Ryan
I was a little hesitant to read this before I started it, as I really enjoyed Cordelia in the first collection, and had heard that she had only a minor role in this one. I worried that Miles, her son and the protagonist of this book, wouldn't hold a candle to her.
That lasted around 2 pages. Don't get me wrong, Cordelia's still awesome, but over the course of this book Miles reveals himself to be one of the most entertaining characters I've ever encountered in literature. He's sarcastic, he's charasmatic, he's brash, he always ends up winning - if I knew him in real life I'd probably think he was an ass, but as a protagonist he's perfect.
This book is a collection of two novels and a novella; if you don't realize that, it might seem a bit disjointed, but the three stories work well together, telling the story of Miles becoming a man and overcoming his physical defects by strength of his awesomeness. There are some standard science fiction bits in terms of the plot, but as in the first collection, Bujold really puts the characters on display at the central part of the book (which itself is a bit of a breath of fresh air).
I got this out of the library. I was never a big Cyberforce reader when I was younger, despite reading a lot of early Image.
Wow, was this bad. I don't know if it's fair to call it a cheap copy of the X-Men; after all, Silvestri did draw the book for three years. The feel of it definitely is “Wouldn't it be cool if the X-Men were also cyborgs?”, though, and has enough connections of Silvestri's old book that you could almost consider it parody if you didn't know it was earnest. It doesn't do anything interesting with the idea, though - there's just one group of cyborg mutants, fighting another group of cyborg mutants, while one mutant tries to take over ... New York City, I guess? It's not really clear.
I either loved or hated this. I'm really not quite sure which.
On one hand, it has a lot of the problems the first one did, most of which can be forgiven as products of the time it was created. On top of that, though, this was and feels like a cash-in from the first one, primarily made because of the popularity of the first one.
At the same time though, if we continue the thesis that Burroughs was writing about his society, rather than Mars, there is some nicely subversive stuff going on here; John Carter learns that the religion of the Barsoomians is a fabrication, and that the ruling class uses that religious belief to keep themselves in power and to leech off of the mainstream population. That's pretty subversive stuff for 1918, and I have to admire Burroughs for including that.
Two nation, both alike in dignity, at war with one another.
Two princes, both with great power, struggling against the demands of empire and destiny.
Between them, a princess who may hold the key to ending the war, if she can figure out why the Black God visits her, and torments her family.
Full review at
http://readbyryan.wordpress.com/2012/03/03/the-black-gods-war-2
short version: I loved it. One of the best books I read in 2011.
Apparently this is a collection of tie-in fiction for the game that Rockstar put out earlier this year. I've never played the game, and likely never will, but that didn't impact my enjoyment at all. Instead I was just able to enjoy it as a collection of noir stories set in LA in October of 1947, by some of the hottest names in crime fiction, including Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, and Joe Lansdale. So for a free promotional item this was a great collection.
There's a lot to love about Mistborn - the setting is fascinating, Sanderson has developed a really interesting system of magic with allomancy, and the backstory of the rise of the Lord Ruler were all really enjoyable. They form a really great core of the novel. I was less impressed with Vin's story - it seemed like a cliched YA plotline that's been done many times before and, honestly, more interestingly.
There's enough that appealed to me that I'll definitely be checking out the remainder of the trilogy to see how the story develops.
An odd little book about an odd little time in Canadian history.
The Fenian raids were part of the ongoing attempt by Irish republicans to liberate their homeland from the British empire. In 1866, realizing that they couldn't win in open warfare against the British, they decided to try to invade Canada, thinking that they could either ransom a conquered Canada back to Britain in exchange for a free Ireland, or they would just keep it and rename it New Ireland. Their plan might have worked, too, except that it was a horribly poorly thought out plan, carried out by incompetents who completely misunderstood the relationship between the Canadian colonists and Mother England. The fear caused by these raids was apparently one of the motivations behind Confederation, though, so I'm surprised I hadn't heard of it before now.
The book itself is oddly structured, too - MacDonald is clearly passionate on the subject of Canadian identity and loyalty to the crown, and doesn't hide that at all. He breaks up the narrative at times, though, with pages and pages of lists of the individual soldiers who fought in different engagements with the Fenians, with special mention of those who were wounded or died. I get that he wanted to show his respect to the fallen, but it created a really uneven reading experience.
PS: Not that John A MacDonald. A different one.
Derivative works have a bad rap, and it's one I'm not sure is entirely deserved. This is, quite definitely, a derivative work, and fully admits that it is so; Faust is name-checked multiple times throughout, and there are parallels to The Devil and Daniel Webster as well. In being so derivative, though, it's still an instructive tale, and you're left with the feeling that Mitchell is trying to say something here about the Canadian identify. The European Fausts desired knowledge and power, and Webster wanted prosperity - Willie MacCrimmon, on the other hand, is willing to put his soul in the hands of the devil just to get a shot at the Brier.
The end result is a gruff, short, frightfully funny novel that pits Willie and his compatriots against Satan's own curling rink, made up of Macbeth, Judas, and Guy Fawkes, as well as Old Nick himself. Mitchell was passionate about curling, and it shows through the text, but I think this would be an entertaining read even to those who are unfamiliar with the Canadian Gentleman's Game.
This collection features a set of short flash pieces that combine ideas that could be ripped from the headlines of a newspaper published next Tuesday with a wonderfully absurdist sense of humour. It combines two things - humour and science fiction - that both are often described as social mirrors, used to point out the foibles of our own time, but which are rarely combined to that effect outside of satirical, poking fun at the genre Hitchhiker's Guide... type stories. The combination here, with a strong intent towards some social commentary, makes each of them stronger.
Capsule review in the style of a Chuck Palahniuk character:
This is Sartre screaming “hell is other people” into a mirror. This is Bruce Wayne saying “Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot” and Jesus replying “Well, you're all criminals in your heart.” This is one of those places that you visit and say “This is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live here”, when you really mean to say “Get me the hell out of this place as soon as possible.”
You kind of get the feeling the man needs a hug.
Invisible Monsters is a slightly convoluted look at beauty and loss, and self-medication and self-denial. It's cynical and dark, just as the man's work always is, and has the same sort of demon zen god understanding that facing the worst, most empty corners of humanity will convince us that that's all we're capable of.
Like I said, it's a nice place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there.
I mentioned on twitter a little while ago that I'd never read any of the Vorkosigan books, and had a few friends admonish me over the fact. One of them was kind enough to include a link to a free ebook of this volume, so I was encouraged to give it a read.
I LOVED IT.
At first it seemed like it was going to be the typical “two radically different people are thrown together in an unlikely situation that causes them to fall in love” story. I usually hate that kind of story, with the two exceptions of The African Queen and Speed. Bujold manages to make it work, though - the romance between Cordelia and Aral feels realistic and a logical consequence of their personalities, rather than something just slapped onto the story.
Another thing that I really liked about this book was the attention given to the sociopolitical realities of the novel. A lot of the time that's something that's glossed over in SF, but here it forms a large part of the narrative. If anything I was reminded of Martin's Game of Thrones for that aspect (although admittedly it's less gory and convoluted as that book gets).
I'm really glad I checked this one out and I look forward to reading the rest of the series!
Another of the Red Panda tie-in novels. One of the patterns I'm noticing is that Taylor seems to use each book to explore a different aspect of the Panda, with this one focusing on his ‘mystical' powers of hypnosis and mind control.
There's not really much more to be said about the Panda beyond what I've said in the past - the character and series are a great update to the classic radio dramas of the Shadow, and manage to stay true to them while at the same time leaving behind some of the more unfortunate attitudes tied to those old stories. It's also interesting to see how Taylor used the narrative of a novel to explore things that could only be hinted at in the radio drama format.
I love the Age of Apocalypse story when it was first published. Admittedly I wasn't as well-read back then, so the idea (time traveller kills Professor X, causing Magneto to instead become founder of the X-Men) seemed really fresh and original, and a lot of the changes to character and design were very interesting.
Time, however, has not been kind to the Age of Apocalypse, as this collection of cheap cash-ins proves. Character motivations vary from chapter to chapter, people appear in places they couldn't possibly be in for in-story reasons, people randomly disappear during fight scenes and then turn up again a few pages later. I realize that a big project like this involves a lot of cooks, but that's hardly an excuse for broth this poor.
Sooooo glad I gave this series one last chance. Immonen gets these characters in a way no one has since Vaughan left the book - they're not superheroes, they're not adventurers, they're just a bunch of kids who lost their families and had their world turned upside down and who are struggling to redefine what normal is for themselves.
This volume's not perfect, though - the cliffhanger ending bugged me, and I can understand why the “What If” story was included (to make the point I made above, basically), but it really wasn't necessary.
Excellent addition to the Planetary series, one that forces you to go back to the previous volumes and reanalyze everything that's happened so far. Aside from that, it's Planetary, which means taking old concepts are giving them new life - Sherlock Holmes! Dracula! lose African upotias! This series remains Ellis at his best, though, proof that there's an idealist under the surface of even the harshest cynic.
Part of my ongoing attempt to understand why people get so nostalgic for DC's Silver Age.
My only non-Oracle exposure to Babs prior to this was Yvonne Craig in the Batman TV show, so I don't have much frame of reference as to whether or not these represent the ‘best' Batgirl stories. They do seem pretty bland, on the whole, though, so I hope they're not?
Batgirl's origin, as told here, is almost childishly simple - she was going to a party, and made a Batgirl costume for herself. Then she sees Bruce Wayne being attacked by a villain, and decides to try to save him. Finding it fun, she keeps being a vigilante. That's it. That's the entire motivation for the character.
The character shows a little more depth later on, but the stories are pure American cheese. Barbara becomes a Congresswoman, fighting for the ERA (apparently no one notices that Batgirl moves from Gotham to DC at the same time as Barbara Gordon does) and fighting the likes of Benedict Arnold and Two-Face's daughter.
Reading new (Stephanie Brown) Batgirl issues, I can tell that they're going for a similar feel with the character now, but it's much better told that anything in this volume.
I've never read the original Longshot series, but I was always a fan of the elements of the Mojoverse that worked their way into Claremont's X-Men material, so I was interested to check this out.
Loved it. Th plot's a fairly straightforward mashup of the classic short story of the same name with the Stephen King novella The Running Man, and that familiarity with it gives us more space to explore the characters. I find the ultimate re-imaginings a mixed bag at best (a Riot Grrl version of Dazzler is obvious but doesn't actually make sense, for example), but making Mojo an albino reality TV producer and Longshot his Genoshan victim/star is actually even more enjoyable than the original.
Definitely recommended for fans of 80s X material who are willing to try a new take on it.
Cory Doctorow, in the introduction to this volume, says that there are two sides in every war: combatants and non-combatants. That's a good description of the central conflict of DMZ, because our protagonist, Matty Roth, doesn't seem sure as to which of those he is.
Matty gets involved with a terrorist cell. He swears to himself that it's just to get a story on illegal activity on a company that's been awarded DMZ reconstruction contracts, but he ends up getting pretty deep, and his choices have some unexpected and unfortunate outcomes.
I should start off by saying that I don't think this is a novel with mass appeal. You would definitely have to already be a science fiction fan to enjoy it, I think, and even within that subset of readers only certain fans would grok to the style that Somers uses throughout.
The novel begins in a 70s-style dystopian future - the type one would have seen in Logan's Run or Soylent Green. In that environment we meet Avery Cates, a stereotypical antihero who will kill anyone if the price is right. He's given a big job - to take down the head of The Electric Church, a religious group that sucks the brains out of people's heads and puts them in mechanical bodies. As Avery recently saw a friend of his go through this procedure involuntarily, he's more than willing to take the job, especially as it promises to make him rich beyond his wildest dreams.
Avery assembles a team and eventually infiltrates the church. In doing so he comes to see that while being a rich asshole in a broken society might sound better than being a poor asshole in a broken society, that ‘broken society' thing remains a problem, especially when he realizes just how broken it is. By the end of the book he's still an asshole, but he's started on the path to becoming a revolutionary.
And that's where the book hit me - when I realised that it's central moral conundrum was that once you've gotten to that point where the boot is stomping on the face of humanity forever, the only way to get out from under it is to place your trust in an amoral monster. Who is exactly the last person you want in a position of power once it's time to try and rebuild. It will be really interesting to see how this develops through the rest of the series.
Nice little coming-of-age story of Riley, a girl from Brooklyn who travels to Manhattan to attend NYU. Along the way she meets some friends, reconnects with her estranged sister, and meets a guy - someone who drops an email address in her pocket at a club. They start texting each other and quickly fall in love, forcing Riley to make some interesting choices about who she is as a person.
Overall this was a really fun read, despite not being my usual sort of flair. I had been expecting something a little more ensemble-y given the title, but Riley's an interesting character and her story, while not unique, is well-told and captivating. The set-up at the end is obviously asking for a sequel, but the line was unfortunately shut down by DC before one could get made.
One of the things that made this story special for me was the use of setting. New York feels alive and vibrant throughout - not just because of the little Scott Pilgrimesque info boxes dropping New York trivia in places, but also because of the obvious love and affection that Wood has for the city, its history, and its neighbourhoods. A lot of comics are set in New York, but this captures it better than any others in recent memory - the only real equal to it that I can think of are the films of Spike Lee.
I'm starting to think that Runaways would have benefited from being a creator-owned series, as no one other than Brian K. Vaughan seems to get what makes the characters interesting and unique, either as a group or as individuals.
Without comparing this to the earlier volumes in the series, I guess this one was okay. Terry Moore's a great writer, and the plot is interesting enough (subliminal magic turns plastic surgery recipients into zombies), but as I said originally, it doesn't hold up to the earlier parts of the series.
For the most part, I really liked this. It deals primarily with the fallout of Mr. Dark razing Fabletown; we learn a little bit more about his past, and exactly how much of a threat he is to the Fables. The book also focuses on some of the themes Willingham's been dealing with since the start - on the might of unlikely heroes, and on shifting political realities. I wasn't sure how much I was going to like it, as I'm unfamiliar with the stories that some of the main characters come from (Ozma and Baba Yaga, specifically), but they're presented in a way that doesn't matter.
What bummed me out about it, though, was that the main story ends on a cliffhanger, and then there's a two-part story after it about King Ambrose in Haven. I can understand why he may have wanted to tell it that way, but it absolutely kills the narrative flow.
A fun little novella in which Jack Palms and Jane Gannon investigate an underground fighting ring in San Fransisco. Harwood continues to thoughtfully use the format and media that he writes in - as a novel the story would have disappointed, but it's a good story for the length that he's writing. It's a fun, light read for those that have been enjoying the series already.