Monday, May 14, 2012

What I Read in April


I was all over the place with my reading last month and I intended it that way. I felt the need to jar myself from a straightforward path of simply picking up next thing in front of me so I forced my hand further into the stacks- so to speak. Actually some of these things were read on the Kindle so in those cases I was paging past the first screen of offerings. Its all the same in the end! I jumped from a great 1950's crime novel that would have made a fine noir-ish film to a fun, short bit of horror-fantasy about a murderous leprechaun. If there was just some way to merge those two dissimilar tales into a single movie I'd could be very happy. Then I read a trashy post-apocalyptic novel but it wasn't quite as trashy or as over the top as I was hoping for. I wasn't unhappy I read it but I was hoping for a more visceral story.


The two comic trade paperbacks I read were both interesting, especially the Simonson Fantastic Four stuff. I will seek out more of his run on that book in the future. And I was thrilled to finally read Moorcock's John Carter riff. I really enjoyed it. It brought back the thrill of reading the ERB novels for the first time when I was a kid. Great stuff! 


HOME IS THE SAILOR by Day Keene (great crime tale from 1952 -A Hard Case Crime novel)
A GRAVE ST. PATRICK'S DAY by Nic Brown (fun terror tale)
THE COMING OF THE RATS by George H. Smith (OK trashy post-apocalyptic tale written in the early 1960s)
FANTASTIC FOUR Visionaries Vol. 1 by Walt Simonson (cosmic tales with many guest stars)
CITY OF THE BEAST by Michael Moorcock (excellent homage to ERB's Martian tales)
PSI FORCE Classic Vol. 1 - (the first nine issues of this long defunct New Universe comic- it wasn't very good until the ninth issue, sadly)
GIANT KILLER EELS by Stuart Neild (not very good monster tale in the Guy N. Smith vein) 



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