After a particularly brutal week, thankfully my only Moving Pictures review of the week proved to be a good one!

Check out the rest of my thoughts on Limitless.

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

Retribution Falls
by Chris Wooding

Promo copy:

Sky piracy is a bit out of Darian Frey’s league. Fate has not been kind to the captain of the airship Ketty Jay—or his motley crew. They are all running from something. Crake is a daemonist in hiding, traveling with an armored golem and burdened by guilt. Jez is the new navigator, desperate to keep her secret from the rest of the crew. Malvery is a disgraced doctor, drinking himself to death. So when an opportunity arises to steal a chest of gems from a vulnerable airship, Frey can’t pass it up. It’s an easy take—and the payoff will finally make him a rich man.

But when the attack goes horribly wrong, Frey suddenly finds himself the most wanted man in Vardia, trailed by bounty hunters, the elite Century Knights, and the dread queen of the skies, Trinica Dracken. Frey realizes that they’ve been set up to take a fall but doesn’t know the endgame. And the ultimate answer for captain and crew may lie in the legendary hidden pirate town of Retribution Falls. That’s if they can get there without getting blown out of the sky.

Seduce Me in Dreams
by Jacquelyn Frank

Promo copy:

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Nightwalkers and Shadowdwellers series, Seduce Me in Dreams begins a sexy new futuristic series featuring an elite group of military heroes.

Dark. Mysterious. Sensual. When Bronse Chapel, the commander of a specialized unit of the Interplanetary Militia, begins to dream about a beautiful and exotic brunette, he wants to dismiss it as being induced by lack of sleep . . . or perhaps lack of sex. But his instincts tell him it’s something different, something far more dangerous.

Ravenna is the leader of the Chosen Ones, a small group of people from her village born with extraordinary powers. She doesn’t know that draws her to Bronse’s dreams night after night, but she senses that he and his team are in jeopardy. Ravenna can help him, but first Bronse must save the Chosen Ones from those who plan to use their powers for evil. Together, Bronse and Ravenna will be unstoppable. But Ravenna is hiding something that could endanger them all.

Night Magic
by Jennifer Lyon

Promo copy:

THEIR LOVE IS DESTINED TO RISE AGAIN

Ailish Donovan is a witch ready to do battle. Raised unaware of her powers, she is just sixteen when her mother tricks her into binding with the demon Asmodeus. Pure-hearted Ailish escapes with the connection incomplete but pays a heavy price: For the next eight years, she is shunned by her earth sisters and tormented by Asmodeus’s lust. After hardening her body and mind as a champion kickboxer, Ailish returns home to break the bond—or die.

The Wing Slayer Hunter Phoenix Torq is sworn to protect earth witches, but he is shaken by Ailish’s fierce independence—and his own forbidden cravings. Dark, impulsive, and haunted by his troubled past, Phoenix likewise arouses Ailish in ways she finds disturbing—and irresistible. Torn between mistrust and desire, each must go to hell and back to seek the magic that could set them both free.

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

The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man
by Mark Hodder

Promo copy:

It is 1862, though not the 1862 it should be…

Time has been altered, and Sir Richard Francis Burton, the king’s agent, is one of the few people who know that the world is now careening along a very different course from that which Destiny intended.

When a clockwork-powered man of brass is found abandoned in Trafalgar Square, Burton and his assistant, the wayward poet Algernon Swinburne, find themselves on the trail of the stolen Garnier Collection—black diamonds rumored to be fragments of the Lemurian Eye of Naga, a meteorite that fell to Earth in prehistoric times.

His investigation leads to involvement with the media sensation of the age: the Tichborne Claimant, a man who insists that he’s the long lost heir to the cursed Tichborne estate. Monstrous, bloated, and monosyllabic, he’s not the aristocratic Sir Roger Tichborne known to everyone, yet the working classes come out in force to support him. They are soon rioting through the streets of London, as mysterious steam wraiths incite all-out class warfare.

From a haunted mansion to the Bedlam madhouse, from South America to Australia, from seances to a secret labyrinth, Burton struggles with shadowy opponents and his own inner demons, meeting along the way the philosopher Herbert Spencer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Florence Nightingale, and Charles Doyle (father of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).

Can the king’s agent expose a plot that threatens to rip the British Empire apart, leading to an international conflict the like of which the world has never seen? And what part does the clockwork man have to play?

Burton and Swinburne’s second adventure—The Clockwork Man Of Trafalgar Square—is filled with eccentric steam-driven technology, grotesque characters, and a deepening mystery that pushes forward the three-volume story arc begun in The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack.

Haven (Trial of Blood & Steel, Book 4)
by Joel Shepherd

Promo copy:

The Army of the Regent Arosh advances on the forces loyal to Saalshen, homeland of the serrin people, as the serrin’s friends are in full retreat. Their only hope is to reach the city of Jahnd – the serrin word for Haven – across the River Ipshaal, the only human city in Saalshen itself. The Army of Lenayin marches with the Regent, but Sasha, sister of the newly crowned King Koenyg, can no longer stomach the awful cause for which her people march. As tensions between herself and her brothers rise, Sasha’s sister Sofy, wedded to the Regent, travels to the city of Tracato, to attempt to negotiate a peaceful transition of its wonderful heritage of her husband’s rule. But there are forces beneath the Regent’s banner that wish to see all serrin and serrin-influenced civilisation destroyed for good. As the serrin people fight for survival, families must be betrayed, enemies reconciled, nations persuaded and great armies fought, as A Trial of Blood and Steel reaches its dramatic conclusion.

The Society of Steam Book One: The Falling Machine
by Andrew P. Mayer

Promo copy:

In 1880 women aren’t allowed to vote, much less dress up in a costume and fight crime…

But twenty-year-old socialite Sarah Stanton still dreams of becoming a hero. Her opportunity arrives in tragedy when the leader of the Society of Paragons, New York’s greatest team of gentlemen adventurers, is murdered right before her eyes. To uncover the truth behind the assassination, Sarah joins forces with the amazing mechanical man known as The Automaton. Together they unmask a conspiracy at the heart of the Paragons that reveals the world of heroes and high-society is built on a crumbling foundation of greed and lies. When Sarah comes face to face with the megalomaniacal villain behind the murder, she must discover if she has the courage to sacrifice her life of privilege and save her clockwork friend.

The Falling Machine (The Society of Steam, Book One) takes place in a Victorian New York powered by the discovery of Fortified Steam, a substance that allows ordinary men to wield extraordinary abilities and grants powers that can corrupt gentlemen of great moral strength. The secret behind this amazing substance is something that wicked brutes will gladly kill for and one that Sarah must try and protect, no matter what the cost.

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

Enigmatic Pilot: A Tall Tale Too True
by Kris Sanussemm
Cover by Charles Brock

Promo copy:

Enigmatic Pilot is Kris Saknussemm’s outrageously brilliant yet profoundly moving exploration and excavation of the American dream—and nightmare.

In 1844, in a still-young America, the first intimations of civil war are stirring throughout the land. In Zanesville, Ohio, the Sitturd family—Hephaestus, a clubfooted inventor; his wife, Rapture, a Creole from the Sea Islands; and their prodigiously gifted six-year-old son, Lloyd, whose libido is as precocious as his intellect—are forced to flee the only home they have ever known for an uncertain future in Texas, whence Hephaestus’s half-brother, Micah, has sent them a mysterious invitation, promising riches and wonders too amazing to be entrusted to paper.

Thus begins one of the most incredible American journeys since Huck Finn and Jim first pushed their raft into the Mississippi. Along the way, Lloyd will learn the intricacies of poker and murder, solve the problem of manned flight, find—and lose—true love, and become swept up in an ancient struggle between two secret societies whose arcane dispute has shaped the world’s past and threatens to reshape its future. Each side wants to use Lloyd against the other, but Lloyd has his own ideas—and access to an occult technology as powerful as his imagination.

I lavished praise upon Saknussemm’s first novel Zanesville, so I’m looking forward to the second volume in his Lodemania Testament.

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived
by Paul S. Kemp

Promo copy:

The second novel set in the Old Republic era and based on the massively multiplayer online game Star Wars®: The Old Republic™ ramps up the action and brings readers face-to-face for the first time with a Sith warrior to rival the most sinister of the Order’s Dark Lords—Darth Malgus, the mysterious, masked Sith of the wildly popular “Deceived” and “Hope” game trailers.

Malgus brought down the Jedi Temple on Coruscant in a brutal assault that shocked the galaxy. But if war crowned him the darkest of Sith heroes, peace would transform him into something far more heinous—something Malgus would never want to be, but cannot stop, any more than he can stop the rogue Jedi fast approaching.

Her name is Aryn Leneer—and the lone Knight that Malgus cut down in the fierce battle for the Jedi Temple was her Master. And now she’s going to find out what happened to him, even if it means breaking every rule in the book.

The River of Shadows
by Robert V. S. Redick

Promo copy:

In the gripping sequel to Robert V. S. Redick’s acclaimed epic fantasy novels The Red Wolf Conspiracy and The Ruling Sea, the crew of the vast, ancient ship Chathrand have reached the shores of the legendary southern empire of Bali Adro. Many have died in the crossing, and the alliance of rebels, led by the tarboy Pazel Pathkendle and the warrior Thasha Isiq, has faced death, betrayal, and darkest magic. But nothing has prepared them for the radically altered face of humanity in the South.

They have little time to recover from the shock, however. For with landfall, the battle between the rebels and centuries-old sorcerer Arunis enters its final phase. At stake is control of the Nilstone, a cursed relic that promises unlimited power to whoever unlocks the secrets of its use—but death to those who fail. And no one is closer to mastering the Stone than Arunis.

Desperate to stop him, Pazel and Thasha must join forces with their enemies, including the depraved Captain Rose and the imperial assassin Sandor Ott. But when a suspicious young crewmember turns his attentions to Thasha, it is the young lovers themselves who are divided—most conveniently for Arunis. As the mage’s triumph draws near, the allies face a terrible choice: to break their oaths and run for safety, or to hunt the world’s most dangerous sorcerer through the strange and deadly dream kingdom known as the River of Shadows, and to face him a last time among the traps and horrors of his lair.

Brimming with high adventure, dark enchantment, and unforgettable characters, The River of Shadows deftly secures Redick’s place in the ranks of epic fantasy’s most original and enthralling storytellers.

Part II

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

Kings of the North
by Elizabeth Moon

Promo copy:

Elizabeth Moon returns to the fantasy world of the paladin Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter—Paks for short—in this second volume of a new series filled with all the bold imaginative flights, meticulous world-building, realistic military action, and deft characterization that readers have come to expect from this award-winning author. In Kings of the North, Moon is working at the very height of her storytelling powers.

Peace and order have been restored to the kingdoms of Tsaia and Lyonya, thanks to the crowning of two kings: Mikeli of Tsaia and, in Lyonya, Kieri Phelan, a mercenary captain whose royal blood and half-elven heritage are resented by elves and humans alike.

On the surface, all is hope and promise. But underneath, trouble is brewing. Mikeli cannot sit safely on his throne as long as remnants of the evil Verrakaien magelords are at large. Kieri is being hounded to marry and provide the kingdom with an heir—but that is the least of his concerns. A strange rift has developed between him and his grandmother and co-ruler, the immortal elven queen known as the Lady. More problematic is the ex-pirate Alured, who schemes to seize Kieri’s throne for himself—and Mikeli’s, too, while he’s at it. Meanwhile, to the north, the aggressive kingdom of Pargun seems poised to invade.

Now, as war threatens to erupt from without and within, the two kings are dangerously divided. Old alliances and the bonds of friendship are about to be tested as never before. And a shocking discovery will change everything.

Hidden Cities
by Daniel Fox

Promo copy:

The mythic beasts and glorious legends of feudal China illuminate a world at war in this, the conclusion to Daniel Fox’s critically acclaimed series.

Whatever they thought, this was always where they were going: to the belly of the dragon, or the belly of the sea.

More by chance than good judgment, the young emperor has won his first battle. The rebels have retreated from the coastal city of Santung—but they’ll be back. Distracted by his pregnant concubine, the emperor sends a distrusted aide, Ping Wen, to govern Santung in his place. There, the treacherous general will discover the healer Tien, who is obsessed with a library of sacred mage texts and the secrets concealed within—secrets upon which, Ping Wen quickly realizes, the fate of the whole war may turn.

As all sides of this seething conflict prepare for more butchery, a miner of magical jade, himself invulnerable, desperately tries to save his beautiful and yet brutally scarred clan cousin; a priestess loses her children, who are taken as pawns in a contest beyond her comprehension; and a fierce and powerful woman commits an act of violence that will entwine her, body and soul, with the spirit of jade itself. Amid a horde of soldiers, torturers, and runaways, these people will test both their human and mystical powers against a violent world. But one force trumps all: the huge, hungry, wrathful dragon.

Kraken
by China Miéville

Promo copy:

With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this—or any other—year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about—or prevent—the End of All Things.

In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.

As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens—human and otherwise—are adept in magic and murder.

There is the Congregation of God Kraken, a sect of squid worshippers whose roots go back to the dawn of humanity—and beyond. There is the criminal mastermind known as the Tattoo, a merciless maniac inked onto the flesh of a hapless victim. There is the FSRC—the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit—a branch of London’s finest that fights sorcery

with sorcery. There is Wati, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a ragtag union of magical familiars. There are the Londonmancers, who read the future in the city’s entrails. There is Grisamentum, London’s greatest wizard, whose shadow lingers long after his death. And then there is Goss and Subby, an ageless old man and a cretinous boy who, together, constitute a terrifying—yet darkly charismatic—demonic duo.

All of them—and others—are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.

Part I

I recently had the misfortune of reviewing Battle: Los Angeles and Red Riding Hood, both for Moving Pictures.

Remember, I suffer so you don’t have to.

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

Morning Glories Volume 1: For A Better Future
Written by Nick Spencer
Art by Joe Eisma
Covers by Rodin Esquejo

Promo copy:

Morning Glory Academy is one of the most prestigious prep schools in the country… but something sinister and deadly lurks behind its walls. When six gifted, but troubled, students arrive, they find themselves trapped and fighting for their lives as the secrets of the academy reveal themselves! Collects Morning Glories #1-6.

I reviewed this for the March 1 Nexus Graphica.

Freeway
by Mark Kalesniko

Promo copy:

A down-on-his luck animator looks back in anger.

In his first new graphic novel since 2001’s acclaimed Mail Order Bride, Mark Kalesniko delivers a 416-page tour de force chronicling a single day—a few hours, even—in the life of his recurring dog-headed alter ego, Alex Kalienka.

Stuck in a horrendous traffic jam on his way to his increasingly miserable job as an animator at Babbitt Jones Studios, a burnt-out and depressed Alex alternately rages, reminisces, fantasizes and hallucinates. Thus flashbacks to his earliest days as a starry-eyed young animator snagging his dream job, through the increasingly depressing political battles and creative compromises, with a love affair gone badly wrong along the way, alternate with scenes of an increasingly agitated present-day Alex, who imagines a series of increasingly violent deaths for himself.

Then again, are they in fact fantasies, or prescient flashes? Is a threatening car tailing Alex just a paranoid fantasy or a genuine threat? Readers will have to wait until the very end of this hugely ambitious graphic novel to find out.

Moreover, woven into this narrative fabric is a series of imagined moments from two generations ago, a Golden Age of animation, when an earlier Alex made his entry into a much different Babbitt Jones Studio—as imagined by the increasingly despondent present-day Alex.

Loaded with fascinating insider information on two different generations of animators, skipping seamlessly among present and several different pasts, reality and fantasy, Freeway is another step forward for a major cartooning talent.

Abattoir Issue #3
Created by: Darren Lynn Bousman
Concept by: Michael Peterson
Written by: Rob Levin & Troy Peteri
Illustrated by: Bing Cansino, Rodell Noora and Dennis Calero
Cover Art by: Tae Young Choi

Promo copy:

After a local man brutally massacres his family, realtor Richard Ashwalt receives the unenviable task of putting the house back on the market. With his career and marriage on the rocks, this couldn’t come at a worse time for Rich. Before the house is even cleaned, a mysterious man named Jebediah Crone offers to purchase it. Everything about the situation seems wrong and Rich refuses despite his desire to unload the house quickly.

After his boss decides to sell the house to Crone anyway, Richard finds himself a person of interest in a second murder investigation. When the murder weapon with his prints on it is discovered, Richard goes on the run. Tired and haunted by horrifying visions, Richard returns to the house in search of answers. He finds all traces of the massacre gone, including the crawl space where the youngest boy was murdered. Richard tears into the wall and finds a mirror covered in runes, but what he sees in its reflection haunts him to his very core.

Earp: Saints for Sinners Issue 2
Created by: Matt Cirulnick & David Manpearl
Written by: M. Zachary Sherman
Illustrated by: Mack Chater & Martin Montiel
Cover art by: Alex Maleev

Promo copy:

Wyatt Earp, famous lawman, has decided to retire in the wake of losing his brother Virgil in a train robbery. Doc Holliday, Wyatt’s former partner and best friend, convinces him to start his own small casino, the AOK, in the last boomtown in America – Las Vegas. Bringing with them Wyatt’s brother, Morgan, and Doc’s girlfriend, Kate, everything looks to be coming up roses…until Flynn, the biggest billionaire in Vegas, arrives with a private security group, the Pinkertons, headed by one Alan Pinkerton, to back him in "suggesting" that Wyatt should pay them for protection.

Morgan, outraged by this, decides to go on a heist with famed criminal Jesse James, a modern day Robin Hood who steals from the rich to give to the poor after taking his cut, of course. He is captured by the Pinkertons and interrogated, but escapes back to the AOK where Flynn and the Pinkertons pursue him.

In a final battle in which Morgan is killed and the AOK is set ablaze around them, Wyatt rips the shirt from Alan Pinkerton only to recognize the tattoo on his chest…Pinkerton was the mysterious train robber who killed his brother, Virgil.

Dungeon Quest: Book Two
by Joe Daly

Promo copy:

What if Cheech & Chong lived in a RPG?

In 2010’s Dungeon Quest Book One, Millennium Boy decided to grab his hobo stick, his bandana, and his Swiss Army knife, bid his mom goodbye, and head off on a quest for adventure. Joined by his best friend Steve (weapon: baseball bat; clothing: wife beater, cargo pants and sandals), the muscle-bound Lash Penis, and the silent but deadly Nerdgirl, he began a mystical quest to find the missing parts of the Atlantean Resonator Guitar.

In this second book, our heroes continue their quest by wandering through the primeval gloom of Fireburg Forest in search of the prophet and poet Bromedes, who can unlock the mysteries of Atlantis for them. Along the way, they encounter giant spiders, river trolls, and copious amounts of killer weed. Joe Daly’s delightfully unique stoner/philosopher dialogue and distinctive character designs, coupled with hilarious over- the-top Role Playing Game action (complete with periodic updates for each character’s status in ten criteria, including “dexterity,” “intelligence,” and “money”), propel Daly’s story into heretofore unachieved action-comedy heights.

I reviewed Books One & Two for the March 1 Nexus Graphica.

As part of their regular Editors’ Choice feature, the folks over at Moving Pictures asked me to compile my ten best alien movies.

For #10, I chose District 9.

To uncover the remaining nine, check out my piece at Moving Pictures.

Let’s take a quick look to see what I picked up this past weekend’s STAPLE! Expo.

Society of Sinister Simians Limited Edition Book
by Chet Phillips

Promo copy:

"The Society of Sinister Simians" explores the mysterious world of an evil collection of vicious and power hungry primates that held sway over the land centuries ago. Thanks to the efforts of the ill-fated Sourcrust archeological dig of 1887, details of this foul organization have finally come to light. In this book you will learn of The Society’s immortal leader, his powerful and brutal cadre of ministers and advisors, as well as a variety of assassins, spies, soldiers and frightful supernatural figures.

Twenty-four evil simians are fully illustrated and are accompanied by extensive biographies in the text. A map detailing the realm of sinister sway, two-page spreads of weapons and medals galleries, as well as an addendum of sinister ephemera are also included.

Click image to enlarge

Signed and numbered from a limited edition of 50.

This hand bound, softcover book is covered in rich Arista burgundy bonded leather. A silver foil hot-stamped image and title adorn the cover. The structure is a stab binding (sewn with a black thread) with rounded corners and printed floral metallic paper end sheets. It was printed on a digital press on Cougar Opaque 80 lb text. Book Dimensions- 5.25" x 7.25"

When I first saw this gorgeous tome, I had to pick up my eyeballs off the floor. WOW!

Buffalo Speedway Volume 2
by Yehudi Mercado

Promo copy:

Figgs is a lifer. He’s 23 years old, he’s been delivering for Houston’s Turbo Pizza for eight grueling years, he lives with his dead-beat best friend, Super Cheese, and he’s got a supreme crush on his Friday regular, a rich girl named Pia. Life sucks, but it’s about to get suckier. The day is June 17th 1994. Today the Rockets will battle the Knicks in the NBA Finals, America will host the World Cup and OJ Simpson will lead the LAPD on a slow speed chase. These will cause a perfect storm of events, keeping a nation home watching TV, resulting in the BUSIEST PIZZA DAY EVER.

In the One Bad Day tradition of Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, Clerks and Do The Right Thing, we go deep inside the dangerous world of pizza delivery drivers. They’re fast, they’re furious… they’re f***ing your wife.

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At last the second volume of Mercado’s pizza delivery epic! I reviewed Volume 1 in Nexus Graphica.

Time Tunnel: The Complete Series
Art by Tom Gill
Covers by George Wilson
Introduction by Alan J. Porter
Afterward by Daniel Herman

Promo copy:

It’s back, the complete reprint of Gold Key comics Time Tunnel comic book series. This is the second volume of Hermes Press’s complete reprints of all of the Irwin Allen sci-fi television show tie-in comic books. Now, for the first time in over forty years read both issues, back-to-back, together with documentary material, essays, blue prints from the show and more! Full color and digitally remastered, Time Tunnel: The Complete Series brings these comic books back looking better than when they first hit the stands.

Hell’s Alphabet Coloring Book
Written by Jason Murphy
Art by Kristin Hogan

Promo copy:

It’s a tome of hideous evils. It’s a catalog of iniquity and suffering.

And it’s a coloring book!

Let Hell’s Alphabet be your baby’s first step into reading. And demonology.

Click image to enlarge

An Uncle Shelby’s ABZ Book for the demonic set, the witty, offensive, and downright funny Hell’s Alphabet Coloring Book supplied one of the show’s most pleasant surprises.

The 7th annual STAPLE!, the independent media expo, happens this Saturday and Sunday March 5-6 in Austin at the Marchesa Hall and Theater. This is one of my favorite events of the year. Reviewing last years event, I observed "a mish-mash of seemingly unrelated exhibitors, the 2010 STAPLE! abounded with odd delights."

Rather than merely writing a review, I am actually involved with this years convention. On Saturday at 1 PM, I am moderating a panel discussion with Atomic Robo creators Scott Wegener and Brian Clevinger. (For more on Atomic Robo and his creators, check out my recent Nexus Graphica column.)

Additionally, I’ll have a home at the show as I’m helping Alan J. Porter sell his goodies (along with a few of my very own), so I’ll be at his table on and off all weekend long. I’m not sure exactly where it’ll be in the hall, but if you’re there, be sure to stop by and say "howdy."

Hope to see everyone there!