Reading Report and Book Mail! 4/18/26

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:01]Hello my friends, hello and welcome once again to Stately Von Manor where Roger and I have returned. For my reading report, it's time for my reading report.

[00:00:13]Finally.

[00:00:14]Real life has been terrible lately. I don't know if you've noticed Roger, it's been kind of terrible lately. A lot of stuff going on. And it's been getting in the way of the most important thing in life, which is to read books, and the other most important thing in life, which is to make videos about reading books.

[00:00:31]But here I am with my reading report because I did read some stuff.

[00:00:37]And I did get some stuff in the mail. I got some stuff in the mail. So, we'll we'll talk about that as well.

[00:00:45]We'll start off with the stuff that I read. So, I'll break out my list. My list for the 500 book challenge. The never-ending challenge where I have to read 500 books that I own before I'll buy any new ones.

[00:01:00]Okay.

[00:01:02]Last time, 2 weeks ago I think it was, we left off with book number 357.

[00:01:10]Okay, book 357 is this one, First Passage by Robert E.

[00:01:17]Howard. So, I I did a video about this couple weeks ago when it came in. So, this this has been published by the Robert E. Howard Foundation Press.

[00:01:27]It's a special publication published as a as part of a fundraiser to raise money for the Robert E. Howard Museum in Cross Plains Cross Plains, Texas. And that's Robert E. Howard's house. The house where Robert E. Howard grew up and wrote all his fantastic stories. It it it needs some repairs. It needs some heavy-duty repairs. So, this book will help with that project.

[00:01:54]And it's awesome. So, like I said, they very kindly sent this to me and I read it right away.

[00:02:01]Because what this is, it's First Passage Early Drafts of Beloved Yarns. So, these are stories great Robert E. Howard stories, but they're earlier draft versions of those stories.

[00:02:14]So, the stories in here beautiful book illustrated by Gary Gianni.

[00:02:23]Starts off with Black Vulmea's Vengeance and a early draft of that. And then it has a ton of other great stories, a lot of horror stories in here including Pigeons from Hell, The Hoofed Thing, Old Garfield's Heart, The Dead Remember.

[00:02:38]Then we also have fantasy stories, of course, Kings of the Night that the great Bran Mak Morn King Kull team up, which is one of his greatest stories of all.

[00:02:48]Uh has has Solomon Kane in here with the the Footfalls Within and Wings in the Night.

[00:02:55]Uh we have historical stories.

[00:02:57]Uh The Shadow of the Vultures in here, The Voice of El-Lil, which is an adventure story.

[00:03:03]Hawks over Acheron.

[00:03:05]And then we have uh Francis Xavier Gordon El Borak with Son of the White Wolf and Hawk of the Hills. So, a lot of great stories in this volume. And they're all earlier drafts like I said.

[00:03:20]So, they all differ here and there from the published versions that we are more familiar with.

[00:03:29]These drafts, as far as I am aware, have never been published uh in a book edition before.

[00:03:37]So, basically this was a new book for me because I had never read any of these versions of these stories.

[00:03:44]And so that was awesome. I knew Robert E. Howard book basically with material I've never read before.

[00:03:50]So, that was cool. And this and the stories in these earlier draft versions really hold up really well. I mean, if you read them, they read just like regular Robert E. Howard stories.

[00:04:02]There's not a lot of rough edges in here. There's some, but you know, Robert E. Howard was a pulp writer who wrote really fast. So, that's something that you would expect.

[00:04:13]Um but fantastic stories. What a talented writer Robert E. Howard was. I mean, just a genius at telling stories. And yeah, I highly recommend this if you're interested in Robert E. Howard's work. And it works perfectly well just as an anthology of awesome stories because it certainly is that. It's, you know, a little longer than some of the other books I've been reading for uh for the challenge. I've been trying to get to the challenge through the challenge quickly and it just hasn't worked out for me. 479 pages long.

[00:04:49]And it's it's great. Highly recommend First Passage. Thanks again to the Robert E. Howard Foundation Press for sending me this awesome book. It's great. So, I read that.

[00:05:01]I'll put you right there. Okay, so that was book 357, which brings us to 358, which I talked about earlier this week.

[00:05:11]This is Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.

[00:05:15]So, this is Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.

[00:05:19]The graphic novel by Tom King and Bilquis Evely.

[00:05:23]And I really liked it. I talked all about this the other day on Epic Comic Book Wednesday. I did a video video on it and then my then my partner on Epic Comic Book Wednesday, Steve Donahue, did his much less complimentary video on this on this book. I like it. It's not perfect. It's not the perfect superhero comic book, but it's I really enjoyed it. I I thought it was excellent. So, yeah, if you if you want to hear me ramble on for 20 minutes about this about this uh book, go check out my last video. It was my last video, right? Yeah, it was.

[00:06:04]Okay, so yeah, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. I read that and I really liked it. Which brings us to book 359.

[00:06:15]And this is the last book I finished in the last 2 weeks. So, my my reading has not been great >> [laughter] >> the last 2 weeks. But I did finish this.

[00:06:25]This is Weird Frequencies: Strange Stories by stranger authors.

[00:06:32]So, this uh is a book written mostly by my fellow BookTubers.

[00:06:38]And it was sent to me a while back and I intended to read it right away, but didn't.

[00:06:45]But I finally got to it and I was really happy I I I read it because it is excellent. This is an excellent anthology. You never know what you're going to get with an independently published book.

[00:06:59]But this exceeded my expectations. This was a lot of fun, this book. And uh some great stories in here uh that show great talent and imagination. There is it lives up to its name. It's pretty weird, this book. There's some weird stuff in here. Uh and I really enjoyed it.

[00:07:16]Edited by J. Swick, who provides the first story in the volume. I'll go through some of my favorite stories from this. I won't go through them all.

[00:07:26]But the first the first story in here is a story called Beyond the Thick.

[00:07:30]The Thick, which is this alien jungle.

[00:07:34]And this story, Beyond the Thick, is a detective story, which is also a science fiction story. And when you reach the end of the story, it's also a horror story. So, it's got all that stuff mixed in there.

[00:07:49]And it's all mixed in effortlessly. It's an excellent story, a great story to start off with in the volume. You know, you got to start off with a good story with in an anthology. And this is definitely uh an excellent story. It's it's one of my favorites from the from the collection, definitely.

[00:08:08]Another one that's really interesting is a story by Brian Raines called Mouth of the World.

[00:08:15]Which is definitely lives up to the weird title.

[00:08:19]That's a weird story, man.

[00:08:22]Uh I don't know where the idea to the from that story came from. Great rather violent science fiction story.

[00:08:30]Uh and it's excellent. What an excellent story. That one was that one was really really good. And and there's a bunch of them in here. Ruins of Balor by T. H.

[00:08:39]Brandt.

[00:08:40]Uh is kind of a historical pulp story. It's a pulp story. But a good one. It was like it was it was definitely my kind of thing.

[00:08:51]Last Rites by uh Andrea from Infinite Text. Last Rites.

[00:08:56]That was weird. That was a really weird one. I liked that one, too. Um a lot of really good ones in here.

[00:09:04]La Fent Eye by Nick Anderson. That was really good.

[00:09:07]Um probably possibly my favorite uh in this anthology. Possibly my favorite was a story called Faster Than Life by the Outlaw Levi Wallace. He's got Outlaw in his name. So, that's cool. But he wrote a story called Faster Than Life, which is a science fiction horror story, which is genuinely creepy.

[00:09:31]And just awesome. So, that story was worth buying the book all by itself. And there's a bunch of other great stories in here.

[00:09:39]I mean, they're all worth reading, all the stories in here. I was I was very impressed by this. So, thank you, Mr. Swick, for sending me this anthology.

[00:09:48]I'm I'm glad I finally was able to get to it. Weird Frequencies still available. And I hear a rumor that they're going to put another one of these out. Uh possibly this year. We'll We'll see, but I like this one a whole lot. And the cover is really cool. That's a cool looking cover right there. Who does the cover?

[00:10:05]It should say, right?

[00:10:07]Cover art by John Chapman. Good job, John Chapman, with that awesome cover art. So, that was cool. That That was the last thing I finished. That was book 359.

[00:10:19]Weird Frequencies. Let me move some stuff around because I've been reading some other stuff as well. Of course, this is my comic book reading.

[00:10:27]I've been reading lots of comic book stuff.

[00:10:30]So, let's get to that.

[00:10:32]I've been reading every issue of The Amazing Spider-Man from the first run of The Amazing Spider-Man. And I highly suspect that I'm not just going to end I'm not I'm not just going to stop with the end of the first run like I've done with the other Marvel characters.

[00:10:48]I I'm probably going to continue just reading Spider-Man indefinitely.

[00:10:53]I've got I've got a few major comic book projects going on at the same time.

[00:11:00]And this is one of them. And this is the main one, Spider-Man. So, I'm I've been reading Spider-Man.

[00:11:06]And I'm I'm on the uh Petrified Tablet storyline. The Petrified Tablet storyline. The This uh epic collection is called The Secret of the Petrified Tablet.

[00:11:18]And this has stories from 1968 to 1970.

[00:11:22]So, we're closing out the 1960s with this story. And the next one I have to read is when Spider-Man battles Quicksilver.

[00:11:31]Spider-Man's in a bit of a jam because he's been fighting the Kingpin, and the Kingpin stole the Petrified Tablet, which is this which is exactly what it says it is, a petrified tablet that has writing on it. And the secret of this writing can do something. We don't know yet what it can do once you translate this writing.

[00:11:49]But it has great power, and the Kingpin wanted it, but Spider-Man foiled his ambish- his ambitions with the tablet, and Kingpin ended up in jail. He won't stay in jail, but he ended up in jail.

[00:12:03]In fact, he escapes. He escapes pretty much right away.

[00:12:08]But Kingpin said, "Hey, Spider-Man was actually my partner stealing the tablet." He tells the story how Spider-Man helped him steal the tablet just to get Spider-Man in trouble. And of course, everybody just believes the Kingpin because the Kingpin is such a trust- trustworthy fellow. Of course.

[00:12:26]And so, now Spider-Man has the tablet.

[00:12:29]And when he tried to give it back to the cops, they tried to shoot him. You know, because that's just the way things go.

[00:12:36]So, he So, he's stuck with this tablet.

[00:12:38]And he doesn't know what to do with it.

[00:12:41]But let's see if I can And he fights the Kingpin again.

[00:12:48]He's stuck with this tablet.

[00:12:50]Let me see if I can get to this scene I'm looking for.

[00:12:53]Oh, yeah. So, he finds a police officer, and the police officer shoots at him, and he knocks the gun out of the police officer's hand. So, the police officer is disarmed at this point. Now, this is the perfect opportunity for Spider-Man just to go, "Okay, you Okay, you're disarmed now. I'm just going to hand over the tablet to you.

[00:13:15]You take care of it."

[00:13:18]And that would be that. He's gotten rid of the tablet. He can give it to the police officer. But inexplicably, he doesn't.

[00:13:24]He doesn't do that.

[00:13:26]He just rushes away to his apartment and is like, "What do I do with this tablet?" Why didn't you just give it to the police officer once you disarmed him? He could have taken care of it.

[00:13:37]You know, it's stuff like this, Stanley, in your writing.

[00:13:42]I mean I don't know.

[00:13:45]He must have wrote quickly.

[00:13:47]And by the end of this issue, um Spider-Man ends up giving J. Jonah Jameson a heart attack, which let's face it, J. Jonah Jameson deserves. But now Spider-Man's in more trouble than ever.

[00:13:59]And apparently, Quicksilver goes after Spider-Man.

[00:14:04]And will probably get his ass handed to him because he's Quicksilver. Anyway, I've been reading Spider-Man, and it's been awesome.

[00:14:10]So, I finished reading uh a book which I forgot to bring out. I I finished reading a DC Finest volume of The Flash, but it doesn't count for the 500 book challenge. But then I started up reading this. This is Batman. I started reading what, a year or two ago?

[00:14:27]Uh the Golden Age Batman, and I just stopped for whatever reason. So, I picked this up. This is The Case of the Chemical Syndicate, which has the the Batman's first adventures, which is which has been a lot of fun.

[00:14:44]I've always been more of a Superman guy, but I've I've been reading more Batman's Batman lately. I figure I need more Batman in my life.

[00:14:52]So, yeah, Golden Age Batman stuff.

[00:14:55]Another great DC Finest volume.

[00:14:58]That's really big, right? Yeah, this is 616 pages. So, I've been reading this.

[00:15:02]So, I'm going to catch up on Golden Age Batman.

[00:15:06]And yeah, the next one I have to read is Detective Comics number 36. It's Detective Comics number 36. So, I've been reading that. But I also have another project, Roger, that I've decided to do.

[00:15:19]And that project is something I I've intended to do for a while. And that is to read every issue of Conan. Read every issue of Conan. At least every issue of Conan ever printed in English.

[00:15:33]There have been some Conan that's been printed in other places. There was like this old um weird Conan comic printed in Mexico 100 years ago that I think was called Amra. I can't remember. Anyway, there was this like this old Conan comic book printed in Mexico that I've heard about that I've never seen, and I'll probably never read. But there was that, and then there was the French Conan that's been reprinted here as The Sumerian. I'll probably read that. But all the all the major Conan series from Marvel and Dark Horse and now Titan Comics, I'm going to read all of those issues. I've decided.

[00:16:13]I decided this last night, Roger. So, I picked up I picked up the first Marvel omnibus of Conan the Barbarian, the original Conan series. The original Conan The The original Marvel omnibus with this ridiculous Conan standing on a volcano cover. This is not the best cover. Titan Comics recently reprinted an edition of this with a much better cover.

[00:16:41]Uh but Titan Comics doesn't have the rights to do all of the stuff that Marvel printed in these these omnibuses. And last night I read a very long introduction by Roy Thomas.

[00:16:57]It was very long and awesome, though. I mean, he just He tells you the background of every single issue in the omnibus. It's it goes on at length as Roy Thomas likes to do. And it was it was amazing. It was amazing introduction.

[00:17:14]And we got our map there. And one thing the Titan Comics edition doesn't have is this original Chamber of Darkness story, which has Barry Windsor Smith's first attempt to draw a barbarian hero that looks a lot like his version of Conan when he first started drawing Conan.

[00:17:37]It's not the greatest story in the world, uh but it's interesting. So, I read that Chamber of Darkness story titled The Sword and the Sorcerers.

[00:17:50]A very original story, you know.

[00:17:54]Uh written by Roy Thomas. So, I read that. And so, yeah, I'm I'm going to read this omnibus. And I bought this a long time ago. So, this will actually count for the 500 book challenge when I finish it. Yeah.

[00:18:06]I'll talk more about this project later.

[00:18:10]So, I just I just can never have enough projects going on at the same time. So, there's that. And I also got some books in the mail. So, let's talk about the books that I got in the mail, Roger.

[00:18:24]So, the Great Grammaticus The Great Grammaticus sent me some books. Uh He recently did a video where he talked about this book, The Man-Kzin Wars, Volume 1.

[00:18:41]This was a whole series, um which is which was created by Larry Niven. And it became an anthology series with different science fiction writers writing about this world where human beings have to fight the the Kzin, which are like humanoid space tigers. Humanoid space tigers are always trouble. As you know, especially when they're from space and have, you know, heavy heavy weaponry.

[00:19:13]So, he did Grammaticus did a video where he talked about this book.

[00:19:20]And he says the stories in this book are great except for the one written by Poul Anderson, or Poul Anderson, which he said was terrible. But I'm going to read it because, you know, I have to read the whole book for it to count for the 500 book challenge. And [snorts] since I didn't buy this book, it was just sent to me, then it counts cuz I own it, and I didn't buy it. So, you know, that's a good thing about gifts. So, thank you, Grammaticus, for sending me The Man-Kzin Wars.

[00:19:45]That is awesome. I I remember this series coming out, and I never I never read any of them for whatever reason, but now I can because I have this book.

[00:19:55]He also sent me a few other books. He sent me Tunnel in the Sky. This is a really cool copy of Tunnel in the Sky.

[00:20:03]Now, I already have a copy of this book, but it it has a different cover and it's literally falling to pieces. So, this is a much nicer edition of Tunnel in the Sky by Robert Heinlein. And I I've never read this book. So, now I could read this book in a in an edition that's not going to fall apart in my hands. And it looks really cool.

[00:20:24]So, there you go. Tunnel in the Sky. He sent me a couple other things. This one is particularly exciting. This is The Ship of Ishtar. He talked about this Grammaticus did a while back in a video as well. So, this is The Ship of Ishtar.

[00:20:38]I have a copy of this somewhere also.

[00:20:42]But it it's not in this nice of a nice condition. But yeah, The Ship of Ishtar, another book I've never read.

[00:20:48]Look at that awesome cover. Look at how great that was. This is from the Avon series of A. Merritt books.

[00:20:56]And uh yeah, so I have to get to this one. I've read some other A. Merritt books, but but not The Ship of Ishtar.

[00:21:02]So, yeah. I think it's this one and Seven Footprints to Seven Footprints of Satan. Those are both A. Merritt books I still I still have to read. So, yeah.

[00:21:11]This one I will probably read sooner rather than later. And so, he sent me all that all those books, but probably the most useful of all in certain certain situations was was this. Um Grammaticus sent me an operator's manual for the M-16 rifle, which will be very handy if Roger ever sends me back in time to the Vietnam War. And then, you know, maybe I'll need this. I hope I remember to have it in my pocket when when that happens when you when you send me back in time.

[00:21:45]I Actually, I don't own an M-16 rifle, but you know, you never know.

[00:21:50]Now I'm prepared. Thank you, Grammaticus, for making You know, if if a BookTuber ever sends you books and uh a manual on how to operate firearms is in it, it's probably from Grammaticus. So, that's pretty cool. Thanks, Grammaticus.

[00:22:07]Thanks.

[00:22:09]Okay, so Grammaticus sent me that.

[00:22:12]This next book came from my good friend, the International Man of Mystery.

[00:22:18]He sent me an awesome copy of Apache Devil. Of course, I already have this book, but I didn't have this edition. Uh I don't know that I've ever seen this edition of Apache Devil.

[00:22:32]Edgar Rice Burroughs western Apache Devil.

[00:22:35]Uh so, yeah, this was really cool. And the International Man of Mystery also sent me Actually, he sent Roger a gift.

[00:22:43]And you won't uh we're not going to show that until June because it's a very June on the range gift, but trust me, you'll see it. So, thank you, my good friend, International Man of Mystery, for sending me this awesome copy of Apache Devil. And uh Roger thanks you as well for the gift that you sent him. And then, the Literate Texan, Randy Ray, sent me something in the mail.

[00:23:09]He sent me this. This is Supreme: The Return by Alan Moore. So, this is Alan Moore's 1990s series Supreme, which is, according to Randy Ray, kind of his version of Superman.

[00:23:24]And Randy speaks very highly of this.

[00:23:27]And he asked me, "Have you ever read this thing? You should do an Epic Comic Book Wednesday on it."

[00:23:31]And I said, "No. I I actually I actually have never read this."

[00:23:36]Uh when these came out in the 1990s, I don't know why I didn't pick them up, but I didn't.

[00:23:44]But now I have it, thanks to Randy, and I can read Supreme: The Return cuz apparently uh apparently this is an awesome series.

[00:23:56]And I don't know that I read anything from Alan Moore in the 1990s, but now I will. I'll read this, and I will report to you what I think of it. So, yeah.

[00:24:05]I'll I'll probably do an Epic Comic Book Wednesday on this once I read it. So, you know, look out for that in the future. Okay, guys.

[00:24:14]That is all for today. I will return on Monday. I will be back on Monday for a special announcement. It's a special announcement, Roger. I will catch you then.