Clearing The Reading Pile

I really have to hand it to Guild Wars. Last week, the drops from monsters included 'Shamrock Ale' and 'Four Leaf Clovers'. While using the Clover was fairly dull, if you drank enough Shamrock Ales, the screen turned green and blurry. This week the festive drops are 'Chocolate Bunnies' and 'Golden Eggs'. If you eat an Bunny, you get a new talent for five minutes: Sugar Rush. This allows you to race around at an accelerated rate of speed like a two year old after three boxes of Smarties. Very funny. The little MMO that could proves again why it can.

Been clearing more books off the ever growing Reading Pile...



This was my first Ian Rankin 'Inspector Rebus' novel. Outside of a rather unbelievable villain, I enjoyed my first trip with John Rebus in the ancient city of Edinburgh. I know many people who swear by Rankin, among them a retired Scots electrician who carried a Rebus novel with him as he hiked through Algonquin Park over a two week period. Rankin is a very good writer, so good in fact that I really don't want to know how old he was when he wrote this. I have enough self hate as it is.



I needed a Star Wars fix, so I tore through this one. One day, I'll sit down and point out all the things that were wrong with the 'New Jedi Order', but for now, I'll just say Michael Stackpole makes the best of a bad situation. His battle scenes are fun, and to the series' credit, the focus is less on the oldies like Luke and Leia and more on new (and more interesting) characters like Corran Horn and Jaina Solo. Jacen Solo continues to fester as a crap character I'd like to kick and kick hard. The death of Chewbacca (one of the many things wrong with this series--oops!--wasn't getting into that today)leading Han to go on an alcoholic binge was realistic, even if no one else in the book seems to mourn his loss at all.



I actually really liked the Sinestro War. The idea that Sinestro's goal was to have the Lanterns kill (and break one of their most treasured oaths) was actually interesting. And now, aware of how the playing field has changed, the Guardians have created essentially their own police force to keep the now able-to-kill- Lanterns in line: the cyborg Alpha Lanterns. The watchmen now have their own watchmen.

While it was a bit unsettling to see Corps without Johns or Gibbons at the helm, Sterling Gates does a fine job of giving us backstory of one of the Alphas. The geek in me likes their chest emblems, which look like floating lanterns in some sort of liquid, a 3D image that seems to go deeper into their mechanized chests than seems possible.

As for the Alphas, I am curious as to why the Guardians would use Manhunter technology, since we all know (at least, those of us who spend waaay too much time thinking about it) how well this has worked out in the past.

Both this and Green Lantern continue to be good reads. It's so nice to see someone actually planning a storyline out for a few years, instead of just to the next big summer crossover.