Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Superman: Red Son (Deluxe Edition) Written by Mark Millar Art by Dave Johnson and Killian Plunkett

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Strange visitor from another world who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands… and who, as the champion of the common worker, fights a never-ending battle for Stalin, Socialism and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact.

In this startling twist of a familiar tale, a certain Kryptonian rocketship crash-lands on Earth carrying an infant who will one day become the most powerful being on the planet. But his ship doesn’t land in America. He is not raised in Smallville, Kansas. Instead, he makes his new home on a collective in the Soviet Union!

From the mind of Mark Millar, the best-selling writer of THE AUTHORITY and Wanted, comes this strangely different take on the Superman mythos. Featuring art by Dave Johnson, Kilian Plunkett, Andrew Robinson, and Walden Wong, with an introduction by film producer Tom DeSanto (X-Men, X2: X-Men United, Transformers), this Deluxe Edition also features an extensive sketch gallery by Johnson, Plunkett and Alex Ross.

Like A Dog by Zak Sally

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Zak Sally is best known for his career as a musician in the band Low. He also is an acclaimed cartoonist. Like a Dog collects the very best of Sally’s acclaimed short comics from the past 15 years for publications like Mome, Dirty Stories, The Recidivist and more. Stories like "Don’t Move," "The War Back Home," "Two Idiot Brothers," and "Killing Screws" share little in common on the surface but are united by Sally’s forbidding style. Nonfiction comics include "At the Scaffold," about the trial of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and "The Man Who Killed Wally Wood," a story about Sally’s brush with a former publisher of the legendary comic artist (who, contrary to the title of this strip, took his own life). Like a Dog will also include extensive "liner notes" by the artist, previously unpublished material, and other surprises.

Batman/Doc Savage Special #1 Written by Brian Azzarello Art by Phil Noto

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Doc Savage returns to DC Comics…and comes face-to-fist with the Batman! Superstar scribe Brian Azzarello (100 BULLETS, JOKER) and the breathtaking art of Phil Noto combine to shine the first light on a shadowy new version of the DC Universe, where the thugs run rampant, corruption runs deep, and even heroes can’t be trusted! Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze, hates what he’s heard about the connections between a grisly murder and Gotham City’s violent new vigilante. But the Batman can’t abide do-gooders getting in his way…and his .45 just won’t stay in its holster!

Be here for this vital prologue to an upcoming 6-issue miniseries by Azzarello and Rags Morales (IDENTITY CRISIS), which will pull back the curtain to reveal the full width and breadth of DC’s new pulp-influenced universe. This special issue also features sketchbook material by Rags Morales that will show you just what you’re in for! You might think you’re ready – but you’re very, very wrong…

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

The Best of Joe R. Lansdale

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By turns absurd, hilarious, and terrifying, this outrageous collection features the best writings of the high priest of Texan weirdness. Horny steam-shovels, odd-ball detectives, malicious rocks, spectral prehistoric fish, and vampire hunters permeate these vividly detailed stories. Featuring cult-classic award-winning tales such as “The Night They Missed the Horror Show,” “Mad Dog Summer,” and “Dog,” along with non-fiction forays into drive-in theaters and low budget films, this dynamic retrospective represents the broad spectrum of Lansdale’s career. “Bubba Hotep”—the tale of Elvis, John F. Kennedy, and a soul-sucking mummy, which was made into an award-winning film—is included along with the acclaimed novella, “On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks,” and never before collected works. Original, compelling, and downright odd, this unforgettable compilation is essential reading for fans of horror, mystery, and southern gothic.

The Gathering Storm (Wheel of Time Book Twelve) by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

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Tarmon Gai’don, the Last Battle, looms. And mankind is not ready.

The final volume of the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light, was partially written by Robert Jordan before his untimely passing in 2007. Brandon Sanderson, New York Times bestselling author of the Mistborn books, was chosen by Jordan’s editor—his wife, Harriet McDougal—to complete the final book. The scope and size of the volume was such that it could not be contained in a single book, and so Tor proudly presents The Gathering Storm as the first of three novels that will make up A Memory of Light. This short sequence will complete the struggle against the Shadow, bringing to a close a journey begun almost twenty years ago and marking the conclusion of the Wheel of Time, the preeminent fantasy epic of our era.

In this epic novel, Robert Jordan’s international bestselling series begins its dramatic conclusion. Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, struggles to unite a fractured network of kingdoms and alliances in preparation for the Last Battle. As he attempts to halt the Seanchan encroachment northward—wishing he could form at least a temporary truce with the invaders—his allies watch in terror the shadow that seems to be growing within the heart of the Dragon Reborn himself.

Egwene al’Vere, the Amyrlin Seat of the rebel Aes Sedai, is a captive of the White Tower and subject to the whims of their tyrannical leader. As days tick toward the Seanchan attack she knows is imminent, Egwene works to hold together the disparate factions of Aes Sedai while providing leadership in the face of increasing uncertainty and despair. Her fight will prove the mettle of the Aes Sedai, and her conflict will decide the future of the White Tower—and possibly the world itself.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

Real Unreal: Best American Fantasy Volume 3 Edited by Kevin Brockmeier

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A city in a bottle. Kings. Genies. Jane Austen and Frankenstein. Grandmothers at sea… The acclaimed Best American Fantasy series continues with 20 stories chosen by best-selling writer Kevin Brockmeier. With stories by established writers, such as Peter S. Beagle, Laura Kasischke, Jeffrey Ford, and Lisa Goldstein, alongside tales by brilliant newcomers like Kellie Wells, Thomas Glave, Ryan Boudinot, and Rebecca Makkai, Real Unreal delivers a richly diverse experience of contemporary fiction.

I really enjoyed the previous volumes. This is one of the finest "best of" series around.

I reviewed Pirate Radio for Moving Pictures.

Read the rest of my review at Moving Pictures.

Previously in KandyLand:

After assuming command of the Mike & Ike enforcers, The Jawbreakers, LemonHead confronts the cause of all his sorrow, Snickers.

Story by Rick Klaw Art by Newt Manwich

Click on image to enlarge

I’m not really sure why I chose Snickers to be the bad guy. While not my favorite candy, I certainly don’t hate them.

Last Week’s Strip

Next Week’s Strip

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Things We Didn’t See Coming by Steven Amsterdam

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A dazzling debut collection: nine connected stories set in a not-too-distant dystopian future in a landscape at once utterly fantastic and strangely familiar.

Richly imagined, dark, and darkly comic, these stories follow the narrator over three decades as he tries to survive in a world that is becoming more savage as cataclysmic events unfold one after another. In the first story–set on the eve of the millennium, when the world as we know it is still recognizable–we meet the then nine-year-old narrator fleeing the city with his parents, just ahead of a Y2K breakdown of the grid, signaling the world’s transformation and decline. The remaining stories capture the strange– sometimes horrific, sometimes unexpectedly funny–circumstances he encounters in the no-longerso- simple act of survival: trying to protect squatters against floods in a place where the rains never stop; harassed (and possibly infected) by a man sick with plague; functioning as a salaried embezzler of “the state”; escorting the gravely ill on adventure trips. Yet, in each story, we see that despite the violence and brutality of his days, the narrator retains a hold on his essential humanity.

Things We Didn’t See Coming is haunting, restrained, beautifully crafted–a stunning debut.

Three Days to Dead by Kelly Meding

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They’ll never see her coming…

When Evangeline Stone wakes up naked and bruised on a cold slab at the morgue—in a stranger’s body, with no memory of who she is and how she got there—her troubles are only just beginning. Before that night she and the two other members of her Triad were the city’s star bounty hunters, mercilessly cleansing the city of the murderous creatures living in the shadows, from vampires to shape-shifters to trolls. Then something terrible happened that not only cost all three of them their lives but also convinced the city’s other Hunters that Evy was a traitor—and she can’t even remember what it was.

Now she’s a fugitive, piecing together her memory, trying to deal some serious justice—and discovering that she has only three days to solve her own murder before the reincarnation spell wears off. Because in three days Evy will die again—but this time there’s no second chance…

Geosynchron (Book Three of the Jump 225 Trilogy) by David Louis Edelman

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The conclusion to the "Landmark Series"! The Defense and Wellness Council is enmeshed in full-scale civil war between Len Borda and the mysterious Magan Kai Lee. Quell has escaped from prison and is stirring up rebellion in the Islands with the aid of a brash young leader named Josiah. Jara and the apprentices of the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp still find themselves fighting off legal attacks from their competitors and from Margaret Surina’s unscrupulous heirs – even though MultiReal has completely vanished. The quest for the truth will lead to the edges of civilisation, from the tumultuous society of the Pacific Islands to the lawless orbital colony of 49th Heaven; and through the deeps of time, from the hidden agenda of the Surina family to the real truth behind the Autonomous Revolt that devastated humanity hundreds of years ago. Meanwhile, Natch has awakened in a windowless prison with nothing but a haze of memory to clue him in as to how he got there. He’s still receiving strange hallucinatory messages from Margaret Surina and the nature of reality is buckling all around him. When the smoke clears, Natch must make the ultimate decision – whether to save a world that has scorned and discarded him, or to save the only person he has ever loved: himself.

More in Part II

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

The Silver Skull (Swords of Albion) by The Silver Skull

Promo copy:

A DEVILISH PLOT TO ASSASSINATE THE QUEEN, A COLD WAR ENEMY HELL-BENT ON DESTROYING THE NATION, INCREDIBLE GADGETS, A RACE AGAINST TIME AROUND THE WORLD TO STOP THE ULTIMATE DOOMSDAY DEVICE…AND ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND’S GREATEST SPY!

Meet Will Swyfte — adventurer, swordsman, rake, swashbuckler, wit, scholar and the greatest of Walsingham’s new band of spies. His exploits against the forces of Philip of Spain have made him a national hero, lauded from Carlisle to Kent. Yet his associates can barely disguise their incredulity — what is the point of a spy whose face and name is known across Europe?

But Swyfte’s public image is a carefully-crafted facade to give the people of England something to believe in, and to allow them to sleep peacefully at night. It deflects attention from his real work — and the true reason why Walsingham’s spy network was established.

A Cold War seethes, and England remains under a state of threat. The forces of Faerie have been preying on humanity for millennia. Responsible for our myths and legends, of gods and fairies, dragons, griffins, devils, imps and every other supernatural menace that has haunted our dreams, this power in the darkness has seen humans as playthings to be tormented, hunted or eradicated.

But now England is fighting back!

Magical defences have been put in place by the Queen’s sorcerer Dr John Dee, who is also a senior member of Walsingham’s secret service and provides many of the bizarre gadgets utilised by the spies. Finally there is a balance of power. But the Cold War is threatening to turn hot at any moment…

Will now plays a constant game of deceit and death, holding back the Enemy’s repeated incursions, dealing in a shadowy world of plots and counter-plots, deceptions, secrets, murder, where no one… and no thing…is quite what it seems.

Red Inferno: 1945 by Robert Conroy

Swallowing Darkness by Laurell K. Hamilton

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I am Meredith, princess of faerie, and at long last, I am with child–twins, fathered by my royal guard. Now I must stay alive to see my children born, as conspirators from every court plot against me and mine. They seek to strip my guards, my lovers, from me by poisoned word or cold steel. But I still have supporters, and even friends, among the goblins and the sluagh who will stand by me. Those who would defy and destroy me are destined to pay a terrible price. To protect what is mine, I will sacrifice anything–even if it means waging a battle against my darkest enemies and making the most momentous decision ever made as princess of faerie.

More in Part I

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Total Oblivion by Alan DeNiro

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“I remember the first time I began to understand that things might not be the same again.”

What’s a girl to do when her world is invaded by warriors from the ancient world? That’s the problem faced by sixteen-year-old Macy, who sees her quiet, normal life in suburban Minnesota turned upside down when things that should never be possible begin to transform the landscape all around her. The cable stops working, the phone lines die–and then the horsemen come to town. It’s not the same America that she last went to sleep in.

Ticketed to a refugee camp by the marauding Scythian armies, Macy and her family come to believe that heading down the Mississippi by boat is their one escape from the encroaching madness. But as they make their way downriver, Macy’s world just keeps getting stranger, and the wooden submarines, wasp-borne plagues, and talking dogs are the least of her problems: For in this upside-down world, old identities warp and family bonds are sorely tested.

Acclaimed writer Alan DeNiro has fashioned a completely original, utterly beguiling melding of the surreal and the everyday.

The Conqueror’s Shadow by Ari Marmell

The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett

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Galen Beckett weaves a dazzling spell of adventure and suspense in an evocative world of high magick and genteel society–a world where one young woman discovers that her modest life is far more extraordinary than she ever imagined.

Of the three Lockwell sisters–romantic Lily, prophetic Rose, and studious, book-loving Ivy–it’s Ivy, the eldest, who’s held the family together after their father’s silent retreat to the library upstairs. Everyone blames Mr. Lockwell’s malady on his magickal studies, but Ivy still believes–both in magick and in its power to bring her father back.

Yet it is not until Ivy takes a job with the reclusive Mr. Quent that she discovers the fate she shares with a secret society of highwaymen, revolutionaries, illusionists, and spies who populate the island nation of Altania. It’s a fate that will determine whether Altania faces a new dawn–or an everlasting night.

After I review a particularly crappy movie, sometimes I’ll head over to Rotten Tomatoes and see what others thought. In the case of the dreadful Fourth Kind, I uncovered some particularly enjoyable, derogatory turns of phrase.

"I’d love to be at a screening of "The Fourth Kind" in Nome, where it’s sure to be greeted as a comedy." —Laura Clifford, Reeling Reviews

"As Truth, it’s bullshit, and as Bullshit, it isn’t remotely entertaining." —Rob Vaux, Mania.com

"…going to great lengths to make us believe the events depicted in this movie are real, but it’s about as a real as the date I had with Jennifer Aniston in my dreams the other night." —Willie Waffle, WaffleMovies.com

"If aliens from another world ever do come to Earth and get a look at "The Fourth Kind," they may decide that any species capable of creating anything this dumb is probably too stupid to probe and conquer in the first place." —Peter Sobczynski, eFilmCritic.com

"In short, The Fourth Kind pisses on your leg, tells you it’s raining, and then tries to sell you a raincoat made of dog hair and corn chips." —Brian Juergens, CampBlood.org

"Alien abductees are back and they are still idiots." —Victoria Alexander, FilmsInReview.com

Clearly I was far too kind in my own review when I called it "a forgettable film of the type that will play on Sy Fy for years to come." As was RevSF’s Derek Johnson when he declared, "What the hell?"

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

The Devil’s Alphabet by Daryl Gregory

Promo copy:

From Daryl Gregory, whose Pandemonium was one of the most exciting debut novels in memory, comes an astonishing work of soaring imaginative power that breaks new ground in contemporary fantasy.

Switchcreek was a normal town in eastern Tennessee until a mysterious disease killed a third of its residents and mutated most of the rest into monstrous oddities. Then, as quickly and inexplicably as it had struck, the disease–dubbed Transcription Divergence Syndrome (TDS)–vanished, leaving behind a population divided into three new branches of humanity: giant gray-skinned argos, hairless seal-like betas, and grotesquely obese charlies.

Paxton Abel Martin was fourteen when TDS struck, killing his mother, transforming his preacher father into a charlie, and changing one of his best friends, Jo Lynn, into a beta. But Pax was one of the few who didn’t change. He remained as normal as ever. At least on the outside.

Having fled shortly after the pandemic, Pax now returns to Switchcreek fifteen years later, following the suicide of Jo Lynn. What he finds is a town seething with secrets, among which murder may well be numbered. But there are even darker–and far weirder–mysteries hiding below the surface that will threaten not only Pax’s future but the future of the whole human race.

I’ve been eagerly anticipating this novel ever since I finished Gregory’s extraordinary first book Pandemonium.

Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth by Karen Miller

The Elder Scrolls: The Infernal City by Greg Keyes

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Four decades after the Oblivion Crisis, Tamriel is threatened anew by an ancient and all-consuming evil. It is Umbriel, a floating city that casts a terrifying shadow–for wherever it falls, people die and rise again.

And it is in Umbriel’s shadow that a great adventure begins, and a group of unlikely heroes meet. A legendary prince with a secret. A spy on the trail of a vast conspiracy. A mage obsessed with his desire for revenge. And Annaig, a young girl in whose hands the fate of Tamriel may rest . . . .

Based on the award-winning The Elder Scrolls, The Infernal City is the first of two exhilarating novels following events that continue the story from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, named 2006 Game of the Year.

More in Part II

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Oath of Fealty by Elizabeth Moon

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In the original trilogy starring Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter, headstrong daughter of a farmer on the north edge of the kingdom, Paks follows her dream of becoming a hero out of legend by running away to join the army. Military life and warfare aren’t anything like she imagined… yet she holds to both her duty and her dreams. Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold tell of her rise to become the paladin who saves a kingdom. In this new trilogy, Paks’s former comrades in Duke Phelan’s Company assume new roles and the story turns to follow their adventures.

Thanks to Paks’s courage and sacrifice, the long-vanished heir to the half-elven kingdom of Lyonya has been revealed as Kieri Phelan, a formidable mercenary captain who earned a title–and enemies–in the neighboring kingdom of Tsaia. Now, as Kieri ascends a throne he never sought, he must come to terms with his own half-elven heritage while protecting his new kingdom from his old enemies–and those he has not yet discovered.

Meanwhile, in Tsaia, Prince Mikeli prepares for his own coronation. But when an assassination attempt nearly succeeds, Mikeli suddenly faces the threat of a coup. Acting swiftly, Mikeli strikes at the powerful family behind the attack: the Verrakaien, magelords possessing ancient sorcery, steeped in death and evil. Mikeli’s survival–and that of Tsaia–depend on the only Verrakai whose magery is not tainted with innocent blood.

Two kings stand at a pivotal point in the history of their world. For dark forces are gathering against them, knit in a secret conspiracy more sinister–and far more ancient–than they can imagine.

Jade Man’s Skin by Daniel Fox

Helfort’s War Book 3: The Battle of Devastation Reef by Graham Sharp Paul

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If he survives, hell just may freeze over.

The savage Hammer Worlds are not only near invincible but almost certain to win their war to crush the Federated Worlds and control humanspace–unless the Feds can find and destroy their secret antimatter warhead facility.

Only dreadnoughts, the lone Federated ships able to withstand antimatter missile attacks, can do the job, and only Lieutenant Michael Helfort has the skill to lead them. But skill may not be enough, because Helfort is more than the newly appointed captain: He’s a hero, and this means that his own senior officers want him to fail–and that the enemy’s kingpin wants him dead.

Helfort’s early victories merely intensify everyone’s determination. No action is too low, no price too high, to bring him down–with treachery, or betrayal, or an offer he can’t refuse, even if it means selling out his own side.

More in Part I