Jetzeka's 50 for 2010

To make this harder for myself I'm going to do two lists. One for graphic novels and one for books.

Books:
01. hurry down sunshine By Michael Greenburg
02. Johannes Cabal The Necromancer By Jonathan L. Howard
03. the living dead Short story collection
04. Anansi boys By Neil Gaiman
05. Horns By Joe Hill
06. American Psycho By Bret Easton Ellis
07. Slaughterhouse-Five By Kurt Vonnegut
08. The Acid House By Irvine Welsh
09. Peter and Max By Bill Willingha
10. The Night Watch By Sergei Lukyanenko
11. Breakfast Of Champions By Kurt Vonnegut
12. Tell-All By Chuck Palahniuk

Graphic Novels:
01. Superman: Red Son By Mark Millar
02. Fables deluxe edition Vol. 1 By bill Willingham
03. The Walking Dead Vol. 5 By Robert Kirkman
04. The Walking Dead Vol. 6 By Robert Kirkman
05. Locke and Key: Head Games By Joe Hill
06. The Walking Dead Vol. 6 by Robert Kirkman
07. The Walking Dead Vol. 7 By Robert Kirkman
08. The Walking Dead Vol. 8 By Robert Kirkman
09. Fables Vol. 3 By Bill Willingham
10. Fables Vol.4 By Bill Willingham
11. Fables Vol. 5 By Bill Willingham
12. Fables Vol. 6 By bill Willingham

1. Hurry down sunsine - **** -A father's tale of love an madness. I'd of liked to see the story from the daughters point of view but seeing the psychosis from outside and recalled so poignantly was a compelling read.

1. Superman: Red Son - ***** - The ultimate what if. What if Superman landed in communist Russia? What if Superman fought for Cummunism? A very well written storyline with appearances from Wonder Woman, Batman and the Green LAntern.

Hurry Down Sunshine sounds very good. I've never heard of it until now, so thanks for the recommendation!

2. Johannes Cabal the necromancer - **1/2 - Recommended to me after I finished reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Nowhere near as good, as an ongoing series it might get better, but for now it was too obvious, the humour, the plot twists were all things you could see twenty pages away.

2. Fables deluxe edition Vol 1. - **** - A great retelling of the fairytales of old. First story arc is a classic whodunnit, involving the death of Rose red (Snow whites sister). Very remniscient of a gritty film noir.
3. The Walking Dead vol. 5 - ***1/2 - Starting to get very uncomfortable. I can imagine this is very much how life would be after the zombie apocolypse. The very worst side of the human condition is shown.

5. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman - **** - I'm biased, I loved it, but I love everything Neil Gaiman writes. But a painfully self conscious narrator, that's something I can relate to.

5. Locke and Key: Head Games By Joe Hill - ***1/2 - I think the only problem I had with the first book was it left way too many unanswered questions, it felt like half a story arc. Not so with this installment, so many questions were answered, and I'm really starting to get into the storyline.

5. Horns - ***** - Joe Hill is probably one of my favourite authors now. Everything he writes I can't put down. Horns is no exception, his writing just draws you in. I cheered for Ig, the pure hearted demon, I almost cried for Merrin, and I flinched at every poignantly described act of violence.

6. American Psycho - *** - I would rate this book higher for being amazingly well written, but it made me too uncomfortable. I mean I guess that's the whole point, but I was reading this on the train, squirming in my seat from being grossed out and people were staring at me like I was a nut-job. I'm proud that I finished this, there were parts where I wanted to put it down but I persevered.
I guess my favourite part of the whole book was that I had Batmans voice in my head during all of Batemans monologues.

7. Slaughter-house 5 - ***** - I picked up this book because of a quote. "everything was beautiful and nothing hurt." I think that sums up this book rather nicely. It was beautiful, it was sad. I wish I had read it when I was younger, I think it would of changed who I am today. Rest assured I think there is going to be a lot more Kurt Vonnegut on this list.

8. The Acid House - *** - I always buy books about drug addiction and always hate them. This one I disliked in part because I had trouble deciphering the dialect. Some of the stories were written with a thick Scottish accent. I did like some of the stories though. The title story 'the acid house', Across the hall, The Granton Star Cause, and Smart cunt. Irvine Welsh seems to be a very diverse writer, most of these short stories followed different writing styles, and extremely different ideas. Not sure if I'll pick up anything else of his though.