"You've gotta start somewhere" was the title of my second post a week ago, before the incredibly stupid delete-all event of a little while ago. Basically I just listed out what I was currently reading. Well, here's where I am now.
I'm in the middle of reading three different series. I often have multiple reads going on at the same time – again, in addition to my scholarly reading that's not part of this blog. I also gravitate toward series fiction, long-form story-telling. It's what I like about comics - the never-ending story. This time I'm just going to list them by series, then give each of the most recently-read volumes of each its own separate blog entry.
- Planetary, by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday. This was a comic book series published by DC under its Wildstorm imprint between 1998 and 2009. It's collected in four trade paperback volumes. I read the first two some years back, then stockpiled the third and the fourth as they came out. They sat on my shelf for a while until a couple weeks back when I undertook reading them all the way through.
- Perry Rhodan. You can find more information, including my write-up of the latest issue that I've read by going to my other blog, which is listed over yonder → … Briefly, Perry Rhodan is a German pulp magazine series that has been published weekly since September 1961 and is almost up to issue #2600 in Germany. An English translation of about the first 150 issues were published in the 1970s, which is when I discovered it. In this blog I'm just going to give notice when I've finished reading the next issue in that 1970s English-language series and that a new entry to The Perry Rhodan Reading Project blog will be forthcoming.
- The Bronze Saga, by Mark and Karen Eidemiller. I'm reading this on my iPod Touch using the Stanza e-reader app. This is a series of fan-fiction that is available free through the Eidemillers' website. It has a premise that at first sounds wacky, but they make it work. Basically, the pulp hero Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze, fell victim to one of his arch-enemies after his last pulp-magazine adventure ca. 1950, was trapped in suspended animation for fifty years, then woke up to a world that had changed utterly. Dislocated in time, space, and spirit, he was found by an itinerant preacher, through whom he found Christ and became himself a traveling evangelist. The series is also called “The Christian Adventures of Doc Savage” – Huh?!, you say? That was my reaction too when I first heard of it via an episode of one of the podcasts that I listen to, Ric Croxton and Art Sippo's The Book Cave (the episode is here). But as I said above, they make it work. Mark Eidemiller has a thorough knowledge of the character and, more importantly, a real feel for him, and with few exceptions I, at least, feel that I'm really reading about Doc Savage. Sure, the series gets a bit overbearing with its evangelical tone at times, but everything else is so well-done that that does not detract from my enjoyment. Anyway, Doc being Doc, trouble has a way of finding him, and these stories (I'm currently reading #5, but I'm going to reconstruct my entry for #4 which also serves as an overview of the series thus far) are filled with much the same kind of adventure as the old 1930s pulps were.
Beyond what I've just written, I don't really intend to go any further into my religious views, except where it's necessary and natural given whatever I might be blogging about in a particular instance. I do read a number of books on religious history or spirituality, and I will include those in this blog. I don't intend to record my daily spiritual reading, however ... unless something really strikes me. Most importantly, however, I will not let this blog become a forum for religious debate and argument. 'Nuff said.
Anyway, that's where my reading stands pretty much right now. And you got a little more insight into who I am and where I'm coming from. For what it's worth.
Cheers!
