OCTOBER 2008 ROUNDUP

Suddenly, there's two months left in the year. On Thursday we were exactly 4 weeks from Thanksgiving, 8 weeks from Christmas, and 9 weeks from 2009. Crazy. Well, let's get to rounding up...

I read 1.6 books in October, bringing my total for the year to 43.6. Why is it .6? Well, I'm about 60% done with Sideways in Crime (I also read Lord Tophet). I hit last weekend hoping to get it finished by last night or at least today but I realized there was no way with my schedule. So, I switched to reading a trade and I'll dive back into the book today. I hate that my book reading has slowed down so much (this is my lowest book total this year) but there's not a whole lot that can be done. I am still ahead of pace for 48 books on the year. Last year I read 6 books in October and had read 35 on the year.

I read 19 stories in October, bringing my total on the year to 199. Those stories came from the Aug. issues of Asimov's and F&SF, as well as the afore-mentioned Sideways in Crime. Last October I read 12 stories and had read 157 on the year.

I read 4 comics in October, 3 trades (The Walking Dead Vol. 7: The Calm Before, Immortal Iron Fist Vol. 2: The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven, and Ex Machina Vol. 7: Ex Cathedra) and 1 single issue (FINAL CRISIS: LEGION OF 3 WORLDS #2), which brings my total for the year to 79 comics (31 trades). Last year I didn't read any comics in October and was holding steady at 109 comics read (23 trades).

I downloaded 7 CDs and 1 song in October, bringing my total to 74 discs and 9 songs. I'll cover the eMusic downloads in a separate post - the other CD was the new Mountain Goats EP, Satanic Messiah, and the song was "The Kingdom" by John Vanderslice. Last October I got or downloaded 8 CDs and had reached a total of 90 for the year.

I didn't see any movies in October and my total for the year is holding at 7. I didn't see any movies last October but my total was 14 for the year at that point.

And we're done.

TWO IN TWO

While I finished Zeroville, I snuck in some time to read the latest issue of Booster Gold (#6, in fact). Anyone who's been reading this blog knows how much I've been enjoying the ongoing relaunch of this series and this issue is no exception. In it, Booster travels back in time with a Blue Beetle from the past (Dan Garrett), a Blue Beetle from the present (Jaime Reyes), and a Blue Beetle from the future (?) to rescue his best friend, Ted Kord (who was also a Blue Beetle). Rip Hunter isn't happy about this and makes plans of his own. Is the group successful in saving Ted from Max Lord? Well, the next issue crosses over with 1994's Zero Hour and is teased as "Blue & Gold, Chapter One" so you be the judge!

Then last night after I finished Zeroville, I picked up Ex Machina: Power Down, the 6th volume of the ongoing series from Wildstorm. This is another comic I've talked about - it features a man who can talk to machines, and traded super-heroics for being mayor of New York. Powers and politics, yay! This volume collects a four issue storyline where Mitchell Hundred has to deal with the blackout of August 2003...and it turns out he's a lot more involved than you would think. He temporarily loses his powers and has an encounter with a man who appears to be from a parallel world - the parallel world from which Mitchell somehow got his powers. Very interesting. Brian K. Vaughan is one of the best writers working in comics and you can't beat Tony Harris (and inker Jim Clark) on art, which means this is a very good comic that everyone should read.