[Books] November 2021 Reads

Despite the great progress I made in October and me still being ahead of pace to hit my end-of-year reading goal, I rather fell behind on my reading this November. I didn't quite read the equivalent of one book a day and I can only attribute my delays to things at work and other sources of stress. And in the middle of a pandemic, it's not like we're ever in short supply for things to worry about.

But hey, reading is ultimately an activity meant to help us relax or even escape our troubles for a while. As "competitive" as I can get when it comes to my reading goals, I also don't want to force myself to read just for the sake of " numbers". I love reading for the sake of reading and I know I'll end my reading year pretty well despite all this.

[Books] October 2021 Reads

 I was worried that I wouldn't keep up my one-book-a-day reading pace last month, so I was pleasantly surprised by my actual tally. It never feels like I read "enough", but in the end, I guess I generally do?

If anything, I did manage to pivot mid-way through the month to read more "thematically" given the month. And how I got to that point was pretty surprising, even to me.

[Movies] How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2017) Review

The writings of Neil Gaiman are much beloved by fans around the world and in recent years it feels like more and more television and movie executives are greenlighting projects based on those works. But beyond his full-length novels, even his short stories can be used to inspire feature-length movies.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties is one such adaptation with a somewhat unexpected creative team behind it. The movie aimed to add on other themes on top of the original story to create an entertainment piece that is a distinct, evolved version of that first story.

I recognize that the structure of this movie is not an easy one to understand right off the bat and the narrative style is quirky, sometimes a bit too quiet and also understated. But I still enjoyed it despite those quirks and found some resonance in the story it wanted to tell. It was both a celebration of Neil Gaiman's original story and something else entirely - perhaps something just a little alien in nature.

[Books] Stardust (BBC Radio 4) Audible Review

Stardust is a Neil Gaiman creation that has existed in so many forms that I have lost track of all of them. We know there's the orginal book but there's also at least one graphic novel adaptation and of course there's also the live-action movie.

But given the continued longevity of BBC Radio when it comes to bringing various works of fiction to life, we now have yet another version of the Stardust story to enjoy. This is more than just an audiobook - in fact it's a full-cast dramatisation of the work with a very diverse set of voice talents helping to bring the story to life.

This was originally released on BBC Radio 4 but was later distributed as an audiobook, which is how I came around to listening to it, finally.

[TV] American Gods: Season 1 Review

Wow, I added this to my review queue as soon as we had finished the last episode, but I'm not entirely sure I'm ready for this review. There's just so much to unpack here, but I'll soldier on and do my best to write about this singular television experience.

Today we're going to talk about the first season of the American Gods TV adaptation. I super loved the book as it's the title that got me into Neil Gaiman and it has influenced most of my on-again, off-again attempts at short story writing over the years.

So yeah this is a big deal.

Long story short, I'm loving the TV show far. And this isn't just me liking the show on its own merits and trying to forget that I had ever read the book. No this is me as a huge fan of the book loving the series because I never thought adapting it would have been possible and here it is going way beyond all my expectations.

You don't get that sense of fan satisfaction every day. So I may gush a little.

[Books] Norse Mythology Review

Like most people, my first encounter with Norse Mythology was through the Marvel comic Thor. While the comic was never meant to be an accurate depiction of the original Norse myths, they certainly have all the primary characters involved and the usual villains as well but in the end these were different stories.

My first effort to better understand  this sphere of mythology was through Bulfinch's Mythology, as I'm sure was the case for many other people. I later tried tackling Northern Mythology, but the text was pretty lengthy and quite academic so I never quite worked through it entirely. It has made for a great reference book over the years.

So I wasn't quite sure how to receive the news of Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology, but more of those mixed feels were certainly positive ones. On the one hand, what else was there to do with these classic stories that other authors had not already tackled, right? But on the flip side, this is still Neil Gaiman we're talking about and he is certainly one of the best storytellers we have around these days. If anyone could breath new life into the stories, it would be him.

[TV] Lucifer: Season 1

Tom Ellis was rather charming on Miranda as the rather adorkable love interest Gary. There was something about him being all awkward and unsure that made his character so endearing.

So it was a little weird to hear that he had signed on for Lucifer to portray the titular fallen angel. And this wasn't just any random depiction of Lucifer - it was based on the Neil Gaiman character that had initially appeared in his Sandman comics. And so it was a particular version of the character that initially looked a lot like David Bowie at Gaiman's request.

So yeah, it felt like a bit of a jump to go from Gary to Lucifer. But beyond that it also wasn't too clear what direction the show would take since it was obvious that they weren't going to depict his initial story arc in Sandman nor were they going to just adapt the standalone Lucifer comics either.

So instead we got a weird police procedural that wasn't terrible but wasn't all that great either.

[Comic] The Sandman: Overture

It was thanks to Tobie that I finally read Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series and it was quite a significantly wonderful experience. Each volume was a brilliant new exploration of a fascinating world that was dark yet colorful and everything else in-between. I don't know what it had taken me so long to get around to reading the series in the first place.

25 years after the initial release of the comic, Neil Gaiman decides to create a prequel series that explains why Dream had been in a weakened state at the beginning of Preludes & Nocturnes. And I actually decided to wait until The Sandman: Overture before reading it since I wanted to go through the whole experience all at once. It took some discipline, but the release of the hardcover deluxe edition over the holidays made it all worth it.

And the end result - words fail me. It's already January and I'm still reeling from how much I enjoyed reading this book. It was like opening the first issue of The Sandman all over again And to achieve that sort of a feeling or even that experience takes a truly brilliant creative team to execute well.

[Books] The Sleeper and the Spindle

In geek circles, I think it's safe to assume that the vast majority of readers recognize and respect Neil Gaiman as a master storyteller. The man is absolutely brilliant and it amazes me how he is able to write stories for different audiences and yet maintain the same level of quality. I'd be happy to be even half a good a writer as Gaiman.

The Sleeper and the Spindle is a rather different take on some familiar fairy tales. More than just some basic "reimagining" of things, it's also a serious attempt to get out of the old gender stereotypes of fairy tales - in particular the whole "damsel in distress" deal.

The fact that this is meant more for children in terms of tone, design and the presence of illustrations says a lot about the impact of this story. I can imagine some folks objecting to the way things were handled here given how our sleeping beauty is awakened by a kiss from another princess, but I strongly feel things were handled in a rather tasteful manner. But I'm putting that fact out there this early in the review since a lot of media folks have jumped all over this aspect of the book.

[Books] Fortunately, the Milk

Neil Gaiman is certainly an author that many of us have fallen in love with. His writing is fantastic and he has a way of developing fiction whose appeal cuts across age groups and backgrounds. And while his more adult fiction remains inappropriate for children at times, his children's fiction works perfectly well for everyone.

This latest book is definitely aimed at younger audiences given it even includes illustrations within the book. I think the last illustrated book that I bought (apart from graphic novels) was The Invention of Hugo Cabret. But the illustrations in this case really complement the story. Plus they're done by Skottie Young, an artist that I have come to enjoy a lot given his work on the Marvel Oz comics.

So here's another great adventure for all you Gaiman fans and for all those who just enjoy the kind of tall tales that our fathers used to tell us. And the precise details of the book make it even more brilliant.

[Books] The Ocean at the End of the Lane

It's interesting how there's a near-frenzy on social media when Neil Gaiman releases a new book. Each of his published works seem fairly distinct from one another in terms of plot, but still resonate with prior works in terms of tone and style.

Many times I find myself committing to purchasing his latest title just because he wrote it, without knowing anything about the book. For many other authors, I find myself doing research on their backgrounds or want to have a decent grip on the plot before making the purchasing decision.

It was like that when I saw The Ocean at the end of the Lane. I didn't even bother to consider if I should just go the Kindle route for this book or invest in the paperback. I bought the hard copy at full price without hesitation.

And to be fair, I am rarely disappointed with Neil Gaiman, which is probably why I and many other fans gobble up his books like candy. Each is a unique enough experience on its own and almost guaranteed to be brilliant in one way or another. Sure, not all will be your "favorite" Gaiman book, but all will be pretty much an experience that you'll enjoy.

[Books] Stories: All-New Tales

Short stories are a special kind of magic unto themselves. I've written a number of them over the years and a times it feels that they're harder to write than full-length novels. After all, short stories are about editing - the need to keep things tight and yet still satisfying for the reader. You don't want to ramble on too long nor do you want keep things overly brief and thus unsubstantial.

So on a personal level, I have a lot of respect for short story writers. It's a skill that I continually try to work on as a writer and one that this book has reminded me to return to as well.

Neil Gaiman is an excellent writer and who understands short stories, in my opinion. He has published many anthologies of his stories and they've all been nicely delightful experiences. And he doesn't limit himself to one genre - it seems the range of his stories remains as boundless as human experience itself. And while he didn't pen this collection himself, he did have a hand in selecting and editing the stories and I did want to see what the resulting stories would be like.

[Books] The Sandman: Book of Dreams

The Sandman series of comic books remains to be a landmark achievement in storytelling and is definitely one of those titles that "everyone" is expected to have read at one point in their lives. And it's not because the comics were so universal, but more because they're just that good and you're doing yourself a major disservice if you wander through life without having read at least one of the issues or have gone through one of its story arcs.

Thanks to my partner, I finally managed to scratch this item off my bucket list a few years ago, but it took some more time before I finally got around to reading this collection of short stories based around the Sandman comics. I can't exactly explain why - anyone with a large collection of books can probably relate the random nature of how one title gets ignored while others move quickly through the pipeline, as it were.

The book has proven to be quite the delightful experience - a lovely return to the tales of the Endless and somewhat related adventures. And yet the stories don't wade too deep into the established continuity, making the book highly accessible to non-fans of the comics and others.

[Books] M is for Magic

I already have a fairly decent collection of Neil Gaiman's works - definitely some of the gems of my collection that I'm pretty proud of. At the same time, there's always the risk of modest duplication here and there with a man who writes so prolifically and is quite popular across different reader segments.

Now this particular collection was one that I was a tad hesitant to purchase initially. My main concern was the fact that most of the stories had appeared previously in other anthologies. The goal of this book, after all, was to repackage a collection of his stories for younger audiences, although it's clear that Mr. Gaiman is one of those writers who respects children and their ability to understand more complex concepts. I totally agree with this and thus I've never seen the point in writers needing to overly talk down to younger readers.

But I eventually found the title on sale and I figured it was still nice to have. After all, there were still a story or two that I had not read before and it had been quite a while since I had read some of the others. Putting them all together in one book like this creates a particular reading experience, at least in my opinion. While the stories remain independent of one another, it doesn't mean that you can't develop a parallel narrative flow of sorts when you read them all in succession.

[Comics] Books of Magic

The DC Comics universe has always been rich with magical characters and entities. Magic has always been their answer to extraterrestrials or superpowers in general as best exemplified by Superman's vulnerability to magic in general. I've always appreciated this nuance to the DC universe since it adds a nice flavor to things that somehow bridges older fairy tales with the modern world.

The Vertigo line of comic books under DC have further explored the worlds of magic and fantasy with their own unique stories. The more adult comic book world of Vertigo has always been a natural draw for tales of the occult, of demons and other things of dark magic. So it made all the more sense when DC would try to integrate some of its "mainstream" characters from the primary DC books into the somewhat alternate world of Vertigo.

This was definitely one of the more interesting convergences and I'm glad I finally got to read this collection.

[Books] Odd and the Frost Giants

There's something innately beautiful about classical mythology, especially for geeks. I mean seriously, as much as I'll forever be obsessed with robots and high technology, the stories of the gods and their exploits in the world of men will always be something that I'll hold dear.

While like most people, I'm best acquainted with the Greek myths, I've always had a curiosity about Norse mythology beyond the highly limited view we get through the likes of comic books and cartoons. However Norse mythology was shaped by a pretty harsh culture and the stories are rarely friendly to those of younger age and thus we don't always get introduced to them early on.

One can imagine that it must take a pretty skilled writer to shape the Norse myths into something fit for teens, even children, and of course one such writer stepped up to the plate.

[Philippines] Typhoon Ondoy Relief Efforts

The Philippines is no stranger to storms and typhoons - we're pretty much directly in the path of many of them and dealing with such weather phenomenons has shaped our culture and way of living. It's probably helped drive our strong sense of fatalism when it comes to such things along with the rise of the Catholic Church in this country.

That doesn't mean that the storms don't hit us hard or that we're immune to them. Each typhoon is unique in its effects whether it lasts for days on end or perhaps it brings fierce winds. This weekend the country was hit by what is locally known as Typhoon Ondoy and it brought the equivalent of a month's worth of rain within the span of 24 hours. Thus there was massive flooding all over the city and other parts of the country that has cost people their homes, their belongings and even their lives.

Google has set up a great page for information about the typhoon, where you can help out and where you can send relief goods and money. You can view that page here: Help for Typhoon Ondoy Victims in the Philippines.

If you're in the country, please make the effort to help out some how. There are many relief centers based in major schools, government offices or other such locations as mentioned in the aforementioned link. You can send your donations there or you can try checking with your local school or your office and ask about how you can help.

If you're not the country, help coordinate relief efforts or send donations using the links mentioned in the link above. Even celebrities like Neil Gaiman are asking for aid and support via Twitter and other such sites, which has been quite heartwarming in these troubled times.

I'm thankful for the strength of the human spirit and how amazing it is in terms of how the country has pulled together to help out. At the same time, my thoughts go out to all those in need and more so to those who lost their lives in this tragedy.

[Comics] Death: The Time of Your Life

When you manage to create a fictional universe as rich and unique as that of Neil Gaiman's Sandman and The Endless, then naturally the draw to revisit this realm over and over again is inevitable. Whether for creative reasons or commercial ones, the lure is too hard to ignore for long.

The Sandman comic books have resulted in numerous spin-offs of varying quality and complexity but it'll never be quite the same, I think. That's a natural reaction since these are independent additions to the original universe that weren't necessarily as deliberately planned as the other issues were but remains an addition with some value to the series.

Beyond the popularity of Dream himself, it seems that one of the more frequently revisited characters of the Sandman universe remains to be Death. Let's face it - goth girls are cool, hahaha.

But I jest.

Death: The Time of Your Life is centered around some of the characters we originally met in The Sandman: A Game of You, namely Foxglove / Donna Cavanagh and Hazel McNamara. The limited 3-issue series is a bit tricky to understand initially, but it comes along in time.

By now, Foxglove has become a bit of a rising star in the music world and is constantly on tour in order to promote her album. In the name of her career, she's kept her being a lesbian a secret for now but constantly discusses when she can come out with her manager. Back at home, Hazel is focused on trying to raise her son Alvie, who is the product of a prior heterosexual affair (her first and last). The story comes to a head when Alvie accidentally dies and Hazel is faced with Death herself. She manages to work out a deal as a sort of temporary reprieve for Alvie, and this decision inevitably draws Foxglove home to help resolve things.

The story isn't as mind-boggling or expansive as most other stories of The Endless. It has a bit of a slow start, which isn't bad in itself were it not for the loss of time to resolve things well enough in the end. You can't help shake that feeling that this was meant to be a slightly longer series, perhaps just 4 issues long but because it was cut down to 3 issues, the story suffered. The slow burn start doesn't become as satisfying since the ending tends to just rush up and grab you.

The art was nice, that much I'll have to say. Kudos to Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham for their work on this title. I feel they did a whole lot better than the final arc of The Sandman stories where the art came out too cartoon-ish. It certainly helped carry the story along and kept the tone not so heavy despite the seriousness of some of the discussions.

There's a good story at the core of this title but it didn't come out very well, and I can't quite place my finger on it why. There's just so much going for the book and then it starts dropping things and just ends abruptly. It didn't feel all that satisfying and even felt like it attempted to have a sort of a moral at the end or something. Maybe it's just me.

It's a decent read but not necessarily an all-important one that requires a die hard fan to go out of his way to catch. If you love The Endless and never read this title, I'm pretty sure you'll still survive.

Death: The Time of Your Life gets 3 unusual male underwear ads out of 5.

[Comics] The Sandman Vol. 10 - The Wake

All good things must come to an end, they say, and that happens often enough in the comic book world. Sometimes series end abruptly and it leaves the fans reeling, trying to figure out just what happened. Other times the ending is deliberate and planned and things end well enough but it still leaves us wishing things didn't have to end that way.

The seven year run of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman certainly changed the face of comic books for many and helped define the kind of stories Vertigo as a line would try to tell in the years to come. It also showcased for the world just what Gaiman was capable of and further endeared him to a much larger fan base.

The writing in The Sandman was radically different from most of the comics that came before it and even the way things ended was unique to the series. How often do you get to spend 6 issues on just discussing the end of a series?

The Sandman: The Wake is the tenth and final collection of The Sandman series of comics. It collects the last 6 issues of the series, #70-75.

With the death of Dream in The Kindly Ones (along with the "birth" of Daniel as the new aspect of Dream), the time has come for him to be mourned properly. Given he is one of the Endless, his funeral is different from anything else we mere mortals would enjoy. The Endless gather (save for Destruction) and go through the appropriate arrangements which lead up to all of creation joining the ceremonies in The Dreaming. Thus it unites pretty much all characters that have gotten involved in the series at one point another and a generous amount of cameos from the primary DC universe.

Beyond the funeral, the book also covers a few standalone stories that pretty much follow other parts of the world and how they respond to the death of Dream or at least deal with the prospects of his end.

I found the way Dream's wake was handled to be highly interesting, no matter what angle you look at things. Sure, it's pretty cool that one can summon all of the dreamers of the world into one place to mourn the passing of an Endless but was even more striking was the intricate ceremony The Endless themselves had to go through in terms of their funeral arrangements. Now it truly made sense why the necropolis Litharge was introduced in a prior collection, Worlds' End - naturally they would take part even in these proceedings.

Plus there was the whole strange angle of the fact that while they were mourning the passing of Morpheus, the last Dream, a new Dream had been instantly created upon his death in the form of Daniel. How does one mourn a predecessor who is still essentially you in terms of overall identity? What does it feel like to have your new family mourn the passing of your former self and yet you are also that same person? The possibilities remain limitless and truly Gaiman deserves kudos for a story as complex as this.

Then come the last three stories that try to address the end of the series in the a different way. Naturally the funeral was meant to act as an end to the series in is own right but Gaiman went further than that and explored things suing some of the other characters he introduced in the series - the undying Robert Gadling and even William Shakespeare. In the usual fashion of the series, these are stories that don't feature Dream or the Endless as the fore but instead focus on other characters, and yet the discussion therein and the plot itself still involves the fate of the Endless as well.

Seriously, I can't think of a better way to end this series given the very way it carried on over the years. At the end of things I was naturally left with a longing for more Sandman stories, but at the same time I was beyond content. Going through all 75+ issues was a highly rewarding experience and one that I definitely won't mind repeating if need be.

The Sandman: The Wake gets 4 stray kittens out of a possible 5.

[Comics] The Sandman Vol. 9 - The Kindly Ones

The Sandman stories have always tapped into classic mythology for many of its stories, or at the very least its characters. One can trace things back to the Christian creation myths given the presence of Eve, Cain and Abel and naturally the larger pantheons like the Greek, Norse and Egyptian gods. Being a fan of mythology myself, it certainly made it a lot easier to relate to many of the characters. Tapping into pre-established characters always saves one time in terms of needing to establish character histories.

I guess that will always be one of the main things that make me love Neil Gaiman's writing - his penchant for taking the ordinary or otherwise familiar and tweak things ever so slightly into something else entirely.

The Sandman: The Kindly Ones is the 9th compilation of The Sandman series of comics. It collects issues 57-69 and Vertigo Jam #1. One could say that this story arc is pretty much the climax of the entire series, at least in my opinion. I say this only because this major story arc pretty much draws on many of the diverse characters that Gaiman had introduced into the series over the years.

Here, Hippolyta Hall comes home to find her son Daniel missing and is eventually led to believe that Dream of the Endless is responsible. She eventually joins with the triad of witches or the Furies, depending on which aspect of their identity is presented during the story. The Furies are motivated by their own need to exact revenge on Dream for the crime of spilling the blood of a family member, in this case that of his son Orpheus whom he euthanized at Orpheus' request.

Image via Wikipedia

Now the story itself comes off pretty complex and I found myself digging through previous books in order to refresh my memory in terms of who the characters were. We had the return of the Norse gods, especially Loki and even the reviving of storylines related to characters like the witch Thessaly and Puck / Robin Goodfellow to name a few. Thus it gave it the sense that this was a very well-planned story, and perhaps one might theorize that a lot of the previous stories were groundwork deliberately created in order to accomplish this masterpiece work.

Different analyses of the story compare it to a classic Greek tragedy in terms of structure, and I can certainly see that. It's probably what makes it such a rich and complex story and overall it was executed masterfully.

I have to admit I wasn't comfy with the change in art style. After getting used to the predominant style of the series over the years of its production, this sudden shift so close to the end was rather dramatic and added an extra layer of difficulty in terms of taking in the story. Let's face it - many of the characters tapped from the older books looked a bit different this time around, thus the need to compare with the earlier issues more and more.

Ultimately, this story just has too many possible angles, that it's more than tricky to try and understand things in one go. One will definitely benefit from repeated readings of this story arc and those that link to it in order to better understand the events but more importantly to understand why Dream did what he did. his actions certainly fell within the definitions of the Greek tragic hero, but there's more to it than just that. I'll leave it to you to fully appreciate that nuance on your own.

The Sandman: The Kindly Ones gets 4.5 emeralds out of a possible 5.