Things that brought me delight in November, 2017.
Books
I approached La Belle Sauvage with trepidation; I loved The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife, but The Amber Spyglass was a massive let down--so I was afraid that La Belle Sauvage might follow in its footsteps. Luckily, that isn't the case. The first volume of The Book of Dust is compelling, and honestly a return to form. It feels good to look forward to more books in this series again.
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Dragons of Autumn TwilightThis was a re-read of a book I first encountered in junior high. I was utterly amazed by both how much of it I remember, and how much I didn't. You can catch more of my nostalgia trip here on Bad Books for Bad People.
Ray Russell, IncubusThis book. This fuckin' book. As with the Dragonlance book above, you'll have to wait until the episode of Bad Books for Bad People where we cover this one for my full take.
Comics
Benitez and Steigerwald, Lady Mechanika vol. 1: The Mystery of the Mechanical CorpsePossibly a guilty pleasure (except I never feel guilt about media consumed), but the art is great and the storytelling takes some surprising turns.
Wiebe, Giani, Ferrier, Rat Queens vol. 4: High FantasiesThe fourth collected volume of Rat Queens was a low point for the series. High Fantasies feels a lot like starting over, for both the comic and its characters. It's definitely a step up, but it's not quite hitting its stride like I'd like it to. I find my brief interest in the series waning.
Music
Alien malignancy.
Bass heavy doom, crushing introspection, delicious Hammond organ.
The Black Dahlia Murder, Nightbringers
I look to Black Dahlia Murder for startling brutality, and Nightbringers delivers.
Gaming
Xanathar's Guide to Everything
Reading Xanathar's Guide to Everything made me want to try out a bunch of the new options it offers immediately, and that's probably the best thing you can say about a book of options. Also? This book might have my favorite D&D cover image of all time.
Television
American Horror Story is not good at subtly, which made the notion of a season drawing on the already outrageous presidential election of 2016 a daunting prospect. And Cult does not handle its subject--the myriad ways in which political allegiance in America is similar to adherence to a cult's dictates--with anything approaching deftness; it's hammers and nails all the way down. And yet, surprisingly, Cult doesn't go fully off the rails as so many seasons of American Horror Story so often do.
Film
Admittedly, I've never read the book this one is based on. (A cursory search says I haven't read any Stephen King novels-except for the Dark Tower series--that were published after 1989.) But the nightmare premise seems fresh: a woman handcuffed to a bed in the wake of a kinky game with her husband that leaves him dead on the floor, and her facing down both the traumas of the past and a serial killer on the loose.
Some things from your teenage years that you have a nostalgic love for don't hold up in retrospect, but The Craft is still a pretty fun movie. Yeah, the final third falls apart a bit, yet this was not cringe-worthy as I had feared.
