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"the great when" by Alan Moore. It focuses on Dennis Knuckleyard, a 18 year old hapless store clerk living in post WW2 London. He finds a book that should not exist and struggles to get rid of it before Sinister forces seek to find him.

it's a decent read but the confusing prose is a barrier to finishing it.

"the message" by Ta-nahesi Coates. Thus focuses on the value of non-fiction writing and journalism through his visits to Senegal, North Carolina and Palestine.

a solid read and a solid recommendation.

PS. I see why Marvel tapped him to write Black Panther and Captain America.

Jojo bizarre adventure "crazy diamond demonic heartbreak" is a prequel to part 4. It focuses on Hol Horse who journeys to Morioh in order to track down a missing stand using parrot. Hol crosses paths with a new threat but has Josuke and Karyoin's cousin to fall back on for help.

it's fun fanservice with interesting wrinkles to existing characters The remaining members of Dio's crew suffer PTSD from their time serving him.
 
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the Devil in silver by Victor LaValle
the fire this time by James Baldwin.

Ive started reading "To save and to destroy" by Viet Thanh Nguyen.

its similar to "the message" by ta-nehisi coates. Both authors are talking about representation in nonfiction and art should be made that challenges our understanding of our world.
 
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I couldn't resist and read "The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Albino's Treasure" by Stuart Douglas.

As the name implies, it is a pastiche which I always have trepidation about, but the fact that it's also a crossover of the creations of Sax Rohmer and Anthony Skene compelled me to read it. The basic summary of the plot is that Irish Republicans vandalizing a painting in a London art gallery leads Sherlock to stumble into an ancient conspiracy involving the monarchy. But its a race against time as Holmes isn't the only one interested in investigating, as a certain Albino has arrived in London and is matching wits against the detective. So yeah, if you don't recognise the authors I mentioned, Sherlock Holmes has to battle against Zenith the Albino, iconic antagonist to Baker Street detective Sexton Blake. Also a certain Chinaman makes an appearance who is *totally* not Fu Manchu with the writer not having access to the name due to trademarks.

On the whole, the book was pretty good. Douglas did a good job of capturing the voice of ACD. There were a couple of things that bugged me, namely where characters would act like flanderized versions of themselves, like Sherlock being unnecessarily callous at points when Watson doesn't immediately deduce everything like he does, or how Watson turns into a simp whenever a female character is on screen. The plot is slight, but it moves at a good pace required for a National Treasure-esque movie, although you do have to suspend your disbelief that the secret uncovered at the end of the story both could actually exist and really is as explosive as the characters make it out to be.

The elephant in the room would be the usage of characters from other works. Fu Machu is mostly fine, since Douglas was only restricted from being able to use the name, with it not being abnormal for the character to use pseudonyms to hide his identity. But Zenith is in a transitional stage of copyright entering into public domain, whereby the character as a concept is free to use, but Douglas basically couldn't use anything from the majority of stories involving Zenith. Douglas got around this by setting the story a few years before Zenith met Sexton Blake and so naturally he wouldn't be expected to reference the detective or anything else. But as a result, Zenith is reduced down to his most basic layer (Albino, exiled prince, phantom thief) and so he comes across as kind of colourless to the point where he might as well have been an original character since the interest in the character comes from the weight of his history. At the very least, it feels very imbalanced since the Holmes portions of the plot are stuffed to the gills with fanservice with appearances and references to some of the most obscure canon details.

I think that sums up my recommendation really. If you want to see Sherlock Holmes tackle an Uncharted style adventure full of twists and turns, then you're in for a pretty good time. But if you're interested in this story for Fu Manchu and Monsieur Zenith, then you'd best be better off checking out their canon material. Never a better time too as Zenith's standalone novel was reprinted for the first time last year after slumbering since it released in the 1930's.
 
Prolly about time to re-read the Wheel of Time series and this time try not to get mad about the ending.
 
I just finished the first volume of Absolute Batman. I have a lot to say about Scott Snyder, good and bad, but Absolute Batman is just a great comic book. It won't win any writing Eisners, but it is fun and well-written. The infamous "Batman AF" panel made me laugh and put the book down. But it's an intriguing story so far. I've hunted a few LCS's for volume 2 softcover and have not found it. Still a couple more LCS's I can check before resorting to Amazon.

I love that it is a drastic change from the usual Batman origin. It seems like Absolute Superman is just a slight change. Absolute Wonder Woman seems to be getting lots of praise and supposedly has a cool origin story, but WW has had her origin retconned and re-done so many times, a new take on her doesn't really interest me. But I may still pick up Absolute WW down the line.

But Batman? When it comes to mainstream continuity, comics or otherwise, Bruce's origin has hardly ever been changed, besides some tweaks. Yes, there's like Flashpoint universe which is a drastic change, but that's not Bruce. Absolute does almost a 180 on Bruce's origins, besides keeping perhaps the 2 most vital pillars of what makes him Batman - no killing and Joker as a nemesis. I love it.
 
I started reading From Hell last week. I think Alan Moore is one of the best comic writers ever (not exactly a hot take, I know) and I've been wanting to read this for years. It's definitely quite dense and I'm reading just on my lunch breaks at work, so it may take me a few months to finish.
 
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