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

Promo copy:

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

Promo copy:

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

Promo copy:

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

Promo copy:

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

Promo copy:

“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

Promo copy:

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

Promo copy:

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

Promo copy:

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

Promo copy:

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

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

The Judas Mandala by Damien Broderick

Promo copy:

Maggie Roche is an out-of-work poet and single mother. Spied on by a cyborged rat, attacked, drugged into panic and rapture, seduced, drawn into conspiracy, she’s flung four thousand years into her own future. In the alien world of the Ull- Upload Lifeform Lords who are human-machine hybrids of overwhelming power-she learns that she is history’s first true time traveler, hunted by friend and foe to the end of time. The entire future of the cosmos will be reset by these terrifying events. The Judas Mandala introduced the terms "virtual reality" and "virtual matrix," anticipating Frank Tipler’s influential Omega Point Theory, William Gibson’s cyberpunk fiction, and The Matrix…

A new Afterword describes the strange publishing history of this ground-breaking novel, and includes the full text of an omitted chapter.

"Experience an epic sense of immensity: an inkling of humanity’s perhaps limitless possibilities within the strangeness of our universe." –Australian Book Review

Pennterra by Judith Moffett

Promo copy:

Pennterra is a beautiful and fertile planet and humanity’s last hope for survival. But Pennterra is already inhabited. After warning other colony ships to stay away, the small advance colony of Quakers has adapted to life on Pennterra. Heeding the empathic warnings of the native hrossa, they have settled in a single valley, sharply limited their population, and continued to use no heavy machinery in their building and farming. But surviving under these conditions has left the Quakers little time to learn more about their native neighbors. Catastrophe or peace—Tanka Wakan, the omnipotent master spirit of Pennterra, will decide.

The Dreaming by Damien Broderick

Promo copy:

Selected as one of the top 100 science fiction novels of the century! Updated and revised edition of award-winner The Dreaming Dragons. An anthropologist travels to the central Australian desert to search for the source of an aboriginal myth; he suspects the terrible "Rainbow Serpent" is connected to the sacred Uluru rock formations. The holographic "Gate" he discovers with his nephew explains not just the origin of a legend, but the origin of man, and the true fate of the dinosaurs.

The Serpent and the Hummingbird by Wilson Roberts

Promo copy:

The Serpent and the Hummingbird, tells the story of six people whose lives become entwined in a complex mixture of fear, love, violence and bizarre religious practices, as they struggle with matters of belief, reflecting the confusions, the threats, and promises of deeply held faith central to our current political, social, and economic dialogues. The story deals with these issues in a timely fashion, and is peopled with fully realized characters who live in a world close to our own, but bizarre enough to approach the grotesque that Flannery O’Connor said was necessary to shock readers into a realization of the misshapen nature of our times.

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

Star Trek

Promo copy:

The greatest adventure of all time begins with Star Trek, the incredible story of a young crew’s maiden voyage onboard the most advanced starship ever created: the U.S.S. Enterprise. On a journey filled with action, comedy and cosmic peril, the new recruits must find a way to stop an evil being whose mission of vengeance threatens all of mankind. The fate of the galaxy rests in the hands of bitter rivals. One, James Kirk (Chris Pine), is a delinquent, thrill-seeking Iowa farm boy. The other, Spock (Zachary Quinto), was raised in a logic-based society that rejects all emotion. As fiery instinct clashes with calm reason, their unlikely but powerful partnership is the only thing capable of leading their crew through unimaginable danger, boldly going where no one has gone before.

The STAR TREK two-disc DVD is presented in widescreen enhanced for 16:9 televisions with Dolby Digital English 5.1 Surround, French 5.1 Surround and Spanish 5.1 Surround with English, French and Spanish subtitles. Special features are as follows:

Disc 1:

o Commentary—By director J.J. Abrams, writers Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman, producer Damon Lindelof and executive producer Bryan Burk.
o A New Vision— J.J. Abrams’ vision was not only to create a Star Trek that was a bigger, more action-packed spectacle, but also to make the spectacle feel real. Every aspect of production—from unique locations to the use of classic Hollywood camera tricks—was guided by this overall objective.
o Gag Reel—Bloopers featuring the entire principal cast.

Disc 2:

o Digital Copy
o Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary

o Spock Birth
o Klingons Take Over Narada
o Young Kirk, Johnny and Uncle Frank
o Amanda and Sarek Argue After Spock Fights
o Prison Interrogation and Breakout
o Sarek Gets Amanda
o Dorm Room and Kobayashi Maru (original version)
o Kirk Apologizes to the Green Girl
o Sarek Sees Spock

o To Boldly Go— Taking on the world’s most beloved science fiction franchise was no small mission. Director J.J. Abrams, writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, producer Damon Lindelof, and executive producer Bryan Burk talk about the many challenges they faced and their strategy for success.
o Casting— The producers knew their greatest task was finding the right cast to reprise these epic roles. The cast, for their part, talk about the experience of trying to capture the essence of these mythic characters. The piece concludes with a moving tribute to Leonard Nimoy.
o Aliens— Designers Neville Page and Joel Harlow talk about the hurdles they faced creating new alien species, recreating the Romulans and Vulcans, and designing the terrifying creatures on Delta Vega for the new Star Trek.
o Score— As a fan of the original series, composer Michael Giacchino embraced the challenge of creating new music for Star Trek while preserving the spirit of Alexander Courage’s celebrated theme.

o DVD-Rom:

o STAR TREK D-A-C Free Trial Game for XBOX 360Ò
o Weblink to the STAR TREK D-A-C Free Trial Game for PC
o Weblink to the STAR TREK D-A-C Free Trial Game for PlayStation Network

I know what I’ll be watching this weekend.

Goats: The Corndog Imperative by Jonathan Rosenberg

Promo copy:

Book Two of The Infinite Pendergast Cycle

God is dead. Reality isn’t real. And the end of the multiverse is coming! Nobody knew any of this stuff at the beginning–least of all Jon and Phillip, two of the drunker inhabitants of our own particularly ignorant level of existence. Then again, it was these bickering cyber-geeks who flew to the center of the galaxy where they met–and ate–God Himself . . . which may just have kick-started the apocalypse. A new collection of strips from the acclaimed webcomic, Goats: The Corndog Imperative is a unique cosmic comedy of errors, pocket universes, and monkeys with typewriters.

Spread

Promo copy:

Fresh, funny and racy, Spread is a look at the trials and tribulations of sleeping your way to a life of privilege in Los Angeles. Nikki (Ashton Kutcher) is a fun-loving, freeloading hipster who understands his greatest assets are his looks and sexual prowess. His latest conquest, Samantha (Anne Heche), a stunning middle-aged lawyer, gives Nikki more than he’s ever had before. But when Heather (Margarita Levieva), a gorgeous waitress playing the same game, catches his eye, their lifestyles force a choice between love and money. Nikki has to decide whether he can live on his own once and for all in the hopes of finding something real.

My review of The Fourth Kind is now up at Moving Pictures.

The rest of the review can be read at Moving Pictures.