Theaker's Week (w/c 1 September 2026)

On Tuesday, September 1, I finished off Red Sonja and Vampirella Meet Betty and Veronica, which may sound interesting but felt more like the early Buffy comics than any of their own titles. Amy Cho and Maria Sanapo are the principal writer and artist, but all their work is outshone by half a dozen alternate covers by Dan Parent in the traditional Archie style that give a glimpse of the project this could have been. That another 40 or so alternate covers are also included feels like overkill. The story? Red Sonja and Vampirella go undercover as students at Riverdale High to investigate some murders. ***, and that’s being generous.

On Wednesday, September 2, I read Justice League Dark, Vol. 5: Paradise Lost. *** Seeing that this was mostly written by J.M. DeMatteis led me to expect amorphous, intangible enemies and that’s exactly what I got, as the supernatural friends and their spooky house get stuck in the Between. Andreas Guinaldo’s art is very pretty, reminding me of Phil Jimenez. There are some nice character interactions and I’ll never totally hate any comic that features John Constantine, but it’s weird to see him flying around like a particularly dowdy superhero. Len Wein co-writes the final story in the book, which frustratingly turns out to be the only one not featuring his creation Swamp Thing.

On Thursday, September 3, I read Blood Squad Seven, Vol. 1: Perilous Relaunch *** by Joe Casey and Paul Fry. It’s a curious book: it’s a continuity implant, plugging the hole left when Rob Liefeld and his characters left Image Comics. So we see a new version of an old team getting together in the present, and flashbacks to when they (instead of Liefeld’s Youngblood cast, as previously seen) encountered characters like Spawn and the (Savage) Dragon. It feels a bit redundant, given that Image continuity was never the tightest, but we’re only four issues in at this point and it sounds like the creators have ambitious plans, so I’ll certainly read more – especially since volumes 2 and 3 are in the same Humble Bundle.

On Friday, September 4, I read Hollow Girl, Vol. 14: Blunt by Luke Cooper. *** I got this entire series in a Fanatical bundle and they have been my emergency ripcord this year whenever it’s got too close to midnight without me finishing a book or audiobook yet – I have to keep the run going! They are short, quick reads with lots of violence and a more-or-less self- contained story in each book. I don’t know how Cooper produces the art, but it got me thinking about ways I could use 3D modelling software to produce artwork for TQF, and you may see the results of that in future issues. In this book the original hollow girl cores back in spirit to protect her successor and the guilt-ridden librarian who looks after her comatose body when vengeful ghosts aren’t taking it out for a spin.

On Saturday, September 5 I was informed that we needed the ingredients for making home-made pizzas, so I took the tram and rode it back and forth a bit first, reading a nice little Penguin 70, Mirror of Ink ***** by Jorge Luis Borges. It’s a collection of seven short stories, some of which, like “The Library of Babel”, I have read before, and more than once. The story that grabbed my attention this time was “Blue Tigers”, about a man who ignores instructions to go up a sacred hill in India and comes back down with a selection of self-replicating pebbles. It’s more of a traditional horror story than the others I’ve read by Borges, and I loved it. I should really read more by him.

On Sunday, September 6 I read The Witcher, Vol. 7: The Ballad of Two Wolves by Bartosz Sztybor and Miki Montlló. *** I’ve quite enjoyed this series from Dark Horse Comics, although the fact they are licensed from the company that makes the videogame rather than the author seems ethically dodgy, even if it is legally sound. This volume is a bit better than the last couple. Geralt is travelling with his pet bard, Dandelion, and looking for work, and something for his pal to sing about. But no one in the village agrees on who or what he should be killing – the werewolf tearing up the town at night, the three sisters buying up cheap property, or something else entirely? The exaggerated art style works quite well for a story that has a humorous tone, despite some very dark and unpleasant incidents.

Theaker’s Week(s) (August 2026)

I didn’t get around to writing a bit about every book and audiobook I finished last month, but here are a few.

On August 3 I finished Kasane, Vol. 2 by Daruuma Matsuura, tranlated by Jennifer Ward. *** It’s a manga book about a young woman whose face inspires horror in others, but who has, with the help of some special lipstick, the ability to steal faces with a kiss. After twelve hours the faces return to their rightful owners. In this volume she has developed a peculiar relationship with a beautiful but ordinary actress who suffers from an extreme form of narcolopsy. So she is keen for Kasane, who is a superb actress, to take her place for shows. In theory, Kasane gets to act, and Neena Tanzawa gets to be famous. But everyone has complicated feelings so it’s not that simple.

On August 4 I listened to all of the Doctor Who: The First Doctor Box Set, ***** which features original cast members Carole Ann Ford (Susan) and William Russell (Ian Chesterton) performing adapted versions of two scripts Moris Farhi wrote in the 1960s. Nigel Robinson does a terrific job of turning full-cast television scripts into audio three-handers. “Farewell, Great Macedon” is a lost epic in the vein of “Marco Polo”, with the Doctor and his companions travelling with Alexander the Great. “The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance” was written as a calling card rather than for production, but is still excellent, set on a world where everyone must fall in love -- or perish! Big Finish really have done some stunning work.

Skipping forward, on August 17 I read Jeremy, Vol. 1: Paradise Island, **** which is an English translation of volume 15 of a Flemish series, Jommeke, by Jef Nys. It was originally published in 1962, and that perhaps shows in some story elements, but it looks fabulous. A blonde-haired genius and his three friends go on a round-the-world cruise, but are put ashore by a vengeful criminal who presumably they had encountered in previous Flemish books. They spend six months colonising the island and exploiting the free labour of the local primates and parrots, but everyone has a lovely time. [four stars]

On August 17 and 18 I read Jeremy, Vol. 2: Children in Charge **** and Jeremy, Vol. 3: Frankie’s Bride to Be, **** then on August 28 Jeremy, Vol. 4: The Soap King, **** another bonkers and brilliant adventure. This one is less fantastical than the others, but no less bizarre. Jeremy’s friend Frankie wants to win a competition which requires him to go three months without washing, but his mum doesn’t want that, so he runs away from home and she pursues him. [four stars] There are over 300 books in this series in Flemish – the most recent of them featuring a dinosaur! I hope many more are translated into English.

On August 20 I finished The School Inspector Calls by Gervase Phinn, **** the shorter of the two books he has published under that title. This one is a Penguin 70: I paid one of my daughters to go through my Penguin 70 box set of them, cross-refer with Goodreads, and turn around all those I’ve read. Turns out there’s a lot of them! This was a funny and charming series of episodes in the life of a school inspector. Something about his style reminded me of my co-editor’s dad, which endeared the book to me. [four stars]

On August 26 and 27 I listened to Cyberman, Part 1: Scorpius **** and Cyberman, Part 2: Fear, **** a pair of excellent short dramas produced by Big Finish and written by Nicholas Briggs, who also plays the cybermen and directs. A future Earth is at war with the androids it created, and in desperation turns to the Scorpius project, which turns humans into super-soldiers in silver suits… Not hard to guess where the story is going, but it creates a superb sense of dread.

I was a bit disappointed on Sunday, August 30, because I spent the day listening to an audiobook while typesetting a bunch of stuff (including the next collection of Roderick Langham adventures!), but as midnight approached I realised I wouldn’t finish the audiobook in time. Instead, I quickly finished off a Penguin 70, Summer in Algiers by Albert Camus. *** It’s basically a bit of travel writing, and feels a bit patronising, but it was interesting to get a glimpse of Algeria as it was back then. It’s one of those books where you suspect the sentences would sound much cooler in the original French.

On Monday, August 31, I finished off I Am Slaughter, **** a Warhammer 40k novel by Dan Abnett. It’s the first in a series of twelve short novels, The Beast Arises, that on Audible have been collected in four omnibuses, three of which are included in their current two-for-one sale. How could I resist? Although I did look up a few things (40K is not, as I had previously thought, the future of the Warhammer Fantasy world), the book goes out of its way to be a great starting point. There’s not much going on in the universe, except a few border skirmishes, and people start to wonder if a standing army is really needed. Then a routine bug hunt goes badly wrong... Read by Gareth Armstrong, whose work I have admired so much on the Maigret audiobooks.

I’ve now finished a book or an audiobook every day for 307 days running. If I don’t make it to a full year now I’ll be really annoyed with myself. That will be October 30, and then it’ll be time to stop reading and start writing a new novel…

Theaker’s Week! (w/c 27 July 2026)

Since buying a Kindle Colorsoft in one of Amazon’s many sales, I haven’t had much use for it. For colour stuff like comics, a Fire Tablet is better, and for prose, the colour layer makes the Colorsoft much darker than other ereaders, so it had been gathering dust. But this week I had the idea of using it for storing and playing my Audible books and it’s been great for that – I can have it sitting on my desk while I'm working in a way that would be distracting if it were my phone or a tablet.

On Monday I used the Colorsoft to listen to the last few episodes of Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully, The Complete Series 1 and 2, *** a Radio 4 science fiction comedy written by Eddie Robson, and script-edited by Arthur Matthews. The first series got it off to a good start, with tv legends Peter Davison and Jan Francis playing the parents of village rebel leader Katherine Parkinson. Season two loses something with the departure of Julian Rhind-Tutt as the alien leader, but there were still some very funny episodes.

On Tuesday I finished a French-language album by Jean-Michael Charlier and Albert Uderzo, L’Ecole des aigles, *** first in a series of Biggles-esque fighter pilot comics. When I receive my small ALCS payment each year (make sure you sign up, if you’re a writer), I like to treat myself. Last year it was a little couch for my office, and this year I bought a full set of Tanguy et Laverdure omnibuses on eBay, having never read one before. Not sure what got into me! But this one got the series off to a good start, even if the lettering was a bit hard to read at times.

On Wednesday I finished another album in French, Je n’oublie rien!, **** the first in a series of spin-offs about Thorgal’s frenemy, Kriss de Valnor. It’s pretty miserable stuff, as we see the tribulations that led to her violent life of crime, but it’s a gripping story and the art by G. De Vita always looks good. Y. Sente provides the scenario. I recently discovered that Izneo, the French answer to Comixology, is still going, and still available in the UK, despite having closed its English-language website. And what’s more, the range of albums contained in their subscription has massively increased, and now includes loads of my favourites, like Thorgal, Lucky Luke and Michel Vaillant. I'm in heaven!

On Thursday I read The Finger, ** a short set of inconsequential stories by William Burroughs from the turquoise Penguin Moderns series, about junkies, thieves and paedophiles. I went to Goodreads to give it two stars and realised that I had already done so, back in 2018. I’ve now gone through the box set and turned around all those I’ve already read, so this disaster never happens again.

On Friday it was back to the Kindle Colorsoft to listen to Counter-Measures, Series 3, **** which sadly is the last series of this Doctor Who spin-off available on Audible, and frustratingly ends on a cliffhanger, but it was all very well done. The writers of this series are Matt Fitton, John Dorney, Justin Richards and Ken Bentley. I particularly liked “The Concrete Cage”, set in an apparently haunted tower block, and “Unto the Breach”, which sends some of the team off to East Germany for a Cold War adventure. A rather fun thing I did while listening to some of this set was download a bunch of photographs of the cast, from Doctor Who and elsewhere, upload them as a “Counter-Measures” collection to Amazon Photos, and then set it as my television’s screensaver to play while the audiobook was playing. It was very satisfying when the voices happened to line up with the photos.

On Saturday I finished off a novel, Doctor Who: Jubilee by Robert Shearman. ***** Every single one of the original Doctor Who television stories has now become both a novel and an audiobook, so BBC Books have begun to cast the net wider. This book is a novelisation of an acclaimed Big Finish story, originally released on CD and then adapted as the tv episode “Rose” – which Robert Shearman also adapted as a novel. This version sees the sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe arrive in 2003, in an England about to celebrate the 100th jubilee of the Doctor and Evelyn defeating the Daleks, an adventure that they don’t (at first) remember. The English have kept one Dalek alive, and have used leftover Dalek technology to build an empire. I thought it was terrific, an interesting critique of the Doctor’s usual approach – to land somewhere, cause social upheaval for a day or two, then move on – and also a warning about turning dangerous stuff into jokes, lest you forget how dangerous they actually are. I hope BBC Books commission more Big Finish adaptations, because it works wonderfully well: it has the heft of a classic story but not the overfamiliarity.

On Sunday (today) I finished a silver Penguin Mini Modern, Killer in the Rain by Raymond Chandler, **** an enjoyable bit of hard-boiled crime fiction about the murder of a pornographer. That makes it 277 days of finishing a book or an audiobook every day…

Theaker's Week! (w/c 20 July 2026)

I've been on a streak of finishing one book or audiobook a day – usually a very short one! – for quite a while now. I haven't had time to write up many full reviews lately, so I thought, why not do a little round-up each week of the books I've read and the audiobooks I've listened to. I haven't been writing much and maybe writing a little bit will encourage me to write a bit more.

So, last week, on Monday, I finished Conan: The Halls of Immortal Darkness ***, a decent novella by Laird Barron from Titan Books. I also finished Saga Vol. 11 *** by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples on Monday. For me this comic hasn't lived up to its initial promise, and already feels a bit dated in some ways, and what appear to be the computer-generated environments are a bit distracting. On Tuesday I finished Issak, Vol. 1 ***, a manga book by Shinji Makari and DOUBLE–S about a sniper who has travelled from Japan to medieval Europe in search of revenge. It was pretty good, but I don't know if I'll read any more of them. On Wednesday I read Saga, Vol. 12. *** On Thursday I finished East of West, Vol. 9 *** and Vol. 10 *** by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta which bring this beautifully-drawn but slightly confusing story of future war to a fairly satisfying end. I never stopped being annoyed by all the blank pages padding out the books in this series. On Friday I finished another series, Valerian and Laureline, with The Future Is Waiting. *** It's an odd book, basically a homage by the creators Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières to their own work. I wish the series had carried on being the science fiction adventure it had been in the early volumes, rather than introducing gods and rebooting Valerian and Laureline as children and stuff like that, but I'm still glad I read it. *** On Saturday I read Koma, Vol. 1: The Voice of the Chimneys ****, an album by Pierre Wazem and Frederik Peeters about a child chimney-sweeper who keeps passing out, and the demon who eventually makes his acquaintance. An interesting start. And on Sunday I listened to Counter-Measures Season 2, **** a highly entertaining Doctor Who spin-off from Big Finish about characters who originally appeared in the Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred story Remembrance of the Daleks. The stories in this set are by Matt Fitton, James Goss, Cavan Scott and Mark Wright.