, and the cliffhangers keep the pages turning.

The art is fantastic in this book. Bean looked nothing like I imagined him from listening to the audio version of the novel, but his character design was great. Drawing young children regularly trips up even the best comic book artists, and they often end up simply looking like downsized adults. But Fiumara does an excellent job making the children look like children.

As I wrote in the review of the prior series, adaptations are notoriously inconsistent affairs. But these 20 issues have told this story very well, and I look forward to digging more into the comics, as I continue reading the novels.

source: public library.

Review of 2012 reading goals

I posted these goals a year ago ... included are my current comments on how well I did accomplishing them. The main lesson: don't post goals. Or if you do, look at them once in a while during the year.
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Accomplished:
Keep up with DC's New 52 series Demon Knights and All-Star Western in individual isses. And I have heard so many good things about the New 52 Aquaman that I will purchase whatever trade paperbacks of that series that come out in 2012. (I kept up on Demon Knights, and even wrote reviews of All-Star Western and Aquaman, and also Wonder Woman and Animal Man. I anticipate writing New 52 reviews this year of Catwoman, Frankenstein, I Vampire, Supergirl, and perhaps more.)

Finish Y: The Last Man. I have read the first 48 of the 60 issues. (Reviewed here)

Via the Daily Audio Bible podcast, listen to the entire Bible. (I do this every other year or so. This is my third time through the Bible, via the DAB podcast.)

Not so Accomplished:
Finish the Belgariad series by David Eddings. I am currently reading book 4 of the 5-book series. (Finished 4. Never got to 5.)

Read 2 Terry Goodkind novels with my daughter. We are making our way through his Sword of Truth series, and are currently just at the beginning of Faith of the Fallen. (about 25% through Faith of the Fallen. Still on my to-do list)

Read the first volume of Aquinas' Summa Theologica. I have it on my Nook. (not very far at all.)

Finish up (2 more books) of Karen Kingsbury's Above the Line series. I liked Book 1 well enough, but thought that Book 2 was a step back. Nonetheless, I expect to knock out Books 3 & 4 this year. (nope)

Read another book (or 2) in the YA Redwall series. (nope)

Finish the 40+ issues of the Doom 2099 comic book series. I have read through issue 7. (up to #22)

My Own Podcast Awards!

Since I (1) listen to a lot of podcasts, and (2) have a blog, I believe I am qualified to talk about my favorites podcasts of 2012.

Favorite Podcast That I Have Been On
Runners-Up: The Fantasticast (via email comments), Spirit Blade Underground (via audio book reviews)
Winner: The Book Guys Show, which I started co-hosting in late Spring

Favorite Overall Podcast
Runners-Up: No Agenda, Who's Who: The Definitive Podcast of the DC Universe
Winner: The Tolkien Professor, which did an excellent job producing a wide range of excellent shows in the run-up to the release of The Hobbit movie.

Best Produced Podcast
Runners-Up: No Agenda, SQPN: The Break
Winner: Spirit Blade Underground, the excellent podcast by Paeter Frandsen, that is an original mix of movie reviews, video game talk, original audio drama, and Bible study.

Best New Podcast of 2012
Runners-Up: The France Project (reviewed here), From Darkness to Light Online
Winner: Just One Of The Guys, in which Shawn Engel does a great job reviewing the adventures of Green Lantern in the 1990s, focusing mostly on the character of Guy Gardner.

Gonna Miss You Award, for a show that ended in 2012.
Runners-up: The Jen & Dave Show, The Babylon Podcast (discussed here)
Winner: The Katia & KylieMac Show. So sad to see this show go away, after almost 500 excellent episodes.

Just-Almost-Dead Award, for shows that are on a, shall we say, intermittent release schedule.
Runners-up: The Saint Cast (3 episodes), Geeks On! (10 episodes)
Winner: Super Future Friends, the funniest long-form comic book podcast around. The ladies only released 1 episode in 2012, after doing 2 in 2011 and 6 in 2010. I sense a disturbing trend in these numbers.

2012 Reading Summary

I have been keeping track of my annual reading for about 7 years now. In 2012, I read 75 books. This compares to 84 last year, 73 in 2010, 80 in 2009, 110 in 2008, and around 140-150 in the few years before that. This decrease from the mid 2000s is because I listen to an absolute ton of podcasts, which cut into my reading time. I have always been a fan of audio, and  38 of the 75 books I consumed this year were via unabridged audio. 24 were traditional dead-tree books, 11 were graphic novels or collections, and 2 were on the Nook.

The 54 novels I read break down as follows: (note that the total exceeds 54, as many books fit into more than one category)
Fantasy/SF -- 33
Mystery/Thriller -- 15
YA -- 11
Religious/Christian -- 10
Contemporary -- 3


The 21 non-fiction works I read break down as follows: (note that the total exceeds 21, as many books fit into more than one category)
Christian/Theology -- 8
Sports & Entertainment --7
Memoir/Biography -- 6
Business -- 4

Books # 74 & 75

The final 2 books that I read in 2012:

74. Spirit Blade, by Paeter Frandsen. Unabridged enhanced audio.

 

This futuristic sci-fi audiobook takes place in a future where the government mandates the spiritual beliefs of its citizens, outlawing all traditional religions in favor of a generic "one size fits all" church. There are only a few rebellious "Seekers of Truth" who strive to remain free themselves, and who seek to free the world from this spiritual deception. The theme of the story is the power of spiritual truth, and how it will never pass away.

Author Paeter Frandsen is the man behind Spirit Blade productions, whose output includes a regular podcast and a series of audio dramas. This novel is the audio version of the novel which formed the basis for the flagship audio drama, Spirit Blade. The novel in this version is completely read by Paeter, who does a very good job bringing the range of characters to life. The sound effects and musical score add much to the overall listening experience.

I have heard the related audio dramas before, but this was a different listening experience. Enough time had passed so I did not remember the details of the plot, and found myself wanting to keep listening, to discover where the story was going.

75. The Holy Bible, various translations. Unabridged audio, via the Daily Audio Bible podcast feed.