Books 40-41

40) ATOMIC ROBO volumes 1 & 2: Ladegard loaned me these volumes of Clevinger & Wegener's comic about Tesla's greatest invention - a super strong, nigh indestructible robot that now leads Tesladyne Industries, a super-science investigation for hire group dealing with paranormal events across the planet and the various giant robots left by the evil genius Helsingard (who Robo killed in 1938). I cannot overstress how much fun this book is. Yes, it owes a lot (and I mean a lot) to Hellboy, but with super-science rather than magic. But that's fine. One of the back cover blurbs sums it up nicely: "ROBO is perhaps the greatest example in the movement to return the comic book medium to its grassroots, focusing on the fun and adventurous". if you haven't been reading it, I highly recommend it. The first volume is super-science stuff, the second is a sampling of ROBO's World War II adventures.

41) The Tombs of Atuan: second volume in LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy, again it took me a while to get into the rhythm of her wrting, but after that I enjoyed it. The books are certainly good - lyrical, beautiful at points, fantastical and wonderous - but I wonder why I have such trouble getting into them?