Distraction Dinsdag: Catching Up Round 1…

This post has been a long time coming. I have put of from posting reviews for too long, but the backlog has just been piling up and not getting written. In order for me to continue (at least attempt to get back in the flow again) reviewing as I finish a book, I have decided to lump a few books in that never got to reviewed last year. as well as about 4 I do not feel are worth taking the time to review as they were all pretty short books. Let’s start with last year’s:

This book does need a review of it’s own, but not by me, I am not educated enough to sing of the high praises this millennium old  poem should get. This should be compulsory reading to anyone that studies the greats. Telling the tale that is not Troy just yet, but the event that lead up to it. It had everything and I am pretty sure the translation was as true to the original as can be as the foreword alone was nearly a half hour long… What stood out to me were the battle scenes. Homer did not hold back from descriptions of bloodshed turning the sand to purple in such vivid detail that I think YouTube would give a him a age restricted demonetization cause they would not be able to handle it.

What also stood out was the ease with how the gods came to the mortals’ rescue, or not, it seems you merely had to bump a toe and utter Odepoes (my own Afrikaans translation and a bit of a bad swear word, could not resist) and some god or goddess would swoop down to kiss the boeboe and shower you with a blessing or three. Illiad also lowkey tells a tale that even the Bible tries to teach fellow men, that jealousy makes you nasty. At least that was my ultimate take on it. There were a lot more virtues to take away from this epic poem but the jealousy was what stuck out to me. That and that life can be unfair, but it is what you make of it that will determine if someone will look up at you one day and go, ”that is unfair!”

Homer got a five out of 5 from me. It was not easy reading, but I am glad I got through it.

On Iliad’s heels was Stephen Fry’s Troy. Fry took me further back than Iliad did to get to the part the book is named after. It was always the my idea to read Iliad and then Troy as to hope I can glean or learn something from the great Greek works and I did. Fry had a very easy way of explaining certain events. Not as gruesome as Homer, but he did not shy away from nasty stuff either. I had this on Audible and having Fry narrate his own writing was a comfortable read for me. Comfortable as in he was the one that read the OG Sherlock Holmes series to me a few years ago. I learned quite a bit more than I was expecting from this, but I have no idea if I bettered my life in anyway because of it. It is an easy recommend to anyone one that is a Fry fan as well as want to go a little deeper into what shaped the events leading up to Iliad and the battle of Troy.

Not many of you will know this, but I accidentaly read book 2 in the Caspak series wayback in 2021 and thought I would get an idea of how the people from The Land Time Forgot got to where they were. Turns out I should just have stuck with book 2 as I remember nothing from this novel apart from the guy that gets captured after falling head over heels for some woman that was dating a German. This was written in 1918 so I can forgive Burroughs for writing class A cheese. The man at least had the guts to do so where I am too afraid for people to write my 3rd world ideas in book form. I can’t even remember if the dino’s was just a bait and switch and that the sabretooth was the only dino that showed up. At least this one was not wearing polka dot panties…

My plans for reading Spiderman from where it started in the 1960’s to where Venom was introduced. I failed this by only reading 4 books. Weird thing is that most of these comics are 20-25 pages long, but reading it on the app on my phone does not work so well as I have to do a little bit of zooming in and out on every page. I also get distracted on my phone way too easily… From what I’v read I am still amazed that full stories could be told in the way it was so long ago. To think that basically the Tobey spiderman film stayed so true to the first Spiderman pilot story is such a great way that Hollywood adapted it. The series from there took of on a great start too. Each issue Peter would be faced with a dilemma and Spiderman was introduced to a new villain. In Chameleon Strikes Spidey also tried his luck in joining with The Fantastic 4, you know because he was so well known and a super hero, but the Fantastics see missunderstands his intentions and chase him away like a vagabond. The story showed so much character development and you could feel Spidey’s emotions. In the Vulture one I can not remember exactly what was going on, but Spidey nearly gets bested by the baddy, only to remember something from class that day and in that way, clip the bird mans’ escapades short. Sandman was also a close call for the Webslinger, I can also not remember too clearly what happened, neither have I seen that Spiderman movie yet to know if it also stayed close to the source material. I will see if I can read more spiderman this year, or just say screw it and read what I want to read regarding Venom. I guess my comic book reviews will all be along the same vein as I have done here today.

I got into Cosmic Metal again at the start of the year and thoth (see what I did there?) to myself, maybe I should take on a few more Lovecraft stories again. This story was a whole 1 page long and I cannot give any review for it as I have no idea what H.P was driving at. I did get a glimpse back to a game I played last year that sort of gave me flasbacks as to what H. Also reminded me that I should start typing more Distraction Dinsdag posts… I will quote another person’s review for this story here, thank you Markus:

A beautiful story which takes merely a few short moments to flip through, Azathoth is essentially Lovecraft’s original spin on the now trope that humans have lost the ability to see the magic around us, instead drifting into a colourless world of concrete blocks in urban jungles.

”And because mere walls and windows must soon drive to madness a man who dreams and reads much, the dweller in that room used night after night to lean out and peer aloft to glimpse some fragment of things beyond the waking world and the greyness of tall cities.”

That was round one all done and dusted. I have to say, I feel a little lighter and less under pressure already. Will there be a part 2 and 3? Yeah probably, but will not be following very soon, I think. Will I use Catch up posts for the games I completed from 2021 through to this year? I think I might, specially as I have not been using the other website I showed of with my Alien Isolation review anymore. Too many accounts and passwords are starting to do my head in…

Till next time

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