I posted my favorite books/comics of 2019 list a few weeks ago. I had a few other books/comics that, while I didn’t feel they should have made the main list, I still want to talk about. So, here are my Honorable Mentions of 2019.
Let’s do books first, then I’ll do some comics.
Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds by Brandon Sanderson – I’ve read Brandon Sanderson before. I read the first book of his Mistborn trilogy for High Fantasy Month, which was pretty good, as well as his entire Reckoners Trilogy, which was fantastic (it made my best list in 2017). So I have been looking for more of his books to read and came across two novellas that he wrote several years ago. The first novella was called Legion, and the sequel was called Legion: Skin Deep. They were about a man named Stephen Leeds. He’s a genius, but the way his mind manifested this genius was to create what Leeds called “aspects”. These aspects housed the knowledge and information he learned. And each aspect carried a different set of knowledge and skills as well as a personality. Similar to the movie A Beautiful Mind, I guess, but these stories treat the condition as kind of a super power. Sanderson collected those first two novellas together into this book with a brand new third story. And it’s a lot of fun. This could make for an interesting show on some streaming network. Someone needs to look into that.
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton – Published in late 2018, I got this book as a gift for my wife because the premise sounded intriguing. There’s a party at an old English manor. A young woman is going to die at the end of the night, and the main character has to solve it in seven days. But every day, she wakes up in a different party goer’s body at a different time of the day. It’s sort of like Downton Abbey meets Agatha Christie meets Groundhog Day. It’s a very interesting story that is structured in a non-traditional way. It can get confusing and I’m not 100% sure what fully happens at the end, but the read is a lot of fun.
The Hot Rock (Dortmunder #1) by Donald Westlake – Back in 2015, when I did the Invisible Man for AWESOME-tober-fest, I read a Donald Westlake novel called Smoke. I liked it, but even before I read that, I was aware of Westlake’s heist novel The Hot Rock from 1970. I may have even already owned it at that point. But I didn’t read it until this past year. And it’s really great, actually. It’s a fun heist novel that’s sort of a working man’s Ocean’s 11. The main character is John Dortmunder. He has just been released from prison and his right hand man approaches him, after JUST picking him up from getting out of jail, with a job. Dortmunder reluctantly agrees to the heist and everything that can go wrong does go wrong and they wind up having to steal the the thing they are hired to steal at least three different times. I really enjoyed this book and want to continue the series, as Westlake wrote like 8 or 9 Dortmunder novels. This book also led me to a movie adaptation I didn’t even know existed starring Robert Redford and George Segal.
Jaws by Peter Benchley/Jaws 2 by Hank Searls – I’m going to cheat a little and put two books here. I had to mention the Jaws books. I covered both of these books for the I Read Movies podcast in Summer 2019 and I was pleasantly surprised by both. First of all, everyone pretty much trashes Benchley’s original novel because it’s not as good as Spielberg’s movie. Which is true, the movie is better. HOWEVER, Benchley’s novel is a very pulpy, 70s novel that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. The characters are a lot less likable in Benchley’s book than in Spielberg’s movie, which may be the crux of people’s issues with the book, but it makes for an interesting story. I’m mainly speaking of Mike and Ellen Brody as being mostly unlikable (you’ll wonder why they are even married), but Hooper is also a rather unlikable, douchey, just out of college, rich kid. It makes for a fascinating collection of characters and a really fun read. Yes, the movie is better, but don’t sleep on the Jaws novel. I’ll say the same for Jaws 2. Searls’ story really follows the events of the first movie, but it also doesn’t completely ignore the events of the novel. And since Searls also wrote Jaws the Revenge, that book fits into this series like a jigsaw puzzle piece. The whole Jaws cycle of novels are totally fun and well worth a read. Or, you can listen to me talk about them all on the I Read Movies podcast.
Now on to comics.
Savage Avengers by Gerry Duggan – I’m a fan of Gerry Duggan. He and Brian Posehn did an amazing run on Deadpool which started (for me) with Deadpool: Dracula’s Gauntlet (Best Books I Read in 2015) and continued into the Marvel Now Deadpool series. Then Duggan did a zany run on Uncanny Avengers that I really enjoyed. He even wrote a somewhat sequel to Dracula’s Gauntlet called Mrs Deadpool and the Howling Commandos which I thoroughly enjoyed. So when I saw he was doing an Avengers spin off with Wolverine, Punisher, Venom, Brother Voodoo and Conan, I thought, this is something I need to check out. And this eclectic collection of characters totally works. I’ve really enjoyed the first volume of this series and want to continue reading. I love when writers take these totally wacky groups of characters and turn them into a wacky team book. Kelly Thompson did it with the most recent West Coast Avengers. Duggan did it before with Uncanny Avengers. Definitely worth a read.
The Avengers by Jason Aaron – Jason Aaron has become one of my favorite comics writers. His Thor run was nothing short of phenomenal. It showed up multiple times on my best of lists. Aaron also wrote the first few years of the 2015 Marvel Star Wars title which was really, really awesome, and he did a great take on Dr Strange that same year in 2015. So when I heard he was taking over the main Avengers title, I was pretty excited. And for the most part I’ve really enjoyed some of the stuff he’s done. Black Panther is the leader. I love that Panther creates a covert subset of the Avengers filled with all of these B level characters you haven’t seen in years. Blade joins the team for another “War of the Vampires” story arc. Hell, Thor and She-Hulk kind of start dating…sort of. It’s a bunch of cool ideas that it seems like Aaron is having fun with, but also I’m having fun with.
Gideon Falls Volume 1: The Black Barn – I’m a pretty big fan of Jeff Lemire. He’s shown up on this list many times. Here’s another one. This is a straight up horror comic. It involves the legend of the Black Barn, that has shown up throughout history bringing death and madness in its wake, and ensnaring the lives of two different men. The book is drawn by Andrea Sorrentino who frequently partners with Lemire and I love these two together. This book reminds me a bit of Joshua Williamson’s Nailbiter series, which I loved. Very atmospheric, very dark. I’ve only read the first volume but I will eagerly be reading more.
Jughead’s Time Police – So last year, the original 1990 Jughead Time Police series made my best of list. This year, we got a reboot of that series. Written by Sina Grace. And it’s actually pretty good. It’s funny, and it coincidentally uses a plot device I thought of when doing an episode of Nerd Lunch back in Sep 2018. Obviously totally coincidental, but I love that someone else had that idea too! I’m a big fan of Jughead, especially his reboots in the “new Archie” universe. This is a good addition to those stories.
Those are some of the other books/comics I felt I wanted to talk about that didn’t necessarily make my “best of” list.
Cavalcade of Awesome 