Disciple of the Cards

My wife accidentally encouraged me to think about keeping track of how much I’ve been reading because I’ve been better at taking time at it since I started my new job last year, so much so that we are pretty certain that I out read her in 2025 despite her having a pretty large goal for herself and being a much quicker reader than I am. She uses an app to track her reading goals but I checked it out and don’t love that option, so instead I think I’ll track it here and update throughout the year.

Most will be by Michael Crichton, as some time last year I had decided to re-read all of the Michael Crichton books I own while alternating with the earlier works of his that I had missed when I first read through his works growing up. At some point I might need to pause and read The Iliad graphic novel by Gareth Hinds, which I got for Christmas, and now I’ve got my eye on a Spider-Man and the X-Men graphic novel as it contains the villain Unus, who I might be getting for the card game Marvel: Champions, so I’m interested in reading something with this character whom I don’t recall having ever heard about prior to learning of this game last year.

I’ve included links to buy each book if anyone is actually interested, but first check to see if your local library already has them or if they’re available online through your local library, such as the Hoopla app.

Completed books:

1. The Great Train Robbery - Michael Crichton (I read just this one but here’s a listing for this and two of his other early works)

2. Grave Descend - Michael Crichton (writing as John Lange) (I read it for free via Hoopla curtesy of my library, thought Thriftbooks has it here)

3. Eaters if the Dead / The Thirteenth Warrior - Michael Crichton (here)

4. Binary - Michael Crichton (writing as John Lange) (here)

5. Spider-Man and the X-Men - Elliott Kaplan (here). My introduction to Shark Girl and Glob, who I knew about but had never seen in an issue. And also the Tumblr famous ‘I don’t want to cure cancer. I want to turn people into dinosaurs’ panel.

6. Excalibur (2004) Vol 1: Forging the Sword - Chris Claremont (here). As I should be getting into the campaign for the Marvel Champions expansion Age of Apocalypse some time later this year, and I had never heard of Unus before, I found Spider-Man and the X-Men and this title as I found online that he was in both. He only had a minuscule bit part in the Spider-Man and the X-Men and not much of a bigger part in the Excalibur Stoey, which is probably emblematic if the reasons why I had never heard of him before. Not a bad story and some interesting new mutants, but I didn’t love the conclusion with Unus and so am still wishing there was a story out there with Unus in a more substantial role.

7. The Amazing Spider-Man & Silk: The Spider(Fly) Effect - Robbie Thompson (here)

8. Congo - Michael Crichton (here)

9. Age of Apocalypse: Alpha (here). Finally started this classic story for the first time as ai continued my interest in stories that (briefly) include Unus.

10. Sphere - Michael Crichton (here)

11. Age of Apocalypse: Reign (here). No Unus in this one but I enjoyed the first collection enough to continue.

Bonus: I don’t really count these because I didn’t count the words, and they are not organized by pages like books, but by URL: I have also been trying to get back into reading Magic: The Gathering lore, starting with Lorwyn Eclipsed. Though I started playing MtG after Lorwyn came out, the creature type themes were always alluring to me, with Doran being one of my considerations for an early Commander deck, two attempts at a black/red elemental deck (I forget why I disassembled the first, but the second is a casual ‘Mediocre Magic’ style deck that has lasted so far), and I have often been drawn to green-black aligned elves. The other reason that I did not list these at first is I forgot when I finished Lorwyn Eclipsed’s stories, so I don’t know where to put it in this post, so here it is in the bonus.

In between pages of Michael Crichton’s Sphere, I also started reading the stories of the original Strixhaven set, as I skipped those for some reason the first go around and decided to go back before reading the stories for Secrets of Strixhaven.

I think this cat is more than just hanging out in my yard by my house, as I last saw him laying quite lazily on my deck and staring at me and my family as we entered the house not with any trepidation that we might chase him or dare try to pet him but the lack of fear of a cat that believes he owns the place.

I presume he in fact appreciates the hole in my skirting and may have moved in, for good or bad for my family and I. Here I find his look suggesting a disdain of having to have me and my family as upstairs neighbors, making, as I am sure we do, just so much racket with our movies, and the kid or dog running around, and snoring and whatever else we’re doing in an average week. And I don’t even know how our footsteps sound down there. I once had an upstairs neighbor who could just walk around normally and we’d swear they were intentionally stomping about.

Got to enjoy a really fun game with my brother and son yesterday:

Micro Pirates. Tons of fun with my son mostly digging for buried treasure, me trying to do delivery quests like I was some sort of Mal Reynolds of the High Seas, and my brother doing a mix of things but being the one of us most likely to sink other ships (including me, sadly, as I misremembered the rules and went up against a merchant vessel when I had no chance against it, which softened me up nicely for my brother to prevent me from winning). Until the two fights I got into, I enjoyed that I had a pirate that cared more about foraging for fruit than about fighting.

Would definitely play again!