Hellboy: Odder Jobs edited by Christopher Golden

Hellboy: Odder Jobs edited by Christopher Golden




What can I say, I'm on a Hellboy kick.

Here's the publusher's blurb

As part of the ongoing Dark Horse celebration of Hellboy in 2004, Christopher Golden (author of the Hellboy novels The Lost Army and The Bones of Giants) has brought together a stellar array of talents to further the Hellboy canon. Included in this illustrious group are filmmakers Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Majestic), Mick Garris, Guillermo del Toro (Blade 2, The Devil's Backbone, Hellboy), and novelists Charles de Lint, Graham Joyce, Kim Newman, and Sharyn McCrumb, as well as many others. Lavishly illustrated by creator Mike Mignola!

B.P.R.D. Plague of Frogs by Mike Mignola and Guy Davis

B.P.R.D. Plague of Frogs
by Mike Mignola and Guy Davis
ISBN 1593072880

When Hellboy dropped out of the Hellboy comics I was more than a little skeptical. But the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense carries on. This is the third in the BPRD series, and even without Hellboy it's a good story. If you aren't much of a graphic novel reader the Hellboy series makes a great starting point. It's a fast fun series with well developed characters and a good story behind it.

Freaks of the Storm by Randy Cerveny

Freaks of the Storm
By Randy Cerveny
ISBN 1560258012



This novel is split up into separate sections dealing with different weather phenomena. Snow, rain, lightning, tornadoes, etc. And then each chapter give a few examples of some of the stranger event recorded by man. Each chapter ends with a little bit on safety for that given weather event.

The stories are well told. It's obvious that the author is a true weather enthusiast. I got the distinct impression that with each retelling he gets excited by his own stories all over again. There are stories of blood rains, and ball lightning, frog storms and frigid snow storms. When possible scientific explanations are given for some of the stranger occurrences. But there are still plenty of unsolved mysteries.

The books lends itself nicely to reading chunk by chunk. A chapter before bed, maybe another chapter on lunch break, and before I knew it the book was over. Sometimes I wished that the chapter could have been longer, and that the stories would have been flushed out a bit more. The book was well edited, the fat was well trimmed, and what you get is the best of the stories the author has to share told in a precise quick moving fashion.

7 out of 10