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.

[Kees_L]

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.

In between, rather than later, I would think, right before the novel's finale, there'll be a lapse or shift in the total continuity of the novel, like a period of ongoing vampire-hunting for our protagonal Lord, which the novel zooms out from, but the comics will be filling all such in. How I'd understand it. But that's just me.

[grogtheslayer]

In between, rather than later, I would think, right before the novel's finale, there'll be a lapse or shift in the total continuity of the novel, like a period of ongoing vampire-hunting for our protagonal Lord, which the novel zooms out from, but the comics will be filling all such in. How I'd understand it. But that's just me.

By later I meant publication date, not narrative chronology.

[Jr. Wormwood]

I got this book right when it came out, and I've read it at least once a year since. I absolutely love it! It's a series of smaller stories within a larger story, much like the mini-series that make up the larger stories in Mignola's Hellboyverse comics. If you like the Baltimore comics, definitely pick this up.

[Kelly Tindall]

I'm not really a fan. There's bits that I like (like the story about the bear) and the illustrations are, of course, fantastic but as a whole it never gelled together for me. There's also a ton of weird inaccuracies that also threw me for a loop.

[Kees_L]

I'm not really a fan. There's bits that I like (like the story about the bear) and the illustrations are, of course, fantastic but as a whole it never gelled together for me. There's also a ton of weird inaccuracies that also threw me for a loop.

I see what you mean.

I think I can easily get excited for any story material being about cool or nifty storylines or wonderous concepts or intricate moodiness or awesomnimity.
So I guess I'll often be game or on-the-take for any such.
But the first sign of any struggling or apparent difficulty reading-wise on my account, I'll be inclined to be going:
"hey how come I'm feeling a hint of difficulty, would it be 'cause this book would not be reading well!?"
But then I understand again, how any book would not have to be reading as straightforwardly as a grocery list or cooking recipe or anything else really.
Like I've come to really appreciate books by Kafka or Lovecraft or Moorcock or even Voltaire as being beautiful and way enticing, despite not necessarily "gelling easily" very much.

As if the not gelling would be part of the coolness, inherent to it. Like how Hollywood flicks most often tend to be "only gellant" with exaggerating or simplifying or smoothing out everything that could be other than but straightforward. Like the Fight Club movie - less cool or nifty than the book I'd say.

I think I personally enjoy Baltimore for not being to gel but smoothly, the narrational flow being to change with the tide, with where the Lord would be holding up, or what with in the viscinity.
I love how everything may change for the Lord being still all Victorianly Lordy, or in the trenches, or among smothering dirty field hospital linens, or among rusty forests of forlorn battle debris, or at the seaside, or situated in a broody minorly gas-lit drinking facility where stories may get to be awarely told instead of only written. Where the whole of Lord Baltimore his vocation or vendetta gets to be presented, against a setting of both war and plague and monstrosities or what blooddrinkers of evil infesting the world.
As that would be a big thing I'd reckon, pretty massive for its entirity. Like the whole of Hellboy getting served up in one book, with potentially a comic series getting to cover what wouldn't have become unfolded fully already.

I'd say I love how any of that would be causing vividness more rather than any being to gel well, I suppose. Just my two cents.
Reading Baltimore didn't take me one swift afternoon, it took me more than a week. Thankfully.

Or else I wouldn't have known what to be doing with my time, expectedly. Not easily as good as reading this book, for my money.
A thing which either the birds or my Mom would be to agree to, I guess.

[Middenway]

I'm not really a fan. There's bits that I like (like the story about the bear) and the illustrations are, of course, fantastic but as a whole it never gelled together for me. There's also a ton of weird inaccuracies that also threw me for a loop.

You can sort of tell Mike Mignola originally wanted to do it as a comic. The structure of it is based all around imagery, which leads to long, heavy slogs of description (most of which could be edited down to half, at times even a third, its length). It works as a book, but I think it wouldn've worked better as a comic. Novels have different advantages to the comic format, and this book didn't make use of them as often as I would have liked. It's definitely worth reading though, and I'd recommend it.

[Kees_L]

You can sort of tell Mike Mignola originally wanted to do it as a comic. The structure of it is based all around imagery, which leads to long, heavy slogs of description (most of which could be edited down to half, at times even a third, its length). It works as a book, but I think it wouldn've worked better as a comic. Novels have different advantages to the comic format, and this book didn't make use of them as often as I would have liked. It's definitely worth reading though, and I'd recommend it.

But can you say with certainty you will or would have been looking at its potential in the best or astutest possible way, for any presuming the book would or should need to have been made differently or better than it how it would be?

I mean, aside of my own opinion, I've heard the book being called a masterpiece or at least good for how it would specifically have been made to work as? Like how it says on the inner cover: "Reminiscent of the illustrated tales of old" for instance?

I could see anyone to be going "not my thing" on anything, but concluding something as not working properly in ways, well such strikes me as sounding more like an accusation instead of an opinion?

Since writers and their books would seem like bicycle repairpeople and their bikes, or potentially any of their clients bikes as well? Assuming clients would be covetting their bikes for any of them seeing repair? Where workmanship or craftsmanship would be lying in the eyes of the beholder - any such beholders - eventhough only some (like the Moms or wives of bicycle repairpeople) might potentially be more or extra-knowing on things? Or either any official Bicycle Repair Inspectors for instance, provided they'd be in the business long enough?

On Baltimore and what it is, people might as well be catching this for a link: a Golden/Mignola video interview from 2007.

http://www.goodreads.com/videos/show...lden-interview

[Middenway]

How well did you read it 'though, can you say with certainty you will or would have been looking at its potential in the best or astutest possible way, for any presuming the book would or should need to have been made differently or better than it how it would be?

No, I can't say that. I don't read books looking for potential. I simply react to what's on the page. If the book is really good, I become immersed in the world, and I did become immersed in this. It's not the genre I usually read though, so there are certain stylistic choices I may not be familiar with. But it really did seem like a book about images to me. I frequently noticed entire paragraphs that could be summed up in a panel or two in a comic.

I felt it could benefit from some condensation in the description, especially when I felt it was restating already established elements of the plague. I like description kept to a bare minimum though. That's just a personal preference.