About to Hit a Hundy

Books this year, books this week.

Not yet…but soon…

I got to hold a copy of FOSSIL FORCE in my hands for the first time today, and lo, it was good to behold. My wife’s friend got a copy for her birthday and had me sign it. Fantastic to see. She’s reading it now. I’ve also got a few reviews on Amazon! One reviewer didn’t like all of the “family squabbles” in the story, lol. Without that stuff, none of the story really mattered. But you’ll have to read it yourself and see.

Yesterday I finished my 99th book of 2025, RISING SUN by Michael Crichton. He foresaw a lot of our political and economic problems even back then, but then as now, dumb people reduced his analyses to “RaCiSm” and didn’t understand what he was saying: we sold huge sections of our economy to Japan while they closed off their markets to us, and as a result they achieved major dominance in tech while we offshored yet another segment of our manufacturing. This was in the 80s and 90s. Now look at us.

Anyway, once again Crichton puts out a banger. Full remarks in the video above.

I also finished THANKSGIVING: BIOGRAPHY OF AN AMERICAN HOLIDAY by James W. Baker. Lots to digest there, I’m sure I’ll do a writeup on Thanksgiving Eve, but it was great and I just ordered a copy for my brother. The timing worked out great because I piggybacked off a tweet from Declan Finn about a Catholic Thanksgiving in Florida in 1565.

The remake of The Running Man just hit theaters. I haven’t seen it but I read the book several years ago. Stephen King was still in his nihilism-and-cocaine phase, so the ending was predictably unsatisfying. I read a plot synopsis online after the movie came out and I think they did a good job of keeping King’s original ending while adding a twist to make it better.

I was reminded of that book when I read Car Warriors #1 earlier this week. I did a video comparing those two.

Comics

As for comics, it’s been a heck of a few weeks, and next week is just going to be nuts. I think I have six books on pull and another one I’m going to check out from the shelves. Last week I finished reading the complete Winter Soldier run from Ed Brubaker, which created the archetype for the character you know in the movies. I also caught the latest from Absolute Superman and Rook Exodus. I’m so glad I started going to the LCS regularly, I’ve found some titles I flat-out love and they’re doing great things for my imagination.

In especially exciting news, Ghost Machine title Redcoat is getting a feature film adaptation. It’s unclear whether this will be live-action, animated, or what have you. Charles Roven is set to direct so I’m guessing it’ll be live-action. He worked on Oppenheimer and Wonder Woman (the decent one from 2017) but he also worked on the Roadhouse remake for Amazon, which was…bad. I’m more excited than not, I think it’s great that Ghost Machine is getting attention beyond comics, I just hope that it continues as a comic company.

A lot of the comic commentators that I’ve followed for the last 5-8 years have panned some bad comics for being Netflix pitches in disguise—stuff that was never meant to run as comics, but rather to get studio attention. I don’t think Ghost Machine has done that so if it turns out that they have, I’ll be annoyed. These books have been beautiful in this format and the stories/characters keep me engaged. (Give us more Junkyard Joe please.)

Audiobooks

And finally, the first full-cast Harry Potter book dropped this month, and I’ve been listening to it in short bursts. Great immersion, and the script direction has been better than other such books I’ve listened to. I’ll have full comments once I’m finished. I like this medium. They’ll release one per month until May.

And the audiobook of HEART OF THE MOUNTAIN (the end of Saga of the Forgotten Warrior) comes out right before Thanksgiving. Start that series if you haven’t.

Currently Reading

I’m reading a nonfiction about certain tribes of slaveholding Indians, and I have a few other heavy reads this week too, mixed with some light comics and a funny space opera from Kroese.

Remember to buy FOSSIL FORCE and read it. I want to know what you think about it.