Baltimore or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire

[the goddamn batman]

Has anyone read this? Is it good? Is it worth picking up? Is it basically the same thing as Baltimore The Plague Ships or is it entirely it's own story?

Sorry if these are dumb questions, I'm just dubious about the non Mignola penned novels. For some reason this one's really interested me.

(I probably shouldn't say non-Mignola)

[Kees_L]

Has anyone read this? Is it good? Is it worth picking up? Is it basically the same thing as Baltimore The Plague Ships or is it entirely it's own story?

Sorry if these are dumb questions, I'm just dubious about the non Mignola penned novels. For some reason this one's really interested me.

(I probably shouldn't say non-Mignola)

It's great and it isn't "non-Mignola", but it is co-created by both mr Mike and Christopher Golden.

There should be a number of older threads on it on here, from back when the book was firstly published, findable trough the Search option - but it isn't giving the proper results to me at the moment.
It does that sometimes...

Keep trying the search option on here with "Baltimore (or the) Steadfast" for searchwords with specifying "thread titles only" and "Hellboy forum" and you should be getting results. Otherwise our Mods could advise?

[Gary_B]

I read it and really liked it. As Kees said, it's written collaboratively by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden (like the comic). Plague Ships covers a lot of the same ground as the opening chapters but the rest of the book is quite different from the comic, and the book has many beautiful ink drawings by Mignola.

[the goddamn batman]

thanks. I've seen a lot of very mixed reviews, so I'm not sure what to make of it.

[Kees_L]

thanks. I've seen a lot of very mixed reviews, so I'm not sure what to make of it.

I'm guessing the less warm reviews might be because of when the book came out for some people it might have been hard what to make of the book or the concept behind it, because around that time there were no Baltimore comics yet or anywhere in the foreseeable future.
So people might have been wondering whether it would be like Hellboy or not, like comics a bit or not, would it be a popular entertainment action novel, or what?
Would it be a Mignola kind-of-thing, or a Christopher Golden kind-of-thing? Would it be heavily illustrated or only a few small pics in a prose book more like?

And to answer any of those questions,
I found it to be very much a Mignola thing although it gets described as being a title coming together between two befriended writers/creators together (who worked together on other stuff prior such as the illustrated Hellboy novels Hellboy: The Lost Army & Hellboy: The Bones of Giants).
It's very richly illustrated.
It's action-packed cool moody both as enticing action horror fiction like perfectly as how the Baltimore comics convey, like a terrific movie you'd be liking to see but couldn't because it wouldn't be existing yet, not even as just a reading book .
It's a real book, with a lot of text to cover, but richly illustrated and the reading would make for one hell of an exciting thing, as if a real nifty novel-worthy storytelling master would be accompanying the illustrations, which might be where that other one, one Christopher Golden, would really come to be weighing in, in a good kind of way.

That's what I would say. I'd recommend it .

[chanpoo]

Fantastic. I enjoy with the duo Golden/Mignola. A very piece of fine work

[grogtheslayer]

I would definitely recommend it. It is moody in an old school, silent cinema sort of way. It lays a solid foundation for the comics series that come later.