Zombies vs. Robots: Pammi Shaw: Creator of Gods and Also Blogger
By Brea Grant
Kindle
IDW Publishing
Release Date: January 18, 2012

The Zombies Vs. Robots comics were one of the first big hits for IDW Publishing. Naturally, they continued the story with mores miniseries with Zombies vs. Robots vs. Amazons, and then Zombies vs. Robots Aventure and ZvR: UnderCity. In UnderCity, the character of Pammi Shaw is introduced. She is also the “author” of the blog entries that comprise this short story, Zombies vs. Robots: Pammi Shaw: Creator of Gods and Also Blogger [...]

Hell & Gone
By Duane Swierczynski
Paperback | Kindle
Mulholland Books | Hachette Book Group
Release date: October 31, 2011

In Hell & Gone, a former cop named Charlie Hardie is on the brink of death after a brutal shootout. The group known as The Accidental People has taken him against his own free will to a secret underground prison that holds the most dangerous criminals around the world. The worst part about the prison is that Charlie has been appointed the warden. With any attempt to escape the prison, a death mechanism will be triggered and will kill everyone inside the prison. Charlie must find a way out of the prison and save his family from The Accidental People who have their sights set on killing them if Charlie doesn’t comply [...]

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Written by Mark Twain
Illustrations by Eric Powell
Hardback
IDW Publishing
Release Date: January 24, 2012

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as adapted by Eric Powell is more than just a newly illustrated accompaniment to Mark Twain’s classic novel. Recently, new editions of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have been released replacing the controversial language of the 19th century original. However, publisher IDW and artist Eric Powell made the conscious decision to release this adaptation as it was initially published. This illustrated version represents an independent publisher rejecting the idea of censoring an American classic. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn illustrated by Eric Powell is a wonderful way to revisit this piece of classic American literature [...]

The Sigh
Hardcover
Written and Illustrated by Marjane Satrapi
Translated by Edward Gauvin
Archaia Entertainment
Release date: November 8, 2011

The English translation of Marjane Satrapi’s The Sigh was released back in November and I had the good fortune of getting a review copy of this amazing fairy tale.

The Sigh tells the story of Rose, whose merchant father promises to bring back gifts for her and her two sisters from an extensive trip overseas. After much anticipation, the girls are delighted when he finally returns home bearing the requested gifts –– all except for Rose. Her father had not been able to find the seed of a blue bean that Rose had asked for. In her disappointment, Rose lets out a deep sigh, which unwittingly summons the mysterious eponymous creature to their door [...]

The Child Thief
By Brom
Paperback | Kindle
HarperCollins Voyager
Release date: August 27, 2010

The prologue to artist Brom‘s novel The Child Thief begins with a girl who is afraid of an abusive stepfather, which leads into the appearance of Peter Pan, who has come to “save” this child from the certain doom she faced at the hands of the malevolent step-parent. But in Brom’s world, things are not as clear cut as they seem. When people grow up, they often start to see the odd perversity in the idea that a teenage boy who is perpetually young can bring little boys to an island with no grown-ups (and seemingly no problems), which ties into the whole Michael Jackson and Neverland Ranch issues. But in this version of the tale, Peter Pan is about as similar to his Disney incarnation as Robin Williams is to Justin Bieber [...]

Crooked Hills
Written by Cullen Bunn
Earwig Press
Release Date: May 7, 2011

I cannot think of a more difficult genre to write in then young adult horror. On one hand you have to maintain an element of fright and suspense to keep the genre true to its form. On the other hand as a writer you have to carefully construct frightening scenarios as to not traumatize young readers (at least not too much).

Cullen Bunn seems to have found that sweet spot with his latest young adult horror novel Crooked Hills. What Cullen Bunn has done here is create something that is often scary and nerve wracking, but at its core a testament to the spirit of childhood adventure [...]

Geektionary
Paperback | Kindle
Written by Gregory Bergman and Josh Lambert
Adams Media
Release date: January 16, 2011

There is a common misconception that all geeks like the same things. While it is true that some franchises like Star Wars seem to be universally loved by all geeks, there are several different geek categories. Explaining this to a nongeek used to be a difficult task and would require a clever video or PowerPoint presentation… until now.

The Geektionary is a helpful guide to the many different genres of geekdom. There is individual chapters on Science Fiction, Comic Books, Anime and Manga, Science, and even a chapter on Sports. Of course, there are also chapters on Gaming and Television and the Movies [...]

One Buck Horror Anthology: Vol. 4
Kindle
Edited by Christopher Hawkins, Kris M. Hawkins
Written By Erath Juarez, Mark Onspaugh, Nick A. Zaino III, M.R. Jordan, Kristine Ong Muslim
Coronis Publishing
Release date: December 2, 2011
Price: $0.99

The latest volume from One Buck Horror brings us another treasure trove of quick and dark treats from authors around the globe. The One Buck Anthologies are new to me, so I was kind of shocked that it was such a tiny tome (where the hell have I been?). While I enjoyed all five stories, I’d be willing to pay a whole five bucks to read longer, better developed short stories. Then again, I am the Book Slave and I live to read; you, dear readers, may appreciate the fact that you can finish a whole One Buck story before your laptop can finish booting, and the whole eBook in between ordering and receiving your tall mocha-latte-chino-thingy.

My descriptions for the stories in One Buck Horror Anthology: Volume 4 are intentionally brief and worth about two cents. Buy the book; it’s worth the meager investment of both time and money — only 99 cents — to discover promising new authors [...]

Darth Paper Strikes Back
An Origami Yoda Book
By Tom Angleberger
Amulet Books
Hardcover
Release Date: August 23, 2011

Darth Paper Strikes Back was extraordinarily entertaining. Granted, I went into it without much as far as expectations go. I was unsure how much I was going to enjoy a young adult novel, especially a sequel to another one I had never read. But, lo and behold, it was cute and I found myself reminiscing about my middle school years. Not that I had a lot of Star Wars stuff or anything. Okay, maybe I did, don’t judge me! But in all honesty, the book deals more with interpersonal relations between students than with anything Lucasfilm-ish [...]

Before I Go to Sleep
Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle Edition
By S.J. Watson
Harper Collins
Release date: June 14, 2011

Before I Go to Sleep is the thrilling debut novel by S.J. Watson (watch the book trailer below). Here’s a little back-story on how I found this gem in that vast pile of rubble known as the internet. A couple of months ago while perusing one of the countless advice-for-writers websites I’ve been known to haunt, I stumbled upon an ad in the sidebar for a book. Like most people who spend too much idle time online, I’ve trained myself to ignore most ad content that isn’t flashing, twirling, or talking at me on autoplay. But this was a simple book ad with a picture of a book cover, a title, and an unfamiliar author’s name. I’ve probably seen thousands of them. But something made me click on S.J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep. An hour later, I’d read the synopsis and then a very generous excerpt of the book and had totally forgotten the website that linked me to this treasure or whatever writing advice I’d hoped to glean from it. I knew I had to buy this book and immediately added it to my ever-growing list of “must-reads.” [...]

Practical Jean
By Trevor Cole
Paperback | Kindle
Harper Perennial
Release Date: October 11, 2011

In Practical Jean, Jean Vale Horemarsh lives a nice small town life with her not so wonderful husband and her small town friends. After taking care of her dying mother, Jean has a change of heart on how to live life. She thinks that people should die at the happiest moments of life rather than growing old and dying of an illness. Jean decides to give this gift of dying at your happiest moment to her best friends. She decides that she has to kill her friends.

When I first read the description for this book, it sounded like something very new and creative to read. I started to read the book and it took me a few chapters to really dig into the story. After reading for some time, I found myself enjoying where the story was going [...]

Angelfall
By Susan Ee
Penryn & the End of Days, Book 1
Kindle
Feral Dream
$2.99
Release date: May 21, 2011

A post-apocalyptic novel set in a world where angels have taken over (not the cute Valentine’s Day card, but the biblical “we destroy everything in our path” type), Angelfall establishes a version of Earth that has become a wasteland and battle ground for the squabbles between angels and fallen angels. In the midst of this, a teenage girl, Penryn, finds herself caught up in the angel drama when she witnesses a fight and gets caught in a skirmish between some feuding angels. One minute Penryn carries her younger sister, Paige, down a flight of stairs, and the next, she witnesses the Archangel Gabriel dying (apparently, there’s footage of him being gunned down from the pile of rubble that was Jerusalem) [...]

Supergods
Hardcover | Kindle
Written by Grant Morrison
Spiegel & Grau
Release Date: July 19, 2011

Spanning from the dawn of the superhero in the golden age to the jaded modern era, Supergods is a personal account of writer Grant Morrison‘s knowledge of and love affair with superhero comics.

Supergods is not a perfect book, but hardly anything is. It poses a bit as a textbook on the history of comic books from the presentation of the work itself including chapter titles, index, and sections. The first few chapters covering the golden age are told mostly as historical information that helps the writer truly learn more about comics and the creation of characters like Superman and Batman. There are a couple of opinionated interjections within these chapters, but most are commonly accepted in the industry as fact. So, that’s perfectly acceptable. You start to realize, however, that this is not a book about the history of comics as much as it is about Grant Morrison’s history with comics. It’s not so much an analysis of superheroes, as much as it is a book about how superheroes affected the life of one of the most fascinating writers in the history of comics [...]

Someone’s Watching You!
Paperback | Kindle
Written by Forest Lee
Adams Media
Release date: June 18, 2011

If you’ve ever wondered just how plugged in we all are to the Matrix, you must read Someone’s Watching You!, Forest Lee’s thorough examination of how all of our personal information is gathered, stored, used, and who’s collecting it and why.

When it comes to technology, we all have our personal comfort zones. We’re highly selective about who we give our name, address, and phone numbers to, among other precious data. Some of us are fine with finding friends on Facebook, but panic at the notion of online banking. Some folks still refuse to shop online, lest some hack pilfer their credit card number [...]

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland
By Patton Oswalt
Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle
Scribner
Release Date: November 8, 2011 (paperback)

It was the summer of 2004 when I truly discovered the comedy of Patton Oswalt. What little I knew of him came from his acting work on the CBS sitcom The King of Queens and occasional guest appearances on shows like Seinfeld and bit parts in movies like Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 California dysfunction epic Magnolia, but it wasn’t until I caught a few minutes of a solo stand-up performance on Comedy Central one day that I realized he started his career honing his special blend (much like Starbuck’s coffee) of comedy on stage in front of crowds ranging from open and appreciative to drunk and rowdy to sparse and depressing. Then came the release of his first comedy CD Feelin’ Kinda Patton, and after listening to it at least ten times that first day I was a full-blown Patton fanatic […]

Day by Day Armageddon: Origin to Exile
By J.L. Bourne
Paperback | Kindle
Gallery Books
Release date: September 27, 2011

Day by Day Armageddon: Origin to Exile is the terrifying zombie masterpiece by J.L. Bourne (you can watch the book trailer below). The book contains two novels, Day by Day Armageddon and Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile, plus the short story If You Can Read This. Both novels are chilling journal entries that begin as a result of one Naval officer’s New Year’s resolution just before a mystifying plague abruptly ends the world as we know it. The journal becomes the narrator’s salvation and point of reference as day by day he tries to survive the madness that unfolds before him [...]

The Walking Dead Chronicles: The Official Companion Book
Paperback
Written by Paul Ruditis
Abrams Books
Release date: October 1, 2011

The Walking Dead Chronicles: The Official Companion Book is, as the title would indicate, the official behind-the-scenes book for The Walking Dead. Almost every popular TV or movie (especially those based on comics or sci-fi properties) gets one of these. I’m sure you’ve seen these before. They’re usually filled with interviews, pictures, and inside information about the production of whatever property the book is talking about. This one is no different, and will be a book worth buying if you really like The Walking Dead, but won’t be of much interest to non-fans [...]

Raising Unicorns
Your Step-by-Step Guide to Starting and Running a Successful – and Magical! – Unicorn Farm

Written by Jessica S. Marquis
Illustrated by Kevin Hedgpeth
Adams Media
Released August 18, 2011
Paperback: $13.95

Raising Unicorns: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Starting and Running a Successful – and Magical! – Unicorn Farm is a joke that goes on far too long. Jessica S. Marquis offers excruciating details on such things as the many varieties of unicorns, how to select the breed that’s right for you, how to dress so you don’t scare a unicorn, and how much glitter each variety farts [...]

Nerd Do Well
A Small Boy’s Journey to Becoming a Big Kid
Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle
By Simon Pegg
Gotham Books
Release date: June 09, 2011

Despite what you’ve been lead to believe, Nerd Do Well is not an autobiography. Except that it is, but it isn’t… It’s a crafty book disguise designed by Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Star Trek) as memoirs, within which he has been able to insert the true book: The Adventure of Suave Superhero Simon Pegg and his Amazing Robot Butler.

Yes, you read that accurately.

Stuffed very cleverly in between different chapters reviewing Pegg’s life is this crafty, and hysterical, tale of him as a secret agent superhero, with an automaton sidekick that he would have you believe bears absolutely no resemblance to any robot sidekick ever used. Get that vision of C-3PO out of your head right now, because Canterbury (the robot) is, at Pegg’s insistence, nothing like the Star Wars droid [...]

The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor
Hardcover | Kindle
By Robert Kirkman & Jay Bonansinga
Hardcover
St. Martin’s Press
Release Date: October 11, 2011

In The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor, the reader gets a previously untold back story on one of the greatest villains from the Walking Dead universe: The Governor. In this first of three prequel novels from St Martin’s Press, fans of the Walking Dead comics and television show get a treat and learn about the origins of The Governor and how he became the vicious psychopath that we meet later in the comic book series.

I’ve been a fan of the Walking Dead for a very long time. When a new issue of the comic is released, it’s the first thing I read on my weekly stack of comics. When St. Martin’s Press announced that they were releasing a trilogy of prequel novels, I was excited and hesitant at the same time. I wanted the novels to have the same level of excitement as the comic series and the television series [...]