DB Books and Reviews

When the subtitle should have been the title... I'd received a copy of this book during the Christmas season from the church that I go to. For some reason, it's taken me a long time to actually pick it up, but with All Saints Day coming up soon, I thought this would be a fitting read for this time of year. I'm glad that I finally got around to this, even though it was not what I expected.  HOW I RATED IT  4/5  A somewhat misleading title kind of set me up for some undue disappointment, but I still found this to be a nice, short read well-suited to nightly/daily reflection.  CONTENT While you would be forgiven for thinking this was a book examining the lives of various saints (with the prologue not doing much to correct that assumption), this is actually not really about that at all. Instead, it is more about asking thought-provoking questions to reflect on. Each chapter is still themed around specific saints, some who are officially canonized and some that are p...

The emperor of ice cream... I've never read anything by Stephen King before and I didn't think that I'd be a massive fan of many of his books, but SALEM'S LOT is one that I had heard about more recently when Alex from Tall Guy Reads mentioned it in one of his videos and I do like a good Vampire story so I had been toying with picking this up at some point. When Nick Stewart invited his subscribers on YouTube to do a bit of a King buddy read for some of his novels, I jumped at the chance to pick this one up. HOW I RATED IT  4/5  A gripping sense of atmosphere, characters that felt alarmingly real, and a spooky story that escalates slowly to a chaotic climax all made this an enjoyable read. There were some stylistic things about King's prose (or perhaps just the audio narration) that threw me off a tiny bit, but overall, I really liked SALEM'S LOT and am glad to have finally read something by this famous author.  CHARACTERS One aspect of King's writing that...

I read and reviewed the original MARVEL 1602 by Neil Gaiman a while ago, but my biggest criticism of the book was that there are a couple of key Marvel characters that don't get their powers until the final pages and the ending was far too open ended to be satisfying. Since I'd subscribed to Marvel Unlimited for a month, I wanted to take the chance to see if reading the sequel/spinoff 1602 series would give me the closure and sense of satisfaction I wanted to get out of the original. In the interested of not burring the lead, I did not get the feeling of completeness that I was hoping for, but here are some quick thoughts I had on each of the series: 1. MARVEL 1602 I gave this 4/5  stars A uniquely beautiful artstyle and classic marvel characters reimagined for an Elizabethan era are the main draws of Gaiman's first (and I think only) foray into the world of Marvel. While Gaiman really puts his knowledge and love for the Marvel universe on full display and sets up an intrig...

Death to the Faustians!... After reading  MARVEL X FORTNITE: ZERO WAR  on the Marvel Unlimited app, I wanted to use my subscription to read some other things from the catalog. Since I'd found the ending to the original  MARVEL 1602  so disappointing, I figured I should see how the rest of this comic line played out.  RATING 4/5  Mostly pretty artwork and a unique, fantasy story are really the main things this series has going for it as I wasn't familiar with the two main characters and found it to be somewhat disconnected from the rest of the 1602 comic line.  Please Note: While I will not be getting into spoilers for  WITCH HUNTER ANGELA , I will have to mention a couple of details about the original MARVEL 1602  series as well as the ending to NEW WORLD that would be considered spoilers.  CHARACTERS/STORY Angela and Sarah are the two main heroes of this story set in the 1602 universe. I may just be dumb, but I honestly had no i...

Your friendly world-trotting Spider-Man... After reading  MARVEL X FORTNITE: ZERO WAR  on the Marvel Unlimited app, I wanted to use my subscription to read some other things from the catalog. Since I'd found the ending to the original  MARVEL 1602  so disappointing, I figured I should see how the rest of this comic line played out.  RATING 4.5/5 While not perfect, I found this to be the strongest of all the MARVEL 1602 series so far due to how much it references previous series and the originality in how it reinterprets Spider-Man's supporting cast for the 1602 universe.  Please Note: While I will not be getting into spoilers for  SPIDER-MAN , I will have to mention a couple of details about the original MARVEL 1602  series as well as NEW WORLD that would be considered spoilers.  CHARACTERS/STORY One of the bigger downsides of MARVEL 1602: SPIDER-MAN is that you really need to read the somewhat lackluster NEW WORLD series in order t...

Sea shanties and superheroes... After reading  MARVEL X FORTNITE: ZERO WAR  on the Marvel Unlimited app, I wanted to use my subscription to read some other things from the catalog. Since I'd found the ending to the original  MARVEL 1602  so disappointing, I figured I should see how the rest of this comic line played out.  RATING 4/5  I'd worried that this series would miss the mark like  THE NEW WORLD  and while some of my approval might be coming from how disappointing the preceding series was, I found FANTASTICK FOUR to be a much stronger use of the 1602 theme/universe. Please Note: While I will not be getting into spoilers for  FANTASTIC FOUR , I will have to mention a couple of details about the original  1602  series that would be considered spoilers.  CHARACTERS/STORY As the title might imply, this spinoff series follows the 1602 interpretations of the Fantastic Four. That said, the cast is actually a lot more interesti...

A new world teeming with missed opportunity... After reading  MARVEL X FORTNITE: ZERO WAR  on the Marvel Unlimited app, I wanted to use my subscription to read some other things from the catalog. Since I'd found the ending to the original MARVEL 1602 so disappointing, I figured I should see how the rest of this comic line played out.   RATING 2/5  Though THE NEW WORLD does resolve some of the more unsatisfying aspects of 1602 's ending, it fails to deliver a follow up series that is at all worthy of the original. Please Note: While I will not be getting into spoilers for NEW WORLD , I will have to mention a couple of details about the original 1602 series and where some of the characters end up that would be considered spoilers.  CHARACTERS/STORY The main draw of this comic series will be for fans of MARVEL 1602 that were frustrated by how Peter and Bruce become Spider-Man and Hulk right at the very end. Following up on this frustratingly rushed pseudo-c...