From here...
I'm going to not just review this, but everything from prior Christmas/birthday hauls that have accumulated the past 5 years.
I realized once I got done with Margaret's stuff*, I should probably clear away that pile too.
...and from here..
Yeah, I desperately needed this (Princess Bride) upgraded to Blu-ray.
Especially after just reading "As You Wish".
That's part of a big book-a-thon review post I have coming up.
Stay tuned for that.
So, here it is!!
We're finally here!!
In terms of brain growth, this journey has been like the sequel to "The Summer Of Dune".
Really got a lot out of this!
In release year order, like the Margaret ones...
The Creature Commandos (1980-1983)
From here...
A vampire, a werewolf, a Frankenstein Monster, and a Gorgon (the thing that Medusa is) are enlisted to fight Nazis.
As good as it sounds.
A forgotten gem of the DC universe.
Another childhood memory I had to grab.
TLDR version, literary Troma movie.
Pure goofiness.
At least I had fun all the way through.
Was always smiling.
Was never left rolling my eyes.
Unlike the sheer misery of a couple of these.
Ambush Bug (1982-1992)
From here...
Okay, maybe it's not great literature, but...if Hyla gets a fan pick (Hellboy), then, this is mine.
If "Kingdom Come", can alienate the casual fan, boy, does this ever get "inside".
But, it's funny as a bastid if you can get all the jokes, and I do.
Oh, man, it mercilessly slaughters the comics industry.
Ambush Bug was doing this when Max Landis was in diapers.
Fuck, he destroys absolutely everything that was wrong with the 90's style of comics with one fucking splash page!
That's all it took to take it all down.
Fuck, that it's one page is even part of the joke!
That's how brilliant this thing is.
All right, the story, such as it is, the character is a wacky guy who finds an alien costume, ala "Greatest American Hero", and his one (in-story) power, is teleportation, but, he also knows he's in a comic book, which gives him an array of other powers, including being death-resistant.
Course, all of this sort of makes him MST3K meets Q of the DC universe.
Although, some shots are taken at Marvel's expense too.
Wonderful stuff.
Up in my top 5 of comics, period.
Might even be my number 1, I dunno...
I wouldn't go that batty about it now.
I'll give it that it taught me to be funny before I had access to SNL and R rated comedians.
That'll always make these special.
Another AB memory from here...
Ambush Bug issue 3.
Why 3?
Okay, so, it's like this, it's summer of 1985, I'm freshly 10, me and my folks are over my mother's friend's house, and her abusive ex-husband is late bringing the kids home from weekly visitation, and we stay there to be with her, and the moronic asshole finally drags his ass in at 10 at night, and then my mother's friend has a total meltdown, and smashes his truck into a soda can with a baseball bat, and releases all that pent up abuse energy.
Her terminally ill mother was on the couch going "I wish I could be out there helping her!".
Me, I sat in the rocking chair, and calmly kept reading Ambush Bug.
And, this was the issue.
I think of that every time I look up at the wall now.
Ah, good times, good times...
Funny thing, I honestly can't remember now if it was issue 3, 4, or both.
Anyhoo!
Y'know what this really reminded me of this time?
"Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law".
With the obscure characters, the arbitrary gags, the 4th wall breaking.
HBAAL is Hanna Barbera's Ambush Bug.
And AB is DC's HBAAT.
The makers of HBAAL had to be Ambush Bug fans.
It could be parallel creation, but it's just too fucking close, IMHO.
Anyway, fun and fast read for such a thick tome of a book.
Secret Wars (1984)
From here...
One of the big events in comic book history.
A cosmic entity called The Beyonder vaccuums up all the heroes, and all the villains, and puts them on an uninhabited alien planet to fight.
It's the origin of Spidey's black costume that later became Venom.
So...transitive property, yeah, it's the origin of Venom.
Even though he doesn't become sentient here.
Interestingly, this all came about as a way to launch a line of toys.
In the back of the book, there's an essay on the history of the toys complete with photos.
Nostalgia joy!!
I had a bunch of them!!
Anyhoo, I'd love it if they did a variation on this for Avengers 5 in the MCU.
What better way to drop in X-Men and Fantastic Four?
This is going to be Avengers 6 now!!
I called it!!
Well...6 instead of 5, but close enough!
I read this right when I got it on Christmas of 2018, but never got around to reviewing it here.
Figured I'd throw it in now.
Yeah, the writing on this is like a bad Saturday cartoon.
And the art is rushed and sketchy.
It's not great.
But, it is historical.
It creates Venom, and the She-Hulk stint on Fantastic Four, and that had ripples for decades.
I'm sure the movie will be way better.
I mean "Civil War" is nothing like the comic.
Ditto "Age Of Ultron".
Ditto "Days Of Future Past".
Ditto "Infinity War".
The films only take the title, and the skeletal idea.
Glad I collected this to read.
Dumb harmless fun.
Like "Creature Commandos".
No regrets.
Hulk: Crossroads (1984)
My original review stands of Hulk hopping into Twilight Zone episodes.
Plus, there's the first iteration of the child abuse origin that got cribbed for Ang Lee's Hulk.
And!! Now that I've seen "Multiverse Of Madness" I actually like this better.
MoM was cool, but this had more meat on its bones.
Of the four graphic novels in this batch, probably the meatiest and nerdiest.
I mean, it's no Shakespeare, or Arthur Clarke, but for a comic, it ain't bad.
Give it a whirl.
Star Trek: Probe (1992)
So, here's the Margaret-adjacent bit of this review to justify the garamet tag.
Oh, reminder for those who haven't kept up, in spite of her name being on the cover, this is not Margaret's book.
They stole it from her, and rewrote it into...well....
From here....
Differences from "Probe"?
Well, I haven't read the whole book, and never plan to....
Yeah, I had to read it.
Is "Music" better than "Probe"?
Fuck yes.
Sweatlessly.
"Probe" is a miserable slog.
I think chugging through this was the unhappiest I was through this whole journey.
And parts of "Shards And Shadows" brought me pretty fucking low.
Glad I read it to satisfy my curiosity, but if I had to do it over, I'd skip it.
I recommended everyone give this a miss.
Unless, I guess, if you're a fellow friend of Margaret, and have the same morbid curiosity.
Can't believe I didn't see it before, but Music/Probe predicts "Undiscovered Country".
Just swap Romulans for Klingons.
So, UC and "First Contact"* were both stolen from Margaret!!
No wonder she didn't like UC, and only liked TWOK/TSFS/TVH.
Or "The Genesis Trilogy" as some call it.
(* see "Strangers From The Sky")
Is "Music" better than UC?
IIII'd...have to say yeah, actually.
I'll take "Spiccoli Sulu" over racist Kirk, McCoy, and Scotty.
Is "Probe" better than UC??
Fuck no.
It's not even better than itself.
Glad I knew Margaret, glad I have "Music Of The Spheres".
I'm one lucky son of a bitch.
Miserable as "Probe" was to read, it drives the point home.
It's the one silver lining I got from reading this piece of drek.
If I had this to tackle without the Margaret connections, I would have just been a weeping heap.
On Writing (2000)
I whined about writers not wanting to talk shop with me in my "Doctor Sleep" review.
Hey, dummy! "On Writing"!
It sat there on the pile for 22 years!
Sheesh!
As I was going through it, I kept remembering parts.
First, I thought I'd heard his stories in other interviews somewhere, but they kept stacking up.
I'm pretty sure I already read this, and forgot it, but now it all came back.
I had the sense cracking the first pages "after this, my training will be complete!" but...if it was already logged away in my subconscious, I've been ready to go all along.
Ah, well, couldn't hurt to have a booster shot.
So, is my training complete like I thought it would be?
Close enough.
A couple things I gotta work on.
A couple things in the book I'll have to refer back to from time to time.
But yeah, I'm a Jedi.
A C+ Jedi, but it still gets me the saber and cloak.
The Line Between (2006)
Got this one the most recently.
From the link...
Anyway, through the (Last Unicorn) bonuses, I was made aware of a mini-sequel to the novel called "Two Hearts" that's in the short story anthology "The Line Between".
so, naturally, I had to grab that.
And...
Thank you, "Last Unicorn" Blu-ray!!!
This is that "lumped together in a helpful way" I mentioned up top.
I'll be reviewing this in my upcoming read-a-thon.
Stay tuned for that.
So!! How was it!?
Great!
"Two Hearts" was good, really took you back to the world of the novel/movie.
It left it wide open for the threequel that's coming out next year in the story collection "The Way Home". Which is also going to have doubles of "Two Hearts".
Ah, well, I don't mind having doubles, the other stories in this one are great too.
Nothing in this disappointed.
Not one little bit.
Not like frigging "Shards And Shadows".
Also, I've since discovered that there's two Shmendrick The Magician prequels in "The Overneath".
So, I gotta hunt that one down next.
I've noticed both in the "Last Unicorn" Blu-ray bonuses, and the chapter/story introductions in this book, Peter Beagle really drags his feet.
One of these stories sat in a drawer for 40 years.
There's a 17 year gap between "Two Hearts" and "Sooz" the upcoming threequel.
There's a 38 year gap between the "Last Unicorn" novel, and "Two Hearts".
He made a draft of "Last Unicorn" that was so wrong for what he was going for, he had to start all over from scratch, and he had a miserable time writing it.
He didn't realize the "Last Unicorn" movie was a classic until he watched it for the 25th anniversary for the Blu-ray!
This dude is like me!
I found my guy!
I found my literary Obi-Wan!
See, Margaret?
I wasn't slacking, some shit just has a long-ass percolation/fermentation.
Star Trek: Shards and Shadows (2009)
Yeah, I did this one before, but I only read Margaret's story.
This time, I read the whole thing, and re-read Margaret's too.
About what I expected.
Margaret's was the best, 6 others were decent, 4 of them were meh, and one was flat out miserable.
And Peter David's was the miserable one.
Yeah, I'm naming his ass.
The mehs, and David's, made this book a gloomy slog.
But not as bad as "Probe" turned out to be.
Also, it probably didn't help overall that reading about space-Nazis is kind of a drag when Fascism is creeping into real life politics.
Anyway!
Final verdict.
Peter David is to writing what Rob Liefeld is to drawing.
I have two missions now.
Preserve Margaret's legacy, and outlive Peter David.
Oh, and space-Nazis suck.
Even when written well.
Sapiens (2011)
How humans evolved, built civilization, and got into the mess we're in now.
TLDR version, technology shot our evolution ahead too fast, we're predators with a prey animal psychology.
Plus, it all really went to shit at the agricultural revolution.
Overall, liked it better than I didn't.
I would have loved the shit out of this as a teenager.
I needed a book like this back then.
Or as a college substitute in my 20's.
But now?
Got a few tidbits out of it.
Stuff I can use in my writing.
Didn't rock my world as hard as "Mistakes Were Made" though.
As You Wish
Inconceivable Tales From The Making Of The Princess Bride
(2014)
Loved it.
Basically, it's like a "Never Sleep Again" for "Princess Bride" but on paper.
OR "Slash Of The Titans" written way better.
Because PB is a classier flick than FvJ. Duh.
Man, if I ever want to direct a movie, Rob Reiner in this will be my manual.
Also, the bits where 1. Mandy Patinkin had a little bout of insecurity, but Rob Reiner fixed it, and 2. Wallace Shawn was REALLY insecure.
That gives me hope.
Even the greats get imposter syndrome.
I said that about "All That Jazz" but who can relate to fucking Bob Fosse?
I can relate to Wally Shawn.
How Star Wars Conquered The Universe (2014)
You know, I think this might actually be my second favorite thing I read in this batch after "Mistakes Were Made".
This book is easily better than "From Star Wars To Jedi" and "Empire Of Dreams".
No contest.
This is Star Wars's "Never Sleep Again".
No, this is the new standard.
NSA is the HSWCTU of Freddy.
It only beats "As You Wish" cuz AYW only has one movie to cover, this has six, plus TV shows, cartoons, books, comics, games, and conventions.
And that's of the printing.
The Disney era has been a decade thing now, he could do a sequel.
It was also therapeutic to see how Lucas struggled with the writing of the first Star Wars.
His first couple drafts were a totally different movie, and he got bogged down in technobabble, and weird names and cultures, and...that's happened to me with a couple of my things that crashed and burned.
If it can happen to the greats, it can happen to everybody, and I can stop beating myself up.
George Lucas got back up on the horse, and made his vision happen, so can I.
Mistakes Were Made
(But Not By Me)
(2019 edition)
As hinted above, my favorite out of the whole batch.
I went in release year order, but it ended up saving the best for last.
Super-short version, loved the shit out of it, got a lot out of it, and I'm deeply confident I'll continue to get tons out of it for years to come.
A real life-changer.
Especially chapter 8.
That nailed some specific things I was really having trouble with.
Slightly longer version from here...
My friend, Alexandra, recommended this to me ages ago, and I listened to the audiobook, but now I finally have a paper copy.
A deep dive on the workings of cognitive dissonance, and other cognitive biases, and how they cause people to believe stupid shit, and double down on it literally to the fucking death.
It's the video game cheat manual for human beings.
It's the closest thing I have to a Bible.
The 2019 edition adds a whole thick chapter on Trump and MAGA-heads.
Truly a book for navigating our dumb awful age.
I barely remembered anything from that audio speed through.
It's not the type of book you can retain from a listen through like an entertainment book, it needs to be on paper so you can keep looking back, and maybe even keep a read-along journal like I did.
It's like a class.
And what a class!
Okay, so here's my final ranking...
-Genuine joy tier, "Mistakes", HSWCTU, "As You Wish", and "The Line Between".
-Plain brain growth tier, "Sapiens", "On Writing".
-Plain fun tier, "Creature Commandos", "Hulk: Crossroads", "Secret Wars", "Ambush Bug".
-Misery tier, "Shards" and "Probe".
Two stinky out of twelve, not too bad!
This was a good journey.
I'm happy.
Next one of these, the Sandman comics.
Stay tuned!
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