A Sunday Review

TV this week:

• Who Do You Think You Are?: "Sarah Jessica Parker" - An ancestor who was a '49er and an ancestress who was accused of being a witch during the Salem hysteria. Not a bad start to this series in the United States. It actually made my husband kind of want to look into his family's past. My own family's past is constantly getting revealed thanks to the patient work of my sister. I can see that I'm really going to love this show.

I actually have a few more shows on the DVR to watch, but I'm still over-TVed from the Olympics, so I haven't been keeping up. I should have a little more in two weeks (don't expect a review next week, I'll be at the Con).

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Here are reviews of the DCBS comic book shipment that arrived this week, of books originally released February 17th and 24th:

• Green Lantern #51 - A tiny bit more of Mera, and even Aquaman and Tempest. Nothing special, though. I'm looking forward to the end of this crossover.
• Green Lantern Corps #45 - Guy is raging, Mogo is deus ex machina, whatever.
• Power Girl #9 - I really am surprised at how much I'm enjoying this book. The subplots are fun, the cast is cool, and the enemies are amusing and yet still threatening. It's just a good book all around.
• Justice League of America #42 - A bit confusing, until I remembered that this is set after Blackest Night. Then I recalled a little of what happened in the last issue and I think I followed it from there.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold #14 - A bit of a standard story, if one exists for this version of Batman. Aquaman fan-art in the letter column.
• Tiny Titans #25 - Not enough Aqualad. *sigh* Funny take on the Lantern Rings, though.
• Incredibles #5 - Yay! Edna!
• The Tick: New Series #2 - um. right. Maybe I'll stop mentioning this one, since it's only very mildly funny, and not really my thing.


• Blackest Night #7 - Not at all what I was expecting to see happen. Not even close. I would say "oops" but that just doesn't cover it. As for Mera... Lex? Eeeuuuwwww.
• Blackest Night: JSA #3 - Bittersweet, particularly Jesse's role. Hey, at least New York is safe...
• Justice Society of America #36 - Attack of the Nazi-wannabes? I don't much like the framing sequence, just for its implications.
• Northlanders #25 - Everything about this book is brutal. It's good, don't get me wrong, but very brutal.
• Marvelous Land of Oz #4 - The origin of the Wogglebug! I'd forgotten that was in this story. Funny stuff.
• Usagi Yojimbo #126 - Wow, perfect solution to an unhappy situation!

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My library book this week was Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson. I read Three Cups of Tea a couple of weeks ago, and immediately put this book in for a hold. It is both better written and slightly more compelling in many ways than the first book. True, the first book lays the groundwork for what we see in this one, but in this book there is a definite sense of how Greg empowers the people in Afghanistan and Pakistan to pull themselves back together and rebuild their world. There were plenty of moments that I found myself gasping or giggling at the sheer absurdity of the situation, and many many more where I wanted to rush in with a hammer and package of nails to help. And more than a few moments when I felt rage that the Taliban has been allowed to destroy a peaceful religion in the eyes of the rest of the world. One very different thing in this book from the last is how Greg learns to respect members of the US military who are genuinely concerned with helping pull Afghanistan out of despair by rebuilding instead of bombing and how he starts to work alongside them, though not ever with them directly, to push schools into highly dangerous areas that have asked for help. I won't pretend to understand Pakistan and Afghanistan, but these books have given me an insight into cultures and beliefs that I wish every American had. Highly recommended. Go on, get 'em and read 'em.

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Agatha Christie this week was A Pocket Full of Rye from 1953. I put it in for inter-library loan, and the system decided to buy new copies, so I got to read a brand-new paperback. This mystery concerns a businessman poisoned in his office and found with a pocket full of rye. Miss Marple doesn't come into the story until 12 chapters have passed, but she immediately seizes on the nursery rhyme and eventually gets the entire thing figured out in detail. Aa usual, I didn't figure everything out, although I hit a couple of notes. I think the fact that the reader is always allowed to figure out a couple of the lesser mysteries is why Christie's writing is considered brilliant and not aggravating. Ah well, on to the next!

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Past Sunday Reviews -- Comics at Amazon.com -- Previews -- My Wishlist

A Sunday Review

Mostly concerned with the Olympics again, but there's a little TV this week:

• Ghost Hunters International: "The Legend of Rose Hall" - The adventure starts in Costa Rica, at a TB Hospital. Many of these haunted places are sanitoriums for TB sufferers. This one isn't completely abandoned, though, like a lot of them. As for what they found... lens flare, static, and bugs. I'm not really impressed. Even that last picture just wasn't enough. Next up is Jamaica. Fun! The legend of the White Witch of Rose Hall. I love the amount of debunking they did. The photo debunking was particularly nice. Why are they so good at debunking in the second half, but so willing to see pattern in nothing in the first?

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Fortean Times #257, February 2010. This issue came on time, and sure enough, I've already got issue #258. I haven't opened it yet. I want to finish the review of this one before I read another one. Oddly, I checked the website of the distributor, and they claim the current issue is #260. If that's the case, I'm two issues behind. But if I go to the Fortean Times Website, they are still on #259... making the distributor ahead - and me about right on target for someone getting a subscription overseas. Um, I think I've managed to confuse myself.

Right, the issue itself! The cover story is on Dracula. Joy. Like I need more vampires sucking away. The article itself isn't bad. It's about the evolution of the vampire story from undead peasants to the suave and sophisticated charmer through the processes in pop culture, starting with Bram Stoker's Dracula. It's a good solid look at the history of Dracula, but limited by being an article in a magazine. I get the feeling that this information could easily fill out a book or two.

Moving back to the start of the book, we get a chilling tale out of Peru about gangs that killed people to gather human fat. I really hope that one isn't true. More Strangedays include objects falling from the sky and medical mysteries. The Science article looks at the real history behind The Men Who Stare At Goats, and in particular the way people truly die because of curses. The Archaeology section shows off a bone flute found in Germany that is the world's oldest musical instrument.

The UFO files has an A-Z of UFO Theories, part one, that gets up to M in this issue. I like the theories... most of them. I always figure most of the mysterious that we see out in the world has a mix of causes and that trying to constantly pigeonhole things into a single meaning is one reason we don't understand the world around us.

There are a few more articles that are good but too much to mention at the moment. The reviews again got me to put books on my lists. The letters pages include a picture of the Weeki Wachee Springs Mermaids, which I'm very familiar with thanks to a commenter on my Aquaman page. There is a disgusting letter from a climate-change denier who clearly needs someone to fact-check him before he sends letters. Ah well, it's still a good magazine, even if I had trouble reading through one single letter to the editor. Overall, great stuff.

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Past Sunday Reviews -- Comics at Amazon.com -- Previews -- My Wishlist

A Sunday Review

The Olympics have taken over my TV, and although I have at least one show I tend to review sitting on the DVR, I haven't watched it yet because I've been watching Curling, Hockey, Ski Jumping, Alpine Skiing, Biathalon, Speed Skating, and other events.

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Here are reviews of the DCBS comic book shipment that arrived this week, of books originally released February 3rd and 10th:

• Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #3 - Wow. Wowow. I'm not entirely certain what Mera and Diana were talking about, but I have a little notion based on the "I never wanted children" comment in a previous Blackest Night book. I have this feeling that I'm not going to enjoy some of what happens in Brightest Day.
• Justice Society of America Annual #2 - My order of reading got jumbled, and I read JSA All-Stars before this one. Good thing! This follows directly on from the end of All-Stars despite coming out the week before. I'd be REALLY annoyed if I had read them in the order they came out. As for the book itself, I'm seeing shades of Kingdom Come.
• Demo V2 #1 - Hrm. Not the most thrilling start to a new series of Demo, but as usual a very intriguing story. You are left to wonder, "what next?" and that is the strength and weakness of the book. I'm scared of the next issue based on the preview.
• Doctor Who #8 - Not sure about the artwork in this one. The story seems to be shaping up nicely, but the art is distracting.
• Sarah Winchester #1 - I bought this book on the strength of my love of the Sarah Winchester story, and as it turns out, I adored this alternate history horror version and really really hope we get more issues. Good stuff. If you like horror, this might be something you want to check out.


• JSA All-Stars #3 - As I've already mentioned, this one leads up to the annual as Magog and Power Girl work out their differences. Still enjoying the back-up story as well.
• Super Friends #24 - Lots and lots of villains in this one! Yay!
• DMZ #50 - A series of vignettes about the DMZ, some going into full stories but some more day-in-the-life than anything else.
• Legendary Talespinners #1 - We got this book on the strength of the flying monkeys on the cover. And it's starting out fairly interesting. I'm hoping for some Oz content in the second issue, but if not at least it's a slightly compelling story.

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My library book this week was Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. The story at the core of this book is essential for people to understand. Education, particularly the education of girls, is the key to stopping many conflicts around the world. Specifically, if the United States had invested in fighting the Taliban by building schools and communities to counter the Saudi Madrassas prior to 9/11, we may have been able to prevent everything that happened in the lead up to the terrorist attacks. But only a handful of people understood the situation, and even fewer acted on it. Greg Mortenson is one who acted. In this overwrought retelling of Mortenson's life, we learn how and why he originally went to Pakistan, and the many many mistakes he made as he slowly learned that helping people to live a better life is the highest calling of any human being. Many readers will have trouble with the way Relin has decided to tell Mortenson's story, practically as a work of fiction, but the style does have some advantages. As we approach 2001 the reader feels the tension, knowing what is going to happen and seeing (probably for the first time) the building of Bid Laden's strength. You also see just how many Muslims despise the Taliban and what they stand for, but cannot fight the waves of ignorance alone. Like the dude in the bookstore, my first thought after finishing this book was a strong desire to go to Pakistan and pick up a hammer to help build a school myself. It may be more useful to just let people know about this book, about the Central Asia Institute and the effort to educate people away from extremism. Now if we could only fight the same level of ignorance in the United States... but we have to fight against apathy as well as poverty.

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Fortean Times #256, January 2010. So I got this before the December issue, but waited until I'd gotten and read the previous issue before I jumped into this one. Since then I've gotten #257, and have been slow about getting started on reading it. #258 will no doubt arrive before I finish the reviews of these two I've got in my possession!

Cover story is about Dennis Wheatley, a pulp paperback writer in the 1970s, and doesn't really do much for me. Oh, the whole occult thing is vaguely amusing for how much money he managed to get riding the wave and giving audiences what they expected, but the occult doesn't interest me except as boring people trying to spice up their lives by being what they perceive as "bad". Bleah. Give me science any day.

Strangedays starts out with coverage of balloon boy... *sigh*. There's a section on brains, and how some people manage to live without much of one, literally. Then there are a few pieces on hexed souvenirs. There's an article about holy relics of a French nun visiting the UK. The Archaeology section is about the Anglo-Saxon treasure discovered recently (cool!). Classical Corner is about witches, and Ghostwatch is about ghosts who steal things. There's also a report about a mythic Hindi bridge and the Ig Novel Prizes. The UFO files has more on chinese lanterns, including deaths of livestock from eating the wires and the fear of fire during a dry spell. There were also reported power outages when some lanterns hit an electricity station in Vietnam. So, they may be pretty but they are also dangerous and lead to UFO sightings.

The Blasts From The Past article is about a poltergeist mystery from 1922. There's a report on the UK Skeptics' 2009 Conference in Muncaster. There's a good long article about the 50th anniversary of The Twilight Zone that made me want to see some of those episodes again. The Dictionary section is about Psychic Photography, and I'm not particularly impressed with the tales of Ted Serios and his works.

The Forum has articles on Shark attacks (very timely) and the Dorak Affair. I'd heard bits and pieces about the Dorak Affair, but never the whole story, so the article was of great interest to me. Hoax or real, it's a strange mystery. The reviews are great, and a couple of them made me put the books on my "to find" list. The letter column this month was also pretty good, including a truly spooky "It happened to me..." about a girl who has memories of dying in a fire. All-in-all, another fun issue of one of the best magazines out there.

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Past Sunday Reviews -- Comics at Amazon.com -- Previews -- My Wishlist

A Sunday Review

TV this week:

• Heroes: "Brave New World" - I really hate triplicate guy, and it's even worse when he's more than three. But hey, more Hiro, and most of the loose ends are tied up fairly nicely. Not a bad way for the show to end. *If* this is the end, which I kind of hope it is.
• Ghost Hunters International: "San Lucas Prison" - Costa Rica! That's an island that I wouldn't want to spend the night on, haunted or not. The animal life alone would scare me enough to keep me away. Ghosts are nothing compared to bats and snakes and spiders. And I think the wildlife really got to them on that trip. There wasn't a lot that I found convincing.

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Here are reviews of the DCBS comic book shipment that arrived last week, of books originally released Jan 20th and 27th:

• Green Lantern Corps #44 - Still not much of a fan of the Corps, but I like Mogo's appearance in this one.
• Power Girl #8 - *giggle* Oh, this one was good. This book is good. Nice mix of the humor and the serious.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold #13 - Bwah-ha-ha-ha! I'm not sure why the heroes felt they actually had to dress up as Batman, but it made for a fun story. I really liked Aqua-Batman.
• Tiny Titans #24 - Needs more Aqualad. But I really love seeing the Aqua-ohs continuing appearances. I love 'em. I want Aqua-ohs! I may have to make myself of box of Aqua-Ohs somehow.


• Green Lantern #50 - Mera's statement that she never wanted children almost fits continuity. Her pregnancy was very dangerous and I think she knew it would be. So children may have never been in her plans. As for the rest... eh. This crossover will end soon.
• Blackest Night JSA #2 - They got me, too. Yikes.
• Justice Society of America #35 - I really enjoyed Wildcat's box. Just give him a foe he can't punch his way through. Heh.
• Justice League: Cry for Justice #6 - Is this over yet?
• Justice League of America #41 - Ah, this was clearly meant to come out AFTER Blackest Night and Cry for Justice were over. Either that, or someone is teasing us. I'm not very happy that I read this before everything finished. Other than that, the story is the familiar tale of forming the Justice League... yet again. *sigh*
• Astro City: The Dark Age - Book Four #1 - Hammered home that the boys are no longer good guys (were they ever, really, though?). Looking forward to seeing how this ends.
• Northlanders #24 - The baddest guys always seem to survive, don't they?
• Marvelous Land of Oz #3 - Best. Cover. Ever. Love this one. Nicely true to Baum's original, and I bet a lot of folks don't have any idea about this incident in Oz history.

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My library book this week was The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett. Despite my husband's retort that there is no such thing as a people who can love books too much, the title of this book is correct. It's the story of a thief who casually steals rare books, never once thinking that he's in the moral wrong. Bartlett delves into the motives of the man, and paints a very striking portrait of him. It's not a pleasant one. I'm with the booksellers who want him in jail, and really felt for them while reading the book. It's like someone who is a huge braggart trying to take center stage, but the folks around him are by far more interesting characters because the braggart is just, in the end, another self-absorbed liar. All-in-all, the book was a fascinating look into the world of rare books, with an obvious emphasis on the darker side. Certainly worth reading if you are a bibliophile, although the actions of the main character (and the author) will no doubt pain you.

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Fortean Times #255, December 2009. While the November issue came "on time", the December issue never came. In fact, I got issue 256 first, and realized I'd missed an issue. I contacted the distributor again and they actually got back to me quickly and sent out a replacement copy AND a new copy of 256, which was so badly damaged that I had to tear some pages to open it. So I'm less annoyed at them now. I confirmed that they have no control over the way the books are sent anymore, they supply the addresses to a clearing-house that then sends the magazines out. So appealing to them to bring back envelopes isn't going to work. Grrr. At least I eventually got my magazines in readable shape.

The cover is about Masonic London, and has an image that evokes the Da Vinci Code and Dan Brown thrillers. The cover story explores the idea of London as a city designed by Masons after the Great Fire... or what it would have been if they had their way. An ok article, nothing special. I suppose it'll resonate more with me if I ever get a chance to visit London.

Strangedays has the usual mix of fun, fantastic, weird, and silly. I liked the image pages, and the story of a cat that takes a bus daily. They also have the unexpected squirrel picture that went the rounds on the internet not long ago. They also have a number of man-sized creature reportings from all around the world, with a couple of vaguely interesting pictures. The Science column has a follow-up on Colony Collapse Disorder. The Archaeology column had a report of an intact witch bottle found and X-rayed. The Classical Corner is about Pompeii, and mentions Doctor Who only in passing. Ghostwatch is about physical interaction with ghosts. The UFO Files has more on the dangerous Chinese Lanterns, which are responsible for a lot of UFO sightings and are dangerous to livestock and dry fields. I've even started seeing local news reports about Chinese Lanterns, but that's for another write-up, I think.

In the Blasts From The Past column, we get a medical description of a man-fish. The poor guy suffered from ichthyosis and it sounds like it was a miserable state to be in. There is another article linking Masonic imagery to Western literature. Then we get an article on Manly P Hall. The Forum section has a two-page article on orang bati which was a cool look at how people see the mysterious. There is also an examination of how Western civilization used and perceived the Chinese Book of Changes. And then into the Reviews section, which was as strong as it usually is. Nothing jumped out as "must read", but I enjoyed the reviews. And the letters were greatly enjoyable as usual, too. So overall, a pretty good issue.

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Past Sunday Reviews -- Comics at Amazon.com -- Previews -- My Wishlist