Okay! So the rest finally came January 12th, and its taken me this long to read/binge it all.
So!!
The Overneath (2017)
So, like I said in that second link...
Okay, I only did the Shmendrick prequel stories.
I'll do the rest of the book some other time.
Probably when I get the rest of my stuff.
And, I did!
Loved all of them...for the most part.
My favorite isn't even the Shmendrick prequels, it's "The Way It Works Out And All".
It introduces the concept of "the Overneath" where the title comes from.
It's a fourth dimension you can access by walking funny in the right places, and you can teleport all over the world, or pop into secret places like the gateway to Hogwarts, and there's hints it's even the afterlife. It's similar to a lot of stories and movies, but I like the way Beagle tells it.
My next favorite after the Overneath one, and the Shmendrick ones, is "Olfert Dapper's Day".
When Beagle did the research for "The Last Unicorn" he found the account of Olfert Dapper (a 16th century sort of Baron Munchausen) seeing a unicorn in the forests of Maine.
So, Beagle basically fan-fictions that story.
Beagle telling a Maine unicorn story? Of course I loved it!
Then comes "The Very Nasty Aquarium", "Trinity County, CA- You'll Want To Come Again, And We'll Be Glad To See You!", and "Great-Grandmother In The Cellar".
Then...after that top 7, they were varying degrees of "meh".
But still okay, because it's Beagle.
Bottom of my list is "Under Bridge" which is basically a knockoff of "Little Shop Of Horrors" with a concrete troll instead of Audrey 2.
Saw every single twist coming because of the resemblance, but dammit, Beagle still tells it so well!
Closest thing to a flop out of the bunch.
This is my favorite Christmas present.
Hands down.
But! Behind it by just a nanometer is....
A Fine And Private Place (1960)
About a homeless guy, Jonathan Rebeck, who lives illegally in a cemetery, and who can see and hear the ghosts that wander about.
He also has his food and clothing delivered by a raven, who he can hear talk.
That's as far as I can go without spoiling too much.
It's one of those ones where to even fully describe it, you end up telling the whole plot.
Wonderful. Love it.
For whole novels by Beagle, tied with "Last Unicorn".
IMHO.
I read on Wikipedia the bad reviews this got when it came out, and man, what a bunch of bitter, sour-faced, nitpicky curmudgeons. No book could make it past the standards they were applying to this.
I think critics think they have to rough up the new guy.
Like seniors bullying freshmen.
Because NOW that Beagle has had a long career, and won awards, they wouldn't dream of spitting on him. If AFAPP came out now, they'd be licking his boots.
Tch, it's all such a sham of parading egos.
Anyway, read this, it's good.
Star Trek: Discovery, season 4
(2022)
I love it.
I was wrong, better than Picard season 2.
A little better than season 3.
Even when it's not as epic as season 2, I love this crew. The haters can eat shit.
I compared its overall arc to "One Of Our Planets Is Missing" but hours, days, and even a week or month can elapse in an old-style episode. A Discovery arc does the whole week/month.
So, Discovery 4 is OOOPIM long-form, but those extra details matter.
Who knows what meetings, and technobabble, and character development got skipped over in the old episodes.
Yep, I like me some Discovery; can't wait for season 5.
Sandman: Overture (2015)
Sandman: The Doll's House (1989)
9 down, 4 to go!!!
So, that's...
So, from when I started to now, having all of these snowballed pretty quick!
Next batch of two will be 7 & 9, cuz those wrap up the main story, then 3 & 8, cuz those are anthology stories, then...one more extra thing that's Sandman-adjacent.
Maybe two extra things, but one of them is hard to acquire.
Stay tuned.
Anyway, volume 2 introduces Fiddler's Green, and like I said in the TV show review...
One of my least favorite characters in the books was Fiddler's Green, and he's played by Stephen Fry, which makes me love him. Dammit, show!! Why do you have to be so perfect?!?!
Yep, I hear Stephen Fry when I read his balloons now.
Fun fact, Neil Gaiman has called Peter Beagle "the gold standard of fantasy".
So there's that connection.
Neil Gaiman also told a story in an interview about running into a snooty art gallery type who turned up his nose when he told him he did comics, but then when the guy found out it was Sandman, started kissing his ass, and slobbering all over him.
Gaiman hates those kids of fans.
Some guys I knew in high school were those kinds of fans.
They obviously didn't learn anything Neil was trying to teach them.
One of those guys grew up into a critic for some magazine.
He went off on some rant in one of his reviews about how people who don't work are "bums".
Dead stop, no excuses.
Yeah, fuck extenuating circumstances, or mental illness, or handicaps, "pull your bootstraps, ya bum!".
Which you would expect from a fucking Republican, but this guy was/is allegedly liberal, and the magazine he writes for is also ostensibly liberal.
And yet, he would totally have Fiddler's Green and/or John Rebeck arrested for vagrancy.
Talk about missing the fucking point.
What a sad case.
Tch....
Hope he's lurking, and that I just made him sneer.
Like the gallery guy, and the critics of young Peter Beagle.
That would warm my heart.
😏😈
Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars (2016)
So, like I said last time...
It just HAS to be better than the original.
Boy, does that story need some livening up.
At worst, it'll be dumb fun like Ambush Bug.
Both.
Dumb fun, and an improvement on the original.
Which didn't take much doing.
Any Gen-X-ers out there who can remember the Secret Wars toys?
Didn't you always find it odd how the comics didn't have the secret shields like the toys did?
Deadpool finds the secret shields, and gives an in-story reason why they didn't show up in the main story of Secret Wars.
It's hilarious.
Worth the price of the whole book just for that.
I hope Deadpool is in the Secret Wars movie.
That'd be a gas.
And...that's the end!
See you next time!!
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