Friday Fics Fix - Some Scary Stuff... Sort Of

'Richie is sitting on the corner of the porch, legs dangling over the side. He looks up when he hears someone approaching and almost goes to hide the ashtray full of cigarette butts, but then decides he doesn’t want to go through the effort of lying.'

OK, so my fanfiction reading this week has been... well, honestly, I despair of the human race sometimes 😅

I mean, I know that the pumpkin-sex fics will appear eventually in the run-up to Halloween, but come on people, IT'S NOT EVEN OCTOBER!

Friday Fics Fix - Something Followed

'He can feel something else coming through, something uninvited.'

I love horror.

...You may or may not have noticed.

Generally speaking, the less-realistic and more fake-looking the horror is, the more I'm freaked out.

There are some notable exceptions (Pet Sematary *shudders*) but overall, the more realistic and convincing the horror is, the more I'm like: meh, it's a ghost.


Related Reading: Nerd Church - My Real-Life Ghost Stories

Review Time! (Graphic Novel Edition!) - Watersnakes by Tony Sandoval

This post contains affiliate links for Amazon.com (USA.) I earn commissions from qualifying purchases.

Title: Watersnakes

Author: Tony Sandoval

Genres: 

Graphic Novel, Fantasy*, Young Adult, Magic Realism, LGBTQ+ (F/F), Horror*, Ghost Story* (*ish) 

Buy Now USA

Friday Fics Fix - 3-For-1 Boarding-School Special

I normally recommend one fic a week in these posts. This week, I'm gonna rec three.

Why? Because I can't choose between them.

And now I've given up trying - I'm just gonna give 'em to you, with a bit of info about each!

Friday Fics Fix - Murder House Party!

“You guys seem really chill about all this,” observed Ben. “By this point most people are running around screaming.”

“Occupational hazard,” said Klaus.

“I’ve lost a lot of blood,” said Diego. “I’m just accepting everything at face value right now.”

If there's one thing that Netflix has got me obsessed with as much as Umbrella Academy, it's American Horror Story.

(Only on season 2 #NoSpoilersPlease!)

Friday Fics Fix - In 2009, There Was a Girl Named Jennifer Check

'Because there is blood. And there is black stuff all over the floor.

And Jennifer is eyeing her like a dog does a bone, paws twitching and lips being licked.'

A decade ago, there was a film about two high school girls. And one of them ate boys.

And because it was unapologetically about Queer girls (this film is so Gay,) and because it was at least ten years ahead of its time, it was hated by critics and went unnoticed by the public for too long.

I've seen reviewers (mainly dudes, might I add,) talk sh** about it recently, of course, but the fact remains: this film is a f**king Queer Classic!

Friday Fics Fix - Easter in Haven

(Warning: discussions of chronic illness and ableism)

'Audrey and Nathan dashed into the Grey Gull, each imagining terrible scenarios. None of their fears involved Duke with a spatula in hand, staring at the bar.'

One of my favouritest TV shows of all time is Haven.

If you haven't heard of it, then I'm not angry, just disappointed (not in you - in Society in general! 😅)

Nerd Church - The Dilemma of Morally Dubious Media (Ft. American Psycho, Game of Thrones and Harry Potter)

Warning: this post discusses morally dubious media, including but not limited to: rape, murder, incest, general violence.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

American Psycho is about a serial killer that takes pleasure in raping and killing women in the most horrible ways, and the narrative goes into gratuitous detail about it.

Do I have your attention? Buckle up, dearest nerdlets!

No matter what, there is always gonna be media - books, films, TV series, whatever - that is kinda dubious on the ol' morality front.

Is that ok? Is that something we should be consuming? Is that something that people should be creating?

And if it isn't, is that something that we should be supressing?

Should we be, to put it bluntly, censoring it?

Comics Wrap-Up - Knock Knock Let the Devil In

I got more of that sweet comics stuff you love!

Let's get to it...

Mini-Review! - The Wooden Heart by Daniel Abrahams

Title: The Wooden Heart

Author: Daniel Abrahams

Genre: short story/novella, contemporary, horror*, fantasy* (*ish) 

Amazon: UK - USA

Month in Review(s) - October 2017

October was fun, yes?*

*I mean if you ignore the news and the garbage pile that is the world's current affairs. *desperate laughter* 😅

Release Day Review!!! - Strange Weather by Joe Hill

Title: Strange Weather

Author: Joe Hill

Genre: Novellas, Anthology, Horror

Release Date: 24th October 2017

Amazon: UK - USA

Premise:

Strange Weather is a collection of four novellas or short novels by writer Joe Hill.

Snapshot, Loaded, Aloft, and Rain are connected by bizarre weather events, providing a backdrop - or a catalyst - to the events which unfold.

Review Time! - The Voices of Martyrs by Maurice Broaddus

Title: The Voices of Martyrs

Author: Maurice Broaddus

Genre: anthology, short stories

Genre (of individual stories): historical fiction, contemporary, sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal, vampires, urban fantasy, horror, dystopian, magic realism

Amazon: UK - USA

A few starting notes:

I received a free digital review copy of this book via NetGalley. NetGalley provides review copies from publishers in exchange for fair and honest reviews.

Honestly, I like me some short stories - and I never fail to be impressed by Rosarium Publishing - so I figured, why not? And decided to give this a shot.

Premise:

A collection of voices - an unforgotten collected memory that encompasses the past, present, and future.

These short stories are tales of strength, pain, sacrifice, and life. These are the voices of martyrs.

5 Spoopy Book-To-Film Adaptations For Halloween

Hello dearest nerdlets! Halloween is coming up (which, if you've spent 5 minutes on social media lately, you've probably noticed,) so I decided to give you a little list of 5 book-to-film adaptations in the Halloween-y spirit!

1. The Crow

The adaptation of James O'Barr's amazing graphic novel is a) violent and b) awesome. Not for kids, this is... rough... but is still, most definitely, worth the watch.

Brandon Lee played the title role of Eric Draven, and, infamously, was sadly killed on set by a freak set of circumstances which resulted in live ammo being used. He was amazing in this film.

Amazon: UK - US

2. Secret Window

This comes from a Stephen King short story/novella-type-thing called Secret Window, Secret Garden, and stars Johnny Depp.

Book nerds will especially love this one (yes guys, I know my audience dammit!) because it follows a writer, and deals with imagination, the power of stories, and characters/plot.

The denouement (fancy words!) is different in the short story - but, to be honest, I love both (but did find it ironic that a plot obsessed with story endings changed the ending of the story.)

Amazon: UK - US

3. Harry Potter (series)

Yes, this counts! There are witches and wizards and sh**!

And not everyone wants things to be too scary on Halloween - so, to them, I give the notion of a Harry Potter marathon. My gift to you. ;)

Amazon: UK - US

4. Interview With The Vampire

My friends, Lestat started my love affair with all things vamp, and to that I will always thank this film (which I saw before I read the book! Shocking! But I actually do that a lot.)

Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt playing two exceptionally sexy vampires - truly, what more could you want?

And yes, the queer aspects of the story are toned down - but there is no denying* the homoeroticism here. (Fans self.)

*although, someone I went to school with did think they were 'just being friendly' - because, y'know, we all stroke our friends' faces lovingly and breathe lustily in their faces every now and then. (Eye rolls.)

Amazon: UK - US

5. Constantine

The Bestie would kill me if this wasn't on the list.

Therefore I give in to the higher power that is my friend's wrath, and give you this comic-book-based tale of hell and damnation. Plus Keanu Reeves. #JobDone.

Oh, and I've actually reviewed this! (I really need to do more bookish film reviews... I just keep forgetting!) You can check out that review here.

Amazon: UK - US

Like this post? Try these:

• Popcorn Review! - Constantine (2005)
• Welsh Halloween Traditions

Comics Wrap Up - Things Are Shaping Up To Be Pretty Odd

Film Trailers

Marvel made a Doctor Strange trailer that makes 2 different trailers! One when it's played forwards, and one when it's reversed.

It's called 'Strange's Time' (yes, the trailer has it's own title, but to be fair, whoever made it is probably pretty chuffed with themselves right now.)

Here it is played forwards:

Annnnd here it is in reverse:

And just because I like your robot, dear nerdlets, here's the new TV spot for Doctor Strange too:

TV Trailers

Dudes, the next series of DC's Legends of Tomorrow looks EPIC!!!!

As a reminder: this is the series which totally shouldn't work but does - a ragtag spinoff with minor characters from CW's DC pantheon, along with him-off-Dr-Who (otherwise known as Arthur Darvill, here playing Rip Hunter,) and a flying time machine.

We also have one of the only LGBTQ+ superheroes to ever make it on screen (and still be LGBTQ+ - Harley Quinn, Mystique, Loki, et al. had that part of their identity erased when transferred to screen) - the amazing and beautiful Sara Lance, aka the White (formerly the Black) Canary.

Yes, my dearest nerdlets, this looks pretty damned cool:

Graphic Novels

This week I read and reviewed Ghoul Scouts: Night of the Unliving Undead (UK - US.)

This is a fun and zombie-filled kids/all-ages graphic novel, which I enjoyed a helluva lot more than I thought I would!

You can check out my review of Ghoul Scouts: Night of the Unliving Undead here.

So that's it for my week in comics, dearest nerdlets: on to the next week!

Like this post? Try these:

• Review! (Graphic Novel Edition!) - Ghoul Scouts: Night of the Unliving Undead
• How Superhero TV Shows Are Leading the Way For Diversity

Review! (Graphic Novel Edition!) - Ghoul Scouts: Night of the Unliving Undead

Title: Ghoul Scouts: Night of the Unliving Undead

Author: Steve Bryant

Contributors: Mark Stegbauer, Jason Millet

Genre: Kids, Horror, Zombies

Series: Ghoul Scouts #1-#4

Release Date: 18th Oct 2016 (US); 20th Oct 2016 (UK)

Amazon: UK - USA

A few starting notes:

I received a free digital review copy of this book via Edelweiss. Edelweiss provides review copies from publishers in exchange for fair and honest reviews.

In honesty, I thought this would just be OK, and nothing more. Turns out, it was really freaking awesome! :)

Premise:

Full Moon Hollow - Paranormal Capital of the World. But of course, those are just stories.

A scout jamboree. Fun, right?

Until the zombies show up, and the remains of two scout groups have to fight to find their way to safety...

What the hell is going on in Full Moon Hollow?

Best bits:

Have you ever thought what would happen when you smoosh a multi-racial Scooby-Doo style gang of kids (unfortunately, without the dog,) into Brian K Vaughn's Paper Girls, with the more family-friendly parts of the film Zombieland?

Nope, me neither. But clearly someone's been thinking about it - because here it is.

And it's really fun!

Bright, spoopy ('spooky' to the purists amongst you,) and with an adventure that really scoops you up and drags you along with it, this is a really involving book.

The artwork was effective - bright, but not too in-your-face.

And the main characters are pretty evenly split between white characters and people of colour (PoCs). Overall, the split may even be slightly in favour of PoCs - depending on who you count as main characters.

It's done well - not forced; it simply is (as it should be.)

Not so great bits:

While the kids were relatively well-drawn characters (in the metaphorical sense - though in the literal sense too, I suppose,) I think they still could do with some character development - though this may be expanded on in continuations of the series.

I also think that things maybe weren't tied up correctly...?

Like, how did the kids explain the zombie attack to the adults? And where the hell did the zombies come from in the first place?

Again, this is possibly just a symptom of first-volume restrictions - and it's entirely possible that this'll get sorted in later instalments.

OK, so I'm nit-picking a little... but someone has to ;)

Verdict:

This was so fun! A well-rounded kids' story (and big kids, like yours truly, of course,) with a diverse cast and zombies!

With room for growth, and perfect for Halloween, I really do recommend this one guys - I enjoyed the hell out of it! :)

Buy Now UK – Buy Now USA – Goodreads

Liked this post? Try these:

• Review! (Graphic Novel Edition!) - Paper Girls, Vol 1
• Review! (Graphic Novel Edition!) - Malice in Ovenland by Micheline Hess

Month in Review(s) - September 2016

September was the month that various sh** hit various fans.

In case you're not caught-up on all the goings-on of the bookish online community, let me briefly summarise:

• Some people questioned authors about the lack of diversity in their books (no matter you're opinion on this, those people had the right to ask the questions.) This resulted in trolling.

• There was a video on BookTube (the bookish portion of YouTube,) by a horrible person who sees diversity as a dirty word, and is generally a bigoted jerk. She then took offence when it turned out a lot of people didn't agree with her.

• White supremacist & Nazi trolls decided to spread their racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, etc. hatred by trolling members of the online bookish community. Most of these people were also Trump supporters.

• A US library magazine called VOYA showed some of the worst customer service you can imagine in their response to criticism of their apparently bi-phobic reviewing.

...I think that covers most of it. It was an... interesting month.

via GIPHY

But we, as a community, are pulling through this... I hope.

As far as my blogging stats go this month, things have been good :)

I discovered an acronym for my blog which had been staring me in the face the whole time - DORA. Which I will now be using when Diary of a Reading Addict is too long-winded.

I passed 30k page-views for the first time (!!!!) and now see between 100 and 300 page-views on a typical day :)

I gained a handful of followers on BlogLovin and Twitter, though not as many as I would've liked.

I also noticed something in terms of my Twitter followers, which kind of upset me.







Whenever I tweet about anything to do with LGBTQ+ issues, I lose 2-3 followers; that's per tweet where I mention queer issues, characters, books, etc.

via GIPHY

At first I thought it was just coincidence - but after that it became too regular, and I couldn't believe it was coincidence any more.

It's not like I tweet about LGBTQ+ an excessively large amount... is it? I don't think I do.

Anyway, I figure I'm better off without followers like that. As upsetting as that is.






But I just want to thank all the people who do read this blog, like and RT my tweets, comment on my posts, and continue to follow me.

I love you. Each of you is worth 1000 of those homophobic a*sholes.

In a month of trolls, bigotry, and bad news, there were two high-points - my birthday, and you guys.






So, to the books I reviewed this month:

Young Adult

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova - Fantasy, Witches, LGBTQ+

As I Descended by Robin Talley - Ghost story, Horror, LGBTQ+

Adult

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer - Contemporary

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie - Classics, Crime

Comics

The Sun Dragon's Song #1 - Kids, Fantasy