*Book source ~ Library

 

From Goodreads:

A quartet of fallen mystics dubbed the "TrenchCoat Brigade" is introduced in this first collection of the adventures of Timothy Hunter. John Constantine, the Phantom Stranger, Dr. Occult, and Mister E take Hunter on a tour of the magical realms. Along the way he's introduced to Vertigo's greatest practitioners of magic and must choose whether or not to join their ranks.

 

The artwork is decent and the story is pretty good. Though I’m not sure I understood parts of it. Anyway, ever since I read about Constantine in The Sandman, he’s been a favorite character of mine. I’d love to read more about him. The other three guys are freaky weird. I’m not sure Timothy got what they were trying to tell him. He may be blinded by the new shiny…magic. I know he’s only 12, but I hope he uses his head. If I can find the rest of the graphic novels at the library then I’ll continue on. If not, oh well.

The best thing Four Doctors has going for it is a complicated time travel puzzle. Unfortunately that is about all it has going for it.

 

I loved the premise of the continuity bomb, a weapon left over from the Time War capable of rolling back an individual's timeline to a moment when they made a decision that could have led to the worst possible outcome and then reverses the decision so that the bad choice becomes reality. The bad version of the Doctor created by the changed timeline sets in motion a chain of events that will guarantee his timeline becomes real. A promising premise but in execution it gets very confusing.

 

It seemed like the multi Doctor aspect of the story was kind of wasted as 10 and 11 contributed very little. It might have worked much better as just a 12th Doctor story focused on the Doctor's self loathing that led to his isolation and decision to lash out against himself in the past.

 

Much more could have been done with the continuity bomb. I would love to see a series of stories where each version of the Doctor is forced to deal with a world where he made the wrong decision. Maybe the 1st Doctor decides not to steal a TARDIS and therefore all the good done by the Doctor is undone. Maybe the 4th Doctor does wipe out the Daleks at the moment of their creation but without the Daleks to fight the Time Lords become cosmic tyrants. Maybe the 8th Doctor chooses not to regenerate and join the Time War resulting in a Dalek victory. So many potential stories.

This is just a hodge podge of shorts that center around Harley. It's fun but nothing to write home about.

Here is my January progress for the four(ish) reading challenges I'm doing this year. You can see three of them here, and the fourth is my plan to read as many of the source materials for Disney movies as possible -- I have already read about half of them over a lifetime of Disney fandom.

 

From my personal reading challenge, in January I was supposed to read books I had received as gifts. Unfortunately, I only read one book from this category:

 

Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2006 - I received this book as a Christmas present from Pocketmermaid several years ago -- I think it was 2009. The gift note, written on festive Christmas stationery, was still tucked inside. She bought it for me because it had the "sequel" to one of my favorite books, "The Last Unicorn," in it, and also because I was making a bit of an informal study of the short story form at the time, hoping to untangle how to write some of my own. This book took me much longer to read than I thought -- the pages are trade-paperback sized and the text fairly cramped with small margins. I also had to stop for about a week to read a book club book. Glad to finally have it read, but sad that I didn't get more books under my belt for this part of the challenge!

 

From my Into the Forest Reading Challenge, I read

1. A book from the Endicott YA list - Ella Enchanted and

2. A book that was made into a favorite movie - Bambi

 

And for this 2015 Reading Challenge I read ...

1. A Book That Became a Movie - Bambi by Felix Salten
2. A Book With Nonhuman Characters - Watership Down by Richard Adams
3. A Mystery or Thriller - Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
4. A Book with a One-Word Title - Panic by Sharon Draper
5. A Book of Short Stories - Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2006 by Rich Norton
6. A Book Based Entirely on Its Cover - The Baby Tree by Sophie Blackall
7. A Memoir - Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
8. A Book Set in High School - Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
9. A Book Set in Your Home Town - Plover Landing by Marie Zhuikov (Duluth is my "adopted" hometown -- I don't think any books are set in my actual hometown.)

 

For Disney Source Materials, I read

1. Bambi by Felix Salten (heh, this one is showing up on every list!)
2. The Sorceror's Apprentice by Goethe and

Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

 

For February I am reading Love & Marriage books. One of my favorite themes!

*I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

Here's the entire point of this book:

1. Draw pictures. Usually these pictures involve a man drinking.

2. Put "witty" sayings about drinking. This so called wit ranges somewhere between moronic frat boy, crotchety old idiot, and the nonsensical musings of someone suffering from a traumatic brain injury. I've had more lucid conversations with people suffering from dementia.

3. Publish.

4. Profit.

Beyond that I can't understand the point. Neil Hinson is no Dorothy Parker or Winston Churchill. While my expectations weren't that high, I was expecting to be at least somewhat amused by this little novelty book but as mentioned before, it's just gibberish with pictures looking for a quick buck.