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

Time Bomb Issue 1 Written by Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray Art by Paul Gulacy

Promo copy:

A group of international scientists and archeologists on a publicly funded dig discover a hidden city beneath the streets of Berlin. Constructed as a failsafe option for the Nazi party should they lose the war, the city is also home to Hitler’s ultimate doomsday weapon – an Omega bomb designed to wipe out the human race – and it’s just been activated. Now, crews of scientists with state-of-the-art weapons and equipment must travel back in time to 24 hours before the disaster to stop the bomb from going off. However, they soon discover that, rather than going back in time for 24 hours as intended, they’ve been sent back 65 years to the height of Hitler’s Germany.

Looks like fun. Nice to see that Gulacy still has it.

Hotwire: Deep Cut Issue 1 Created by Steve Pugh & Warren Ellis Written and illustrated by Steve Pugh

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Alice Hotwire is Back!

Detective Exorcist Alice Hotwire is back! After the events of Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead, the city’s only supernatural investigator is taking some much needed R&R. But when a Blue Light from her colored past appears in front of her door, it sparks a series of events that lead Hotwire and Mobey across the city attempting to stop the results of a secret government project from turning the city into another living nightmare. With backup from Coroner Love and Metro Police, can Hotwire and Mobey save the day one more time? Join groundbreaking creator/writer/illustrator Steve Pugh for a glimpse into Alice Hotwire’s past and peer through a gateway into her future.

Ryder on the Storm – Radical Premiere Written by David Hine Art by Wayne Nichols

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Ryder on the Storm follows Ryder, a private eye hired by the beautiful femme fatale Katrina Petruska to investigate the horrifically bizarre suicide of her lover, Michael Hudson. Ryder’s journey to solve the case and finish Hudson’s work leads him to discover a truth more sinister and terrifying than he could ever have imagined – daemons walk among us. Now, he must team up with the last daemon hunter, Charles Monk, to take down the cabal of ancient evil controlling the city while struggling to reconcile the dark side of his own nature.

The Rising – Radical Premiere Written by E. Max Frye Art by J. P. Targete

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Creator/Writer E. Max Frye (HBO’s Band of Brothers) and artist J.P. Targete (illustrator for Pixar’s John Carter of Mars film adaptation) present a very special $1.00 introduction to launch the upcoming miniseries.

After years of war, economic chaos, and mankind, itself, teetering on the verge of thermonuclear extinction, an alien force invades the planet. When a deadly virus is released, this militaristic empire massacres the world’s defense forces and most of the human population. The survivors are forced into slavery, helpless as they watch this new enemy plunder the remaining natural resources of Earth. Jarrett Jakes, chosen to fight and die as a gladiator, escapes from Zone R.X. 84 (formerly New York City) to lead a ragged band of guerrilla warriors in hopes of inspiring a downtrodden world to rise up against their alien oppressors.

Shrapnel: Hubris Issue 2 Created by Mark Long & Nick Sagan Written by Nick Sagan & Clinnette Minnis Art by Concept Art House

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Consumed with advancing their War of Unity on multiple fronts, the Solar Alliance may be vulnerable to an audacious, high-risk assault on one of their most valued possessions. So rests the hopes of oppressed Helots across the System as a plot against the oldest extraplanetary colony moves forward. Once loyal marines now turned freedom fighters, Captain Narayan, Colonel Rossi and their troops have a golden chance to slow down the enemy war machine…but at what cost?

After Dark Issue 1 Created by by Antoine Fuqua & Wesley Snipes Written by Peter Milligan Art by Jeff Nentrup with Sara Biddle

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Guided by an amoral drifter, a crew of jaded mercenaries must travel into the dark places of the ruined planet, and the even darker places of their own pasts, on a journey to find a woman who might just save the world. But maybe the world is past saving. And maybe the people who still inhabit that world aren’t worth saving. After Dark is a story of hidden demons and the passion for survival, set in a future that could very well be ours.

Ran across another piece of writing in my files that was never published. If memory serves, this review of Cooperstown Confidential was supposed to run as a sidebar or something in the July 4th 2009 edition of the San Antonio Current. For whatever reason, it didn’t, so I’m presenting it here for the first time.

Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes, Rogues, and the Inside Story of the Baseball Hall of Fame by Zev Chafets

In his first baseball-related book, Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes, Rogues, and the Inside Story of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Zev Chafets reveals the American institution’s inner workings and complex history through a 21st century lens of favoritism, racism, and institutionalized privilege. A lifelong Detroit Tigers fan, Chafets skillfully tracks seven decades of hypocrisy in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

From the very beginning, it required no professional criteria beyond a ten-year career for admission. Founder Stephen Clark and then current baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was installed by the owners after the 1919 Black Sox scandal, unofficially insisted that inductees be “men of integrity, virtue, and character.” Even with such criteria, the first class of inducted players included two racist cheaters (Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker), a notorious womanizer (Babe Ruth), a legendary drunkard (Grover Cleveland Alexander), and a key figure in baseball’s strict segregation rules (Cap Anson). The character ruling became official in 1944, though that never stopped the inclusion of later players of questionable morality such as Gaylord Perry, Al Simmons, Jimmie Foxx, Dizzy Dean and Leo Durocher. Considering this band of cheats, drunks, bigots, and hedonists, Chafets successfully argues for Hall inclusion of steroid-era stud hitters Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire and the banned-for-life, all-time hits leader Pete Rose.

Through fascinating stories and interviews with players and baseball experts, Chafets masterfully exposes a system fraught with favoritism and political wrangling, and supported by institutionalized bias. Insightful sequences highlight the Hall’s often shoddy treatment of African-American, Hispanic, and other minority ball players.

Even while revealing baseball’s flawed soul, Zev Chafets manages to maintain a nostalgic, almost spiritual sense of reverence. A worthy addition to any baseball library, Cooperstown Confidential ultimately exposes the unacknowledged, ugly truths of American society that the Hall as much as the game it celebrates reflects.

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

How to Make Friends with Demons by Graham Joyce

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William Heaney is a man well acquainted with demons. Not his broken family – his wife has left him for a celebrity chef, his snobbish teenaged son despises him, and his daughter’s new boyfriend resembles Nosferatu – nor his drinking problem, nor his unfulfilling government job, but real demons. For demons are real, and William has identified one thousand five hundred and sixty-seven smoky figures, dwelling on the shadowy fringes of human life, influencing our decisions with their sweet and poisoned voices. After a series of seemingly unconnected personal encounters – with a beautiful and captivating woman met in the company of an infuriating poet, a troubled and damaged veteran of Desert Storm with demons of his own, and an old school acquaintance with whom he shared a mystical occult ritual – William Heaney’s life is thrown into a direction he does not fully comprehend. Past and present collide. Long-dormant choices and forgotten deceptions surface. Secrets threaten to become exposed. To weather the changes, William Heaney must learn one thing: how to make friends with demons.

On the first page of the book, there is a quote from my San Antonio Current review:

Yarn by Jon Armstrong

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From the neo-feudalistic slubs and cornfields of his youth to his apprenticeship among the saleswarriors of Seattlehama – the sex-and-shopping capital of the world – to the rarefied heights of power that Tain now treads, Yarn takes its readers on a roller coaster ride through his life. Vada, the stylish revolutionary and love of Tane’s life, draws him back into a world he had thought was long behind him. The swirling threads of violence and passion threaten to destroy him and the world he has made for himself. Author Jon Armstrong returns to the high fashion dystopia first glimpsed in Grey, weaving a stylish and scintillating tale of a dark past colliding with Tane’s supposedly safe and secure present.

Sympathy for the Devil Edited by Tim Pratt

Promo copy:

The Devil is known by many names: Serpent, Tempter, Beast, Adversary, Wanderer, Dragon, Rebel. His traps and machinations are the stuff of legends. His faces are legion. No matter what face the devil wears, Sympathy for the Devil has them all. Edited by Tim Pratt, Sympathy for the Devil collects the best Satanic short stories by Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, Stephen King, Kage Baker, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, Kelly Link, China Mieville, Michael Chabon, and many others, revealing His Grand Infernal Majesty, in all his forms. Thirty-five stories, from classics to the cutting edge, exploring the many sides of Satan, Lucifer, the Lord of the Flies, the Father of Lies, the Prince of the Powers of the Air and Darkness, the First of the Fallen… and a Man of Wealth and Taste. Sit down and spend a little time with the Devil.

Great collection of stories that includes my all time favorite "deal with the devil" tale: Robert Bloch’s "That Hell-Bound Train."

For the fine folks over at Moving Pictures, I reviewed Middle Men.

I recently reviewed Rob Reiner’s new film Flipped for Moving Pictures.

Rattling around in the only, old attic I have, I root through the thousands of documents on my hard drive. Most of the stuff I recognize immediately, but occasionally among the half-formed scribblings, I run across files like this: top_ten_favorite_science_fiction_short_stories.doc

For the life of me, I can’t recall who I was producing this piece for. Opening the .doc offered only a few clues.

My best guess is that I produced this piece as a sidebar for a non-genre publication (all the selections except may be the Ballard were "safe" and controversy-free; would have pushed the envelope more for a genre market). A quick Google search brought up nothing.

Regardless of the piece’s genesis or eventual origin, I figured y’all might get a kick out of my favorite short stories. Nothing terribly controversial nor unexpected there. I’m sure if asked again, I’d pick different stories. All depends on what I’ve got in arms reach when putting together the list and how I’m feeling that day.

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

The Painted Darkness by Brian James Freeman

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When Henry was a child, something terrible happened in the woods behind his home, something so shocking he could only express his grief by drawing pictures of what he had witnessed. Eventually Henry’s mind blocked out the bad memories, but he continued to draw, often at night by the light of the moon.

Twenty years later, Henry makes his living by painting his disturbing works of art. He loves his wife and his son and life couldn’t be better… except there’s something not quite right about the old stone farmhouse his family now calls home. There’s something strange living in the cramped cellar, in the maze of pipes that feed the ancient steam boiler.

A winter storm is brewing and soon Henry will learn the true nature of the monster waiting for him down in the darkness. He will battle this demon and, in the process, he may discover what really happened when he was a child and why, in times of trouble, he thinks: I paint against the darkness.

But will Henry learn the truth in time to avoid the terrible fate awaiting him… or will the thing in the cellar get him and his family first?

Written as both a meditation on the art of creation and as an examination of the secret fears we all share, The Painted Darkness is a terrifying look at the true cost we pay when we run from our grief–and what happens when we’re finally forced to confront the monsters we know all too well.

After.Life

The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire, Book 1) by Clay Griffith & Susan Griffith

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In the year 1870, a horrible plague of vampires swept over the northern regions of the world. Millions of humans were killed outright. Millions more died of disease and famine due to the havoc that followed. Within two years, once great cities were shrouded by the grey empire of the vampire clans. Human refugees fled south to the tropics because vampires could not tolerate the constant heat there. They brought technology and a feverish drive to reestablish their shattered societies of steam and iron amid the mosques of Alexandria, the torrid quietude of Panama, or the green temples of Malaya.
It is now 2020 and a bloody reckoning is coming.

Princess Adele is heir to the Empire of Equatoria, a remnant of the old tropical British Empire. She is quick with her wit as well as with a sword or gun. She is eager for an adventure before she settles into a life of duty and political marriage to man she does not know. But her quest turns black when she becomes the target of a merciless vampire clan. Her only protector is The Greyfriar, a mysterious hero who fights the vampires from deep within their territory. Their dangerous relationship plays out against an approaching war to the death between humankind and the vampire clans.

The Greyfriar: Vampire Empire is the first book in a trilogy of high adventure and alternate history. Combining rousing pulp action with steampunk style, The Greyfriar brings epic political themes to life within a story of heartbreaking romance, sacrifice, and heroism.

The House on Durrow Street by Galen Beckett

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“A charming and mannered fantasy confection with a darker core of gothic romance” is how New York Times bestselling author Robin Hobb described Galen Beckett’s marvelous series opener, The Magicians and Mrs. Quent. Now Beckett returns to this world of dazzling magick and refined manners, where one extraordinary woman’s choice will put the fate of a nation—and all she cherishes—into precarious balance.

Her courage saved the country of Altania and earned the love of a hero of the realm. Now sensible Ivy Quent wants only to turn her father’s sprawling, mysterious house into a proper home. But soon she is swept into fashionable society’s highest circles of power—a world that is vital to her family’s future but replete with perilous temptations.

Yet far greater danger lies beyond the city’s glittering ballrooms—and Ivy must race to unlock the secrets that lie within the old house on Durrow Street before outlaw magicians and an ancient ravening force plunge Altania into darkness forever.

Two different Stargate series, Zardoz, a Doctor Who special, Family Guy, Voltron, and zombies among the geek stuff that will begin streaming via Netflix in August.

Premiering August 1:

American Ninja 4: The Annihilation
Big
Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke
Dude, Where’s My Car?
The Land Before Time V
The Man with Two Brains
Oh God! You Devil!
Paycheck
Quills
Stargate Atlantis Season 1
Stargate Universe Season 1 Vol. 1
10
Time Travel Through the Bible
Twisted
Zardoz

Premiering August 2:

Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars

Premiering August 6:

After Hours
Dragonfly
The Land Before Time
The Men Who Stare at Goats
Never Talk to Strangers

Premiering August 13:

The Adventures of Pinocchio

Premiering August 15:

American Dad! Seasons 1-5
Family Guy Vol. 1-5, 7-8
The Kingdom Series 1-2
Taintlight
The Yes Men Fix the World

Premiering August 17:

Red Riding Trilogy: Parts 1-3

Premiering August 20:

The Stendhal Syndrome
Voltron: Vol. 8: Color Me Invisible
Voltron: Vol. 8: Defender of the Universe
Voltron: Vol. 8: The Drules Surrender!
Voltron: Vol. 8: The Drule’s World Crack…
Voltron: Vol. 8: The End of Hazar’s World
Voltron: Vol. 8: It Could Be a Long War
Voltron: Vol. 8: The Red Moon People
Voltron: Vol. 8: Red Moon Rises Again
Voltron: Vol. 8: That’s the Old Ball Game
Voltron: Vol. 8: This World’s for the…
Voltron: Vol. 8: Time Running Out
Voltron: Vol. 8: Zero Hour Approaches

Premiering August 25:

The Zombie Apocalypse

Premiering August 28:

Zero Effect

Info courtesy of FeedFliks.

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

The Wolf Age by James Enge

Promo copy:

"Spear-age, sword-age:
shields are shattered.
Wind-age, wolf-age:
before the world founders
no man will show mercy to another."

Wuruyaaria: city of werewolves, whose raiders range over the dying northlands, capturing human beings for slaves or meat. Wuruyaaria: where a lone immortal maker wages a secret war against the Strange Gods of the Coranians. Wuruyaaria: a democracy where some are more equal than others, and a faction of outcast werewolves is determined to change the balance of power in a long, bloody election year.

Their plans are laid; the challenges known; the risks accepted. But all schemes will shatter in the clash between two threats few had foreseen and none had fully understood: a monster from the north on a mission to poison the world, and a stranger from the south named Morlock Ambrosius.

Operation: Endgame

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A battle ensues among groups of government spy teams in an underground facility after their boss is assassinated.

After America by John Birmingham

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March 14, 2003, was the day the world changed forever. A wave of energy slammed into North America and devastated the continent. The U.S. military, poised to invade Baghdad, was left without a commander in chief. Global order spiraled into chaos. Now, three years later, a skeleton U.S. government headquartered in Seattle directs the reconstruction of an entire nation—and the battle for New York City has begun.

Pirates and foreign militias are swarming the East Coast, taking everything they can. The president comes to the Declared Security Zone of New York and barely survives the visit. The enemy—whoever they are—controls Manhattan’s concrete canyons and the abandoned flatlands of Long Island. The U.S. military, struggling with sketchy communications and a lack of supplies, is mired in a nightmare of urban combat.

Caught up in the violence is a Polish-born sergeant who watches the carnage through the eyes of an intellectual and with the heart of a warrior. Two smugglers, the highborn Lady Julianne Balwyn and her brawny partner Rhino, search for a treasure whose key lies inside an Upper East Side Manhattan apartment. Thousands of miles away, a rogue general leads the secession of Texas and a brutal campaign against immigrants, while Miguel Pieraro, a Mexican-born rancher, fights back. And in England, a U.S. special ops agent is called into a violent shadow war against an enemy that has come after her and her family.

The president is a stranger to the military mindset, but now this mild-mannered city engineer from the Pacific Northwest needs to make a soldier’s choice. With New York clutched in the grip of thousands of heavily armed predators, is an all-out attack on the city the only way to save it?

From the geopolitics of post-American dominance to the fallout of Israel’s nuclear strike, After America provides a gripping, intelligent, and harrowing chronicle of a world in the maw of chaos—and lives lived in the dangerous dawn of a strange new future.

From 2003-2007, I produced the monthly email newsletter, "All the GEEK That’s Fit To Print" that kept subscribers to my GeekConfidential e-group appraised of my monthly happenings. As part of my missives, I also recounted what I was currently reading. Perhaps the most mentioned aspect of the newsletter appeared under this heading: And since what I’m reading in the bathroom fascinates many of you.

With the advent of the Geek Curmudgeon blog, the newsletter became redundant and so I let it fall by the wayside, but what books are currently in my bathroom continues to fascinate, so I’ve decided to resurrect that part of the newsletter under the heading of "Readings From the Throne Room" as a regular monthly feature here at The Geek Curmudgeon.

Without further ado, here’s the current reading contents in my bathroom:

The Anchor Written by Phil Hester Art by Brian Churilla

Though I reviewed the first issue in Nexus Graphica and read the entire series online, I picked up the collection during my most recent Half Price Books visit. Not surprisingly, it reads better in print form.

Here’s what I wrote about issue #1:

A printout of the rules for Washington’s War.

A card driven game of the American Revolution, Washington’s War has gotten great buzz and comes highly recommended. I’m hoping to play this soon.

Flight Volume Seven Edited by Kazu Kibuishi

Thought I’ve finished this (and even reviewed it in Nexus Graphica), Brandy is still working her way through it. Like all the previous volumes, Seven offers an amazing array of quality work by a diverse group of artists.

Here’s my review:

And as usual, issues of Wired, Mental Floss, MSFocus, Momentum, and Moving Pictures.