A new Avenger’s movie is drawing crowds to the silver screens around the land. It provides me more fodder for asking, “What’s going on?” And then wondering further, “Do readers ever get this excited over a book?”

My books, in particular. I once smiled upon reading a review of Angels Need Not Apply, something akin to “This book is awesome!” Except for the excitement expressed, it isn’t a particularly good representative of reviews that are useful for readers or writers, although it might indicate that sort of elation viewers of a Marvel movie might feel.

That’s the only example related to my personal book list, but, then again, I don’t have many reviews.  After two dozen plus books, I haven’t been discovered yet, except by ebook pirates—that’s not unusual, I suppose, but all my books are probably more current than when I wrote them, and the majority have action scenes comparable to most thriller movies, if not the Marvel movies.

I was a comic book reader. That even made me create my own, which is how I learned to read and write at a pre-school age—I needed something to put in the balloons, after all. Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Walt Disney (I loved the adventures of Donald and his nephews when they traveled with Uncle Scrooge—I suppose that was a precursor to reading H. Rider Haggard books, with Alan Quatermain as the original Indiana Jones?), Tarzan, and a few others (if I’d saved them, I’d be a wealthy old curmudgeon—now I’m just a poor one). I’ve even reviewed a graphics novel for Bookpleasures—a great story about a divided U.S. with one new country, the bad guys, dominated by Ayn Rand followers.

I’ll confess I enjoyed Wonder Woman—I like the actor, and the plot was an origins story.  I didn’t like Black Panther as much because the origins story played second fiddle to the generalized mayhem.  I liked the last Wolverine movie—the antithesis of an origins story and akin to The Lone Ranger, where Depp’s character Tonto walks, not rides, off into the sunset, a poignant twist on Hollywood westerns’ tradition (of course, that movie isn’t Marvel, just to head off the nitpickers). Bottom line: most Marvel movies do nothing for me because they add nothing to my experience obtained by reading the comics—elaborate visual mayhem and sound effects can’t compete with my childhood imagination!  Or even my current imagination.

The remaining Marvel movies (seems like there are too many) produced a ho-hum reaction in me, so I have to analyze why my reaction is so different from the Marvel movie fans’ reactions.  In particular, I have to answer my first two questions.  What’s going on?  The popularity for these movies comes from (1) people hooked on visual and sound pyrotechnics creating some strange high that shocks them out of their passive existence (gamers and the like), and (2) people who never read the comics, from gen-Xers down to millennials, are just discovering Marvel’s universe.  There’s a lot of commonality between these two groups, of course.

Do readers ever get this excited over a book? Sure. I got excited over the original comic books. I get excited reading many mystery, thriller, and sci-fi books. While my imagination works well enough to turn written words into visual and sound pyrotechnic, I also get excited by the twists and turns and the nuanced cleverness of writers who know how to push my buttons.

Please don’t consider this a review of the new Avengers movie. I didn’t see it, and probably won’t. Putting all these wonderful characters together seems commercial exploitation at its worse. But, if you want a review, consider the subtitle of the NY Times’s review: “The usual good vs. evil, and some fun along the (long, tedious) way.” That’s a good enough review for me. I’ll probably read a book instead!

***

Did you miss Rembrandt’s Angel? Both that novel and my novel The Collector present my unique thesis that stolen artwork can be used as collateral for other nefarious criminal activity. In Rembrandt’s Angel (Penmore Press, 2017), Bastiann van Coevorden, an Interpol agent, has to manage Scotland Yard Inspector Esther Brookstone’s obsession with recovering the Rembrandt, “An Angel with Titus’ Features,” stolen by the Nazis in World War Two. Esther’s mission becomes deadlier and different from her usual cases in the Art and Antiques Division of the Yard. The duo takes readers on a wild tour of Europe and South America before the story reaches its thrilling climax, as they find out what the stolen paintings are used to finance. In the process, the couple’s romantic interludes become a full-blown romance. Available on Amazon, Smashwords, and in most bookstores (if they don’t have it, ask for it).

The earlier novel, The Collector, also features Esther and Bastiann in cameo roles, and he also appears in Aristocrats and Assassins and Gaia and the Goliaths. These three ebooks are available on Amazon and Smashwords.

All of these books can be read independently.

The Great Spring Thaw Sale continues on Smashwords.

In libris libertas!

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 8th, 2018 at 3:30 am and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.