My best guess is the Tales to Tremble By scary story collections:

Each story had some creepy art by Gordon Laite:

A lot of this fits with your descriptions from the best of my recollection.

Edit: Removed paragraph about potential third scary story series containing spider egg story, just realized that one was from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 3, so Tales to Tremble By and its sequel is my only guess here.

Bartholomew Kuma’s incredible powers from eating the paw paw fruit and his ability to sneak into a lot of situations in One Piece is adding up!

Thanks for posting, this is a solid review! I definitely scrolled too fast coming across it and read the title as just “Jack Into the Beanstalk” which sounded like a very different premise at first.

Definitely post a final review after you read book 3. I’m interested if it comes together as an entertaining trilogy or falls further from what you enjoyed about the first book by the end.

I’m not sure if it’s underrated but Mario Tennis Advance for the Game Boy Advance is a gigantic standout for the series.

It’s an action RPG from the same company that made the Golden Sun games for the GBA. The usual fun power hits and tennis mechanics with some of the tightest controls in the series with quality world building and the kind of RPG satisfaction you’d get from a company like Camelot.

According to Schipper, the first attempt was dull because the actors were too cautious, being afraid to make mistakes; the second attempt was the opposite, as the actors went “crazy”. Schipper says he became “angry” and “terrified” after seeing the second take and realizing he had only one chance left; in a subsequent meeting, he gave the cast a “hairdryer speech … [it] was not a meeting that ended in hugs and ‘good talk.’ It was crazy. But the tension was built on knowing we wanted the same thing”. Schipper believes the final attempt was successful because there was an element of “aggression” missing from the other versions.[7]

Added to my watch list, I’m super intrigued to see how the final cut turned out.

I rotate through these for everything from physical training to career goals to reminding myself to do my best to not be a douchebag:

“If I give up now, I’m going to regret it.” -Monkey D. Luffy

“Where’s the future? Right here. Whose life is this? Mine. What are you gonna do with it? Live it by any means necessary.” -Jefferson Pierce

“If you wanna stop this, then stand up! Because I’ve got one thing to say to you! Never forget who you want to become!” -Shoto Todoroki

“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” -Marcus Aurelius

“Giving help that’s not asked for is what makes a true hero.” -Izuku Midoriya

“I’ve set myself to become the King of the Pirates… and if I die trying… then at least I tried.” -Monkey D. Luffy

“If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs.” -Steven Universe

It’s split into eight episodes and I went through the same audience arc that a lot of people did. I came in with way too high of expectations, was able to temper them during the second episode, and then once I got a feel for it I finally started enjoying it from the third episode on. If nothing else, it is obvious how excited everyone was to work with Mel Brooks and a lot of behind-the-scenes interviews go into how Mel is still the sharpest guy in the room and kept everyone laughing throughout production.

That actually did come out! Mel Brooks produced it, it’s on Hulu.

This takes all my anxiety from Ecco the Dolphin and pumps it up on steroids. I enjoy a good horror game but I admit that the eldritch horror/thalassophobia combo is almost too strong of a dose of fear for me at times. Therefore, I’m putting this on my “really want to play it but also am terrified to do so” list right next to Dredge.

Fool really does define itself out of a lot of his other works since it is based in Shakespeare’s world. If you like that kind of pre-existing, historical type of setting, I might recommend Sacre Bleu. Moore explores Vincent Van Gogh’s superstitions about using the color blue in his paintings and how it connects to his maddening and unusual death. Even without knowing a ton about art or famous artists, he really did a good job bringing in every major player from Monet to Degas as characters in the book in a way that explained who they are and what role they play, all with an inventive and entertaining supernatural explanation as to why so many 19th century artists were a bit bonkers.

That said, I just found out Moore created a Fool trilogy with Pocket going on to be the main character in the sequels The Serpent of Venice and Shakespeare for Squirrels (I also just found out he did a sequel to A Dirty Job which I’d always longed for)! Needless to say, now that I know they exist, they’re all going on my reading list!

I loved Fool even if it is lower on my list of Christopher Moore favorites! The first time I read a Moore book was when I was still in the Army and deployed with a copy of Fluke and I loved it so much I wrote to him to praise it. He ended up sending me a bunch of his books, all signed, with a note that said “thanks for reading, I hope you don’t die” in his humorous tone.

Fluke, the Bloodsucking Fiends trilogy, A Diety Job, Lamb, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, Lust Lizard, and Sacre Bleu are my top favorites for just being so darn entertaining, humorous, clever and an absolute joy to read.

To anyone wondering about Fool, it is written in a similar vein to Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead (which retells Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the point of view of the two titular minor characters). Fool re-tells the story of King Lear but told from the perspective of the king’s jester, the professional fool. It is hilarious and does a great job at showing the significance of the jester and all the things he’s doing when not shown on stage during King Lear.

I read it with just the faintest recollection of the events of King Lear and still enjoyed it, but for anyone unfamiliar it might be worth watching something like Anthony Hopkins’ King Lear beforehand to see how cleverly Moore put his version together, but it is not a requirement by any means!

Welp, I’m sold, this is totally going on my list! I’ve kind of been itching for something like Dragonlance and this sounds like what I’ve been looking for.

Bruce Coville is such an incredibly fun read for young Sci-Fi fans. I flipped through some of the Aliens Ate My Homework series recently now that I’m older and it’s still a great time. Coville really did well at writing in a way that makes it understandable and enjoyable for kids without dumbing down ideas that would help spark the imagination and garner understanding for more advanced works.

I should flip back through the My Teacher is an Alien series too at some point. I’m pretty sure I at least still have a copy of My Teacher Flunked the Planet here somewhere.

This is my yearly reminder that I still haven’t watched Melancholia (2011) and that I should at some point.

This is the extreme end of things but nearly every Zack Snyder movie, extreme because it specifically goes heavy on editing saturation, contrast, etc., that takes away the aspects of realism for this look to instead make it stylized in an exaggerated way on purpose.

Joker (2019) plays with this look.

A lot of noir-esque stuff will use this kind of look to varying degrees too. Dark City (1998), and a lot of the future/neo-noirs will do this even when bright cyberpunk lights are present. Zone 414 (2021) is another one. Live by Night (2016) uses it during the criminal activity scenes to contrast against the brighter, roaring world of the rich.

I think there are a lot of better examples out there that I’m just not thinking of at the moment.

Edit: Adding Prisoners (2013), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Children of Men (2006), and Taxi Driver (1976) to the list.

Definitely, in the show when we start meeting characters from their home city and really start to hear details about how they grew up it was such an eye opener. As soon as I heard there was a novella I smashed through it for the moment-to-moment details and really felt like I understood a lot about the character, by the end thinking “you know, all things considered, this character is actually far more well-adjusted than I gave them credit for initially” which, given the character, is saying something.

I squeezed in the first chapter of Leech earlier today and it’s very much the kind of “different” that I’ve been looking for! Getting these insights into how a character with a consciousness across multiple bodies thinks and feels is fascinating. Also, the description of the autopsy very much reminds me of watching Castlevania where I’m impressed and intrigued while also knowing there is no way I could read this book and eat food at the same time haha.

Hmm you might have also convinced me to check out The Host after this. I’d adamantly stayed away from it because I got sent the first book from the big series she’s known for in a care package and read it since the girl I was dating at the time really liked it, and it was one of the most miserable reading experiences of my life. Nothing against the swathes of people that loved her big blockbuster series, and I’m not saying reading them makes people dumber, but for me I found it harder and harder to think the further I got in and that terrified me. But, even the author herself said she wants to be remembered for The Host but knows people will only remember her big hit series instead. If it really is enough of a step up for her and others to say that, and it serves as a comparison to the kind of narrator perspective in Leech, I might just have to give her another shot.

I think that’s definitely one of the reasons Leech sounds so intriguing to me, I kind of just want to see how the unified consciousness is written as the main (instead of a side character) and as a parasite instead of a collective, especially in such an unusual mystery plot – it’s so different that I figure I gotta satiate that curiosity. After carefully checking out some non-spoiler reviews, I’m gonna go for that one first since I feel like I might need something light and fun like Starter Villain to recover afterward.

And I am with you on The Expanse books and 100% think it’s because we watched the show first – especially since that show brought the actual authors of the books into the writers room for the entire series (for anyone stumbling across this that are confused, the author “James S.A. Corey” is actually a pseudonym for the two people that wrote the books, Ty Corey Franck and Daniel Abraham). With the actual creators, plus an incredible showrunner that really helped them navigate how to keep the heart and stability of their story world while making some necessary changes for the medium, translated extremely well to screen.

But that also means we’ve essentially gone through the three main things that makes The Expanse so compelling already (at least to me):

1. First, the careful balance between “science” and “fiction” that considers so many details. It makes it realistic and believable while also understanding it’s an epic fictional story. Stuff like the muscle difference of people depending on how much gravitational force they grew up with is fascinating, with Belters having lived their lives in low gravity stations and Martian military training extra hard in order to withstand the same level of gravity that Earthers are naturally conditioned to. Normally that would be extremely fascinating to read, but because the show did such a fantastic job at explaining it, it was more of a nod and an appreciation for the elaboration on the effects of it.

2. Then, the characters. Even with the differences, it’s easy to see why so many people that read the books before the show ended up embracing the cast in its entirety after being initially put off. While Amos and Bobbie look a little more beastly in the books, most anyone that was initially put off admitted that the actor for Amos ended up being so true to that guy that him being too pretty for the part quickly faded from their minds. Same thing with Bobbie, as realistically the fact that casting found an actress with the height, ethnicity, muscle and real-world competitive fight experience to come close to the Bobbie character in the book is a miracle in itself (and my bias for having a massive crush on Frankie Adams as well as every actress in the show). For that reason, for the most part, instead of being fascinated by Amos’ adjusting and growing, Bobbie’s Martian education and patriotism and her exposure to the reality of the universe, and just wanting more Avasarala dialogue, it’s kind of just reminding you why they are such fascinating characters instead of pulling you in to understand them – after the show, in a lot of ways, we already were captivated at unraveling these people and already have done so.

3. Finally, the most compelling thing for me was the need to know WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! There are political stakes, thriller sequences, tough decisions, all done with the grace that causes someone to say “I can’t stop now, just one more episode” or “just one more chapter” and keep going. Because of the show, we, for the most part, already know what’s going to happen.

I found the books to be very well written, but with these three main draws already having played out in the show, they didn’t give me that addictive rush I usually get from a good book that turns me into a page-flipping fiend that just can’t put the damn thing down. That said, the elaboration is fantastic. I was confused by the guns on the space station in the show initially since they don’t explain there is different ammo until either near the end of the first season or even later. When the books clarified, in satisfying detail, the plastic gyro rounds used on space stations that are designed to puncture human flesh but not pierce the walls of a space station, and that normal bullets are still used in other environments, was great. All this stuff about reducing gun recoil for use in space, etc., all were a treat to read. Even when not perfect, the added details on top of the thought they put into trying to convey some realistic use of the laws of physics, etc., elevates the believability of the books to a new level. Other than that, it is a lot of just “spot the difference” for us that have seen the show. It’s interesting to say “oh okay so this is different from the show but I see how they’re going to get there still” or “ah so they must have realized these events weren’t enough to justify adding another character on the show with limited screentime, so they just rolled that character’s actions into Camina Drummer’s character, which worked well.” Extra tech, characters, bigger differences, etc., are all nice to bring you in closer to this story universe I love so much, but at the end of the day the need-to-know stuff is mostly already in our memories.

I also think that’s why, like you, I really enjoyed the novellas. They added so much extra to a story universe that I didn’t want to leave yet. The Churn was actually the first thing I read because the reveal of [redacted]'s upbringing was so eye opening that finding out there was a novella further explaining just what made this person who they are today felt like a must-read addition to such an interesting character.

I’m not a fan myself but I think the right amount of ketchup on Mac and cheese is generally how much you like.

But there is such a thing as too much. Ketchup is great because the sugar and salt makes it appealing. Start pouring it on and all of a sudden you’re guzzling down a lot of sugar and taking a dish high in sodium and exacerbating it. Not so bad every now and then but a constant high-sodium, high-sugar diet is rough for kidneys, blood glucose levels, etc.

There are also “no salt added” and “no sugar added” versions of ketchup but even still, a reasonable amount is just not pouring a ton on. For anyone eating the dish like twice a year, I’d say go nuts! But for those eating it regularly, make sure to enjoy yourself but also take care of yourself! I say this as someone that has a kidney issue in remission and was asked way back at my first appointment “how much sodium do you consume in a day?”

I have never heard of Leech (Ennes) or Starter Villain (Scalzi) but both sound intriguing in completely different ways. It’s been a while but you might just have gotten me to start reading something longer form again.

Also, massive props for not just including some of the main books in the series starting with Leviathan Wakes but for also including Gods of Risk and The Churn on here. The Expanse is so compelling that those novellas really add an extra something special!