Right then.

Rye book fair tomorrow. We'll see what that brings...

Ze List

Here's wot I done got this week:

Batman and Robin #6
Chronicles of Wormwood Last Battle #2
Punishermax #1 (Steve Dillon Variant Cover)
Supergod #1 (of 5)
Unwritten #7
Walking Dead #67

I also flicked through these:

Batman Doc Savage Special #1
Strange #1 (of 4)

but decided against them. And y'know, even the comics I did get I'm finding it hard to get excited about. The weekly trip to the comics shop is feeling more like a chore these days, like a habit. Just something to get me out of the office. I'm still feeling the books more than the comics at present. Just started on Stephen King's Under the Dome, and it's pretty gripping thus far, certainly more so than any comics I've bought. Should I stop going to the comic shop? Has it really come to that?

Oh,

and I was amused by the appearance (or rather non -appearance) in the The Anti-Death League of one L. S. Caton, who featured in Amis's first novel, Lucky Jim. How's that for a shared universe.

The Anti-Death League by Kingsley Amis (A Very Brief Review)

I finished reading Kingsley Amis's The Anti-Death League about a minute ago, and decided to Google the title and see what other people have said about the book. And blow me if the fourth hit wasn't this very blog. That gave me a start, I can tell you.

Anyway, it's a brilliant novel, not at all what I was expecting. The eponymous League barely features as such, but of course the whole novel is essentially about the League, even though it doesn't actually exist. Or rather, it's about death, and God, and love. And it has a wicked little kick in the gonads to finish it off.

(UPDATE: This post was written when I was still feeling my way around what Existential Ennui could and should be as a blog. If I posted it now, it would be more of a proper review and contain lots of nerdy information about the cover artist and so forth. I also wouldn't be so concerned with its Google ranking, although I can't say I've completely rid myself of that unattractively needy trait, as I did just notice this post currently lives on the second page of hits if you Google the book's title. Anyway, the novel has only grown in my memory. It is excellent. For more recent – and better – posts on Kingsley Amis, go here and here.)

Huh.

I thought Existential Ennui was the top hit on google today. It was when I googled it a minute ago. And then I checked again, and it was at #8, where it usually seems to be. Weird.

So, the copy of Sebastian Faulks's Devil May Care that I won on eBay turned up yesterday, and as I kind of half-suspected, it wasn't a first edition at all. It was a fourth impression. Bastard. Hardly worth complaining though; it was only two quid. Being the mentalist that I am, I've now ordered a proper first edition (at least I bloody well hope it is – I checked with the seller and they assured me it is) on ABE, for £1.50. I can flog the other copy at the next boot sale I do.

Yes, yes, I know. I'm hopeless.

Televisual Entertainment

Now that autumn (or fall, as the yanks have it) has kicked in properly, there's a fair bit of interesting genre telly on again. Three episodes in (I think), Stargate Universe has proved pretty compelling, most of which is down to Robert Carlyle's character, Dr, Rush, and the chubby one, Eli, who can be relied upon to deliver a couple of genuinely funny one-liners each episode, along with the odd impression (his Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes this week was ace). Meanwhile Carlyle has been producing some astonishing work for what is essentially a slightly above standard genre show, going through the emotional wringer and eventually having a complete breakdown (his character, that is). I've only ever dipped into the Stargate 'franchise' previously, but even going by a cursory familiarity with previous incarnations, Universe is, thus far, a cut above.

Elsewhere, Dollhouse season two kicked off with a decent enough opener, although it obviously didn't match up to the completely mental season one closer, which was set in the future and really drilled into the potentially cataclysmic ramifications of the personality-imprint process, with no one knowing for sure if other people were who they said they were. I also caught the first episode of Hung, starring Thomas Jane of Punisher fame (and the little-seen and rather good Stander). I knew nothing about it going in; not even the show's title tipped me off, so I was pleasantly (if that's the word) surprised when the thrust (ahem) of the plot was revealed later in the episode: Jane's character, something of a failure in life, love and work, determines that the only thing he has going for him is his huge cock, and decides to use it to make his fortune. As Michael Palin might say, "And what about you? Do you think there's anything amusing about the name... Bigus... Dickus...?"