This week’s post is full of imagination and excitement. Oh, and the Iliad.

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Descent into the Depths of the Earth by Paul Kidd

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second in what I refer to as “the Justicar series” is just as much fun as the first book. It was amazing to me that licensed books based on old D&D adventures could be this fun to read. Paul Kidd does a great job with the main characters. There’s action and adventure, mystery, humor, and clever thinking to get around a few of the puzzles that the module the book is based on is known for. I would say that it feels like a group of players playing through a campaign, but these characters are written better and there aren’t any Monty Python jokes being tossed around.

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I honestly wish that Paul Kidd would write more addaptations of classic adventures. These are great and I’d love to see him continue with the cast of characters he’s created for them.

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m not sure I can give this book a fair review, coming back to review it after reading the rest of the series. It’s another year at Hogwarts, and this time the awful school secret that tries to kill Harry and Co. is a big snake. An average book for the series, which is still saying something positive.

Again the characters are mostly well written, I felt it was sort of an ass-pull to have a big chamber of snake dwelling evil hidden in a freakin’ school, but I didn’t attend school in England, so for all I know it’s nothing out of the ordinary. We get more quiddich, which is like wizard soccer and just as interesting (take that as you will).

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I’m just joking about the quiddich being like soccer. Mostly because I can imagine reasons why people like to watch soccer. Quiddich is a horrible game and I hate the fact that so much of the book series was dedicated to it. We get it, Harry is super good at the one part of the sport that makes everyone else useless, move the hell on!

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Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe – Book 1 by Stan Lee

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

(This is my review for both volumes)

I’ve always been a fan of the Marvel “What If” and DC “Elseworlds” series of books, so it was interesting to see what Stan “The Man” Lee would have done with the DC universe. He was given a chance to reimagine the classic lineup of DC heroes, and the result was the miniseries collected in these two volumes. In some cases (Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash) I preferred the characters to their regular versions, but in most of the others I think they were a little too “classic Stan Lee” to really be successful. I would have loved to have seen a few of these characters get miniseries of their own.
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With the reboot that just occurred at DC I’m sort of sad that they didn’t go with a few of the concepts that Stan The Man came up with for the characters.

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The Iliad by Homer

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Even remembering this book makes me want to take a nap. It’s a long, drawn out combat between two forces and ends with the only memorable scene (the trojan horse) in the entire thing. I recommend that you skip right to the Odyssey.

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I have nothing more to say about this book.