What are You Reading Right now?

That book was so awesome I had to read the sequel...



The first one was really hilarious but also one of the best behind-the-scenes books I've ever read. Lots of great information on how they made the Evil Dead movies and the low budget camera rigs they made for the shots. The opening credits is just Sam Raimi with a camera strapped to his head in a little boat while Bruce pushed him around the swamp. I always wondered how they did some of those effects and shots and Bruce was kind enough to illustrate most of them

 

I've read all the James Bond books by various authors except for some of this guy's stuff. He wrote 14 of them (plus 2 novelizations for Bond movies) between 1981 and 1996 but I've only managed to get through six so far. They're kind of weird as they somewhat reboot the series by bringing an un-aged Bond and his supporting characters into the "modern" times of the 80s but they're also a continuation of Fleming's novels. Though compared to the continuity of the films prior to the Daniel Craig reboot that's not too confusing. These are almost good, the plots are usually pretty good Bond adventures but there are lots of dumb characters and unfortunately Bond is the dumbest of them all. He still acts suave and can handle himself as always but even when the reader is only supplied the same information as Bond they can easily figure out all the twists and traps long before he does.

 

This is a weird one, it's written by the same guy who wrote that James Bond book I just finished and I decided to check it out as I heard these (there are 3 of them) are better than his Bond books. It's certainly entertaining but very weird as it's kind of a ripoff or over the top homage to The Godfather (this being published only 5 years after the book and 2 after the movie) with Moriarty playing the role of Don Corleone. I haven't gotten to the particulars of what happened yet but apparently he and Holmes came to some sort of Truce at Reichenbach Falls and he's returned to London to get his criminal organization back in shape after Colonel Moran ran it into the ground and so Moriarty is fighting a turf war against some other criminals trying to take over. It's not just small similarities there are entire scenes lifted from The Godfather and Moriarty is the "Don" of his organization called "The Family". If it were a little less on the nose with The Godfather stuff I'd say it was great but that weirdness aside it's still entertaining.

At one point it kind of turned into Fritz Lang's "M" during a flashback chapter when it's revealed Moriarty captured and killed Jack The Ripper because the extra police presence in Whitechapel was interfering with his criminal business so he had to take the law into his own hands. One of the weirder books I've read in a while but so far it's oddly enjoyable even though I usually roll my eyes at any Holmes pastiche that resurrects Moriarty. I'm only halfway though so it could still turn into a stinker but even if it ends up that way it will at least be memorable.