bookmark – Xaviar X. Xerexes

John Constantine Hellblazer

by Xaviar XerexesOctober 10, 2019March 8, 2020

I never really got into Hellblazer as a teenager — somewhere in a box I have a few comics from the beginning of its run in the late eighties but I didn’t stick with it. So I’m basically new to the character and its story. Luckily for me all of the DC and Vertigo issues are collected into 22 volumes. As with many of these posts, this is also a handy bookmark for me to remember where I am in the series. Starting off with the first two volumes: John Constantine Hellblazer Volume 01: Original Sin and John Constantine Hellblazer …

Preacher

by Xaviar XerexesAugust 16, 2018March 8, 2020

Preacher is the comic book series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon about the story of Jesse Custer, a preacher in the small town of Annville, Texas. The superhero part of it comes from when Custer is possessed by Genesis — the offspring of an Angel and a fallen Devil — and gains the power of “the word of God” which seems to be able to command anyone to do anything. It’s also a love story between Jesse and Tulip O’Hare; and a frenemies story between Jesse and Cassidy. And a giant fight with a Dan O’Brien style all-powerful cult descended from Jesus …

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Stories

by Xaviar XerexesJuly 30, 2018March 8, 2020

So I read a lot of Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury novels and short stories as a child. I did not read Isaac Asimov — not really sure why to be honest and something I had a nagging sense I should rectify at various points of adulthood. So first things first, I had to figure out in what order I should read the various novels and stories that make up the saga of The Foundation. And luckily for me, Isaac Asimov, included in his Author’s Note to Prelude to Foundation, a chronological guide to his stories: The Robot Series I. Robot (1950) Collection of Short …

Y: The Last Man

by Xaviar XerexesJuly 27, 2018March 9, 2020

I never got around to writing a bookmark post for Y: The Last Man but with the news that FX is going to make a series (probably!) based on it, I want to add something about it to the blog. 10 years after the series wrapped up its run, I read it in the collected version (10 volumes from Vertigo). (I seriously cannot get my head around the fact that 2008 was ten years ago). The series has a huge BIG idea for a premise – something mysteriously wipes out all of the men on Earth, except for one Yorick …

THE MARVEL MOVIE UNIVERSE

by Xaviar XerexesMarch 7, 2018March 8, 2020

Marvel movies and teevee series have become enormous in their scope raising all kinds of questions of how they all fit into a shared universe and more importantly, what order to watch everything in. Luckily others have done all of that work already — CNET, Collider, and Fandom Marvel Wiki all have put together comprehensive lists of the movies, shows and shorts in chronological order. To begin with, the first Captain America: The First Avenger and the two seasons of Agent Carter are clearly set in World War II and thereafter — a bit disconnected from the other movies and teevee shows which …

The Man in the High Castle

by Xaviar XerexesJanuary 22, 2016

The novel The Man in the High Castle is my favorite novel by Philip K. Dick. (Granted I haven’t read all of them yet so that could change.) I was interested when Amazon did a pilot for a teevee show based on the novel. Mostly I thought it was an interesting adaption. It did a lot of work to recreate the alternate universe. I was a little less excited about the change from a book to a film for the central plot device. (A macguffin or a metaguffin perhaps but important to the story). [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzz_6dmv03I?rel=0&controls=0] I haven’t had a …

Bookmark: Terry Pratchett

by Xaviar XerexesSeptember 4, 2015

RIP Sir Terence David John “Terry” Pratchett, OBE (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015). Forty one Discworld novels have been published. Within Discworld, Pratchett weaved a narrative with many different characters that each had their own narratives across several books. So much so that anyone approaching reading them needs a guide on how to make sense of it all. The L-Space web has put together the above graphic which suggests starting points for each of the major “series” of stories within the novels. There is an alternative version below.

Bookmark: Kim Stanley Robinson

by Xaviar XerexesAugust 23, 2015

I just finished Aurora, the latest novel from Kim Stanley Robinson. Kim Stanley Robinson is a writer of hard science fiction who brings logical, methodical extrapolation to any topic he ponders. He is, despite all of that, a fairly poetic fellow who often detours from physics to philosophy and the human condition. But still, hard science. Aurora is a very interesting but ultimately somewhat unsatisfying novel. As the book progresses it becomes apparent that the hero of the story, the true protagonist, isn’t human at all but the very interstellar ship that takes the humans on their long, long journey through …