Gwen’s in the background some of the time. Peter fights the Rhino, the Vulture, and the Lizard (this is another Loeb staple: throw the hero’s rogues gallery at him in stages for no reason). There’s a half-assed story about some shadowy villain hunting Spider-Man but it’s little more than a reason for Loeb to shoehorn in some boring superhero fights between the, ahem, “romance” (plus the “mastermind” villain reveal is totally arbitrary and idiotic). The setup is: Peter’s feeling lonely on Valentine’s Day and decides to talk to the long-deceased Gwen via a tape recorder about the good ol’ days (even though MJ, his wife, is elsewhere in the house). So wait… what the hell is this about?! Absolutely nothing. His approach? Tell stories that have already been told! With Batman, it was the fall of Harvey Dent in The Long Halloween, and Robin becoming his sidekick in Dark Victory with Spider-Man Blue, it’s tangentially about the death of Gwen Stacy – but crucially, Gwen doesn’t die in this book. Jeph Loeb – the man who made having no ideas into a decades-long career in comics – brings his bafflingly successful approach to Batman over to Spider-Man.
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"The Familiar"- A sea captain, living in Dublin, is stalked by "The Watcher", a strange dwarf who resembles a person from his past. Hesselius writes letters to a Dutch colleague about the victim's condition, which gets steadily worse with time as the creature steps up its methods, all of which are purely psychological. "Green Tea" - An English clergyman named Jennings confides to Hesselius that he is being followed by a demon in the form of an ethereal monkey, invisible to everyone else, which is trying to invade his mind and destroy his life. The title is taken from 1 Corinthians 13:12, a deliberate misquotation of the passage which describes humanity as perceiving the world "through a glass darkly". In a Glass Darkly is a collection of five different tales, presented as selections from the posthumous papers of the occult detective Dr. This rich and layered tale of courage is told with humour and in breathtaking style by two creators at the height of their powers: from the author of modern classics such as American Gods, Coraline and The Sleeper and the Spindle, Odd and the Frost Giants will leave you spellbound. Now our hero must reclaim Thor's hammer, outwit the frost giants and release the gods. The eagle, bear and fox Odd encounters are Norse gods, trapped in animal form by the evil frost giants who have conquered Asgard, the city of the gods. Fleeing to the woods, Odd stumbles upon and releases a trapped bear. Odd, a young Viking boy, is left fatherless following a raid and in his icy, ancient world there is no mercy for an unlucky soul with a crushed foot and no one to protect him. A thrilling, wintry Nordic epic from the truly magical combination of author Neil Gaiman and illustrator Chris Riddell, weaving a tale of legend, magic and adventure which will grip and enchant readers from beginning to end. For by the time of her death in 1504, Isabella had laid the foundations not just of modern Spain, but of one of the world's greatest empires.Īcclaimed historian Giles Tremlett chronicles the life of Isabella of Castile as she led her country out of the murky middle ages and harnessed the newest ideas and tools of the early Renaissance to turn her ill-disciplined, quarrelsome nation into a sharper, modern state with a powerful, clear-minded, and ambitious monarch at its centre. Her pivotal reign was long and transformative, uniting Spain and setting the stage for its golden era of global dominance. Her marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon was crucial to her success, bringing together as it did two kingdoms, but it was a royal partnership in which Isabella more than held her own. Ahead of her lay the considerable challenge not only of being a young, female ruler in an overwhelmingly male-dominated world, but also of reforming a major European kingdom that was riddled with crime, corruption, and violent political factionism. In 1474, a twenty-three year old woman ascended the throne of Castile, the largest and strongest kingdom in Spain. But magic isn’t the only danger in the world, and Mika will need to decide whether to risk everything to protect a found family she didn’t know she was looking for… An irritatingly appealing threat.Īs Mika begins to find her place at Nowhere House, the thought of belonging somewhere begins to feel like a real possibility. The handsome and prickly librarian of Nowhere House would do anything to protect the children, and as far as he’s concerned, a stranger like Mika is a threat. It breaks all of the rules, but Mika goes anyway, and is immediately tangled up in the lives and secrets of not only her three charges, but also an absent archaeologist, a retired actor, two long-suffering caretakers, and… Jamie. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic. She thinks no one will take it seriously.īut someone does. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she’s used to being alone and she follows the rules… with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos “pretending” to be a witch. A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family-and a new love-changes the course of her life.Īs one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don’t mingle and draw attention. |