The Man of Bronze & His Fabulous Five

I've posted links to this slideshow elsewhere, but I figured I'd share it here as well, just for kicks. It's my collection of Doc Savage paperbacks. Check them out:



I love Doc Savage. I'm not even sure why, but there's just something awesome about that dude that captivates me. He's a mixture of brains, brawn and bizarre. He's concentrated rad. Doc, along with his pulp hero brethren, are the bridge between stuff like H.G. Welles' sci-fi, Bram Sroker's horror and Arthur Conan Doyles' mysteries and the brightly-colored superheroes that would eventually put them out of business. (For some great meta-commentary on this, pick up Warren Ellis' fantastic Planetary series, which has recently wrapped up and is totally mega-cool. Also, for a look at an attempt to revitalize this type of hero, check out the cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, which fills me with the same sense of excitement and giddiness when I think about it. Additionally, Philip Jose Farmer's Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life - a fictional biography - is a really great, fun ride. It's the start of his Wold Newton Universe, which manages to tie all of these strains of fantastic fiction together into a cohesive whole.)

And those covers! These books are worth the price I pay for them for the stories those covers conjure. Land of Always-Night? He Could Stop the World? Quest of the Spider? Daaaang. That's some heavy-duty stuff there. Plus the O.C.D. completist inside of me sees those numbers on the covers and wonders, "Can I get them all? I bet I can." I even made a chart in the back of my pocket notebook of which ones I have and which ones I need. I know, I know; I'm nuts. I have a sickness.

I lucked out and found a used bookstore here in Vegas who had a cache of these and wiped them out over the last month or so, worried the whole time that somebody would get to them first because, you know, there's a market our there for decades-old pulp paperbacks? Man, I'm crazy. Hopefully this score should sate my appetite for the next little bit, but uh, if you stumble on any of them while you're out and about (they're usually racked with Sci-Fi, authored by Kenneth Robeson), well, let me know.

Anyway, that's Doc Savage and why I think he's cool.

I Need To Finish Book Seven So That I Can Start Book Seven (or) A Book Report

We bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at Target yesterday afternoon (sorry folks, but the only midnight release I ever attended was for Pearl Jam's Vs. album way back in prehistoric times. Hooray for grunge!). I'm excited to read it, but I feel no real compulsion to tear through it. I'd rather savor it, because let's be honest, I most likely won't be reading them again anytime soon and once it's over, it's over. They're great books and all, but... well, it's time to say "goodbye." At least until Sadie's ready to read them.

I will say this, though: I am deathly afraid that I will wait for a little while to read it and some poo-poo head will spoil it. So I guess I do have a weird compulsion to finish it.

Dang it.

At least I'm not a total bad sport and just reading the last four pages in the store like some old fart yesterday. Yeesh. Some people...

Anyway, I can't really start it because I am still working through book seven of the Dark Tower saga, which is no small feat. The thing is like... over an inch and three-quarters thick. And this is the little mass market paperback version. If you can lift the hardcover, then you are the rightful heir to King Arthur's throne and some crazy lady will come out of the water and give you a sword and you can usher in a new age for Avalon. The unsold copies were used as bricks. On the pyramids. My copy is 1045 pages long. I'm on page 459, so... almost halfway?

So far it's a bloody, profane epic, full of, well, everything a blue-blooded American boy would like: gunslingers, robots, werespiders, time travel, stacked dimensions, tough characters, high stakes and blood blood blood. It's the very grown-up cousin to the Harry Potter series, both of whom look to old Grandpa Tolkien, though King's books moreso. It's not a large leap from Aragon/Strider to Roland Deschain, Sauron to the Red King. Heck, this book even has a sad little misshapen being following the fellowship as they quest deep into the heart of evil. Sound familiar, my preciousss?

But where the Lord of the Rings saga always showed war as a horrific, terrible thing, the Dark Tower books wallow in the violence. It's like Peter Jackson lost the job of adapting Tolkien's masterpiece to Sam Peckinpah's reanimated corpse. And it works, for the most part.

It's in no way perfect, but King's love for these characters, this story as well as story and characters in general (the whole thing is a treatise on creativity, in the end, and links all of his work together as one cohesive universe), oozes off of every page. It's like King made a list of everything he's ever loved about fiction and found a glorious pulp story to hang it all on. It's not for everyone (it's a pretty solid "R," make no mistake), heck, I'm not even sure it's for me, but it's a significant work and, in the end, I think I'll be glad I worked through it. If only to have read a book where the plot from Seven Samurai is reworked with cowboys and robots. Yeah. You read that right.

In other news, I can't believe I just posted a huge book report on my blog. [sigh] I am such a nerd.

I Feel It's Only Fair To Warn You

That Doc Savage is one bad mammajamma.

He rules supreme.

Okay seriously, I'm going to bed.

Things I Think Are Cool (In No Particular Order)

The song "Ghosts Of A Different Dream," from the Guided By Voices album Under the Bushes, Under the Stars.
Chocolate glazed Krispy Kreme donuts.
Comic books.
Books by Kurt Vonnegut.
Old t-shirts.
Doc Savage.
The Empire Strikes Back.
Typography.
Robins.
Love.
The cover to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
The cover to Pet Sounds, as well as the entirety of that purely genius album.
The Pacific Ocean. It really is better than the Atlantic.
A good Bagel.
The sound of airplanes.
The smell of freshly cut grass and the smell of gasoline.
Robots, jetpacks and laserguns. And psychic powers. And wolfmen.
Atlantis.
Seaguy.
Polaroid cameras.
Christmas.
My new Chucks.
The Flaming Lips.
America, despite all her flaws and imperialistic snarls.
Family.
Truth.
Spirit.
Woody Allen in Take the Money And Run.
My few, true friends. You know who you are.
Laughing.
Watermelon.
Creamsicles.
Toys.
Music.
Inspiration.
Candace, Candace, Candace. Forever & ever, amen.
Boulder Dam which I will always refer to as Hoover Dam because I am old school and I like it like that. It looks especially beautiful on a summer night.
Sleeping.
Dreaming.
When I manage to not be a total meanie.
My little sis, Sadie.
The moon.
Martians.
Astronauts.
Fireworks.
Sparkle Power!
A cold glass of water.
Monarch butterflies.
Driving long distances with my lady at my side.
Trees.
Empty parking lots.
The song "Space Junk," by Devo.
My favorite band since I was like 14, Talking Heads.
When you can see your breath outside, but it's still just sweatshirt weather.
The idea of summer.
Forever long blog posts about nothing.
James freaking Brown.
The streetlights on Ballinger Drive, circa 1990.
Castlerocker, the blog.
Guitars.
Listening to live music.
The smell of the coffee aisle at the supermarket.
Luchadores.
Superheroes.
Kids who can skateboard.
People who smile.
Hugs.
Super Mario 3.
A new haircut.
The TV show Lost.
Pajamas.

The word, "Goodnight."