Horus Heresy : Nemesis

When last I spoke on here about the Horus Heresy series it was regarding the novel Mechanicum by Graham MacNeill. I spoke of liking the novel because it focused far more on the character interactions and much less on the technological aspects of the story. When the book which followed Mechanicum, Tales Of Heresy, turned out to be a collection of short stories rather than a novel I was buoyed by the fact that several of said stories moved even further down that trail, exploring the wider world that the series is set in and giving us a couple of lively and engrossing character pieces that had no need of genetically engineered supermen laying waste to entire worlds to generate drama. I inferred from their inclusion that the series as a whole might be in the process of widening its horizons somewhat, which pleased me.

Don't get me wrong; I've nothing against a bit of the old uber-violence now and again and after all, this is a series about a massive galaxy wide civil war set millenia in the future so there was always going to be a bit of tech and bravado involved; but I do think that a little bit of variety would stand the series in good stead. I mentioned at the time to a colleague of mine that perhaps a novel set in the shady political corridors of power might be a good idea, or an espionage novel set in this world. There had to be spies, right? In a war that big of course they were there. Sadly, what we got instead was two more novels about Space Marines blowing up aliens and then having a go at each other with their big guns and massive ships. Business as usual. Good stuff, but nothing especially original.So imagine my surprise then when we got Nemesis, by James Swallow as the 13th book in the series.

Almost completely eschewing the world of the Astartes (Space Marines), apart from brief moments in the prologue and epilogues and a brief but bloody and shocking cameo at the mid way point for an Astartes we'd seen before in the books, Nemesis focuses on the shadowy world of political assassination, with both sides despatching agents to assassinate the figurehead of the other. Leaving aside the fact that we know both sides will fail, because the series is a long way from over, the change of focus works well, allowing for a much more intimate look at the characters.

For much of the first half of the book we follow two stories; first, the formation of the team sent by the Loyalists to assassinate rebel leader Horus and then the events that unfold when they actually go out on the mission; and second, the story of a policeman on an Imperial world, investigating a series of ritualistic murders while his world suffers under the weight of rumours concerning the imminent arrival of Horus' rebel forces. As the story progresses into the back half, though, this strand takes a very dark - or darker - turn, and we realise that with this storyline nothing is what it seems.

I'm not massively versed in the futuristic Warhammer universe - the Horus Heresy books being my only foray into it so far - so it's likely that I'm not doing a very good job of describing why this book is so different from what has come before, or why I'm so pleased that it is, despite having enjoyed those earlier stories, but it is and I am. I sincerely hope that the wait for James Swallow to contribute another book to this series is not as long as the last one (he previously supplied Book 4), because he has proved himself here to be an author who can absolutely nail what I want more of in these books.

100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call

I recently began a re-read of all the Graphic Novels in my collection that are part of series I never finished, with the intention of getting reacquainted with the various characters and storylines before delving into the new volumes which I can now afford to resume purchasing. First series on my list was 100 Bullets, by Brian Azzerello (writer) and Eduardo Risso (artist).


100 Bullets begins simply enough, with a young girl (Isabelle 'Dizzy' Cordova) being released from prison and returning to the neighbourhood she grew up in. There, she learns that little has changed since she went inside. The players may be different but the rules are the same; the gangs still rule, the cops are still the enemy and a persons greatest weapon is still their reputation. The biggest change she finds is in herself; despite only being in her early 20's, Dizzy has grown old; too old, possibly, to ever walk these streets the same way again.

Dizzy
Not long after her return home Dizzy is confronted by mysterious black suited stranger Agent Graves. Offering her irrefutable evidence of the identities of those responsible for her greatest loss, and an untraceable gun with an equally untraceable 100 bullets to do about it what she will. Use this weapon and no law enforcement agency will touch her, she is told.

Will she use them,and in the process surrender herself to the life of violence she has paid lip service to leaving behind? And just as importantly, how will this seemingly small and personal conundrum support an ongoing comic book for any kind of lengthy duration? It is, after all, a fairly finite premise.

Agent Graves
The answer to the first question, and the journey Dizzy goes on to arrive at her decision, forms the meat of the story of the first three issues of 100 Bullets. It's a fairly straightforward tale of revenge and redemption that serves as a neat introduction to the concept behind the book and while the identities of the villains and certain revelations concerning Dizzys nearest and dearest are unlikely to surprise many hardened thriller readers it still manages to grip you throughout.

Sometimes the journey is King and the destination just an excuse to go on it and this journey is about the people; people caught in a cycle of violence and deprivation that they are powerless to escape from, short of going to jail or the grave. There is a moment in a park, with Dizzy and her old group of friends, as Dizzy realises that her generation are considered past it - "We old...We all in our twenties, we got our babies, we old girls" - that serves to remind us of this. These girls are stuck, and the truth is, some of them wouldn't have it any other way, because they don't know any other way.

The answer to the second question - How will this small, personal story propel an ongoing comic book? - is that it won't, this series is shooting for bigger things than that. In issue 4 we meet a new protagonist - we've left Dizzy behind for now, but I'm sure she'll be back - with his own tale of woe, his own cross to bear and his own revenge to take, should he choose to accept Agent Graves offer of those oh so tempting 100 bullets.

Lee Dolan
Lee Dolan, once successful in business and with a happy family life, is now living working as a bartender in a slum bar, a shell of his former self, his business gone and his family having disowned him. All of this because someone else, someone much more powerful than he, decided to play games with his life. Graves points him in the direction of the person responsible, one Megan Dietrich, and lets him make his own mind up what to do about it. Dolan makes much the same decision as Dizzy did, but his enemies are of a different nature to hers and events have a very different outcome.

Megan Deitrich
Hints are dropped that Agent Graves has an agenda totally apart from helping his bullet recipients and there is obviously a lot more to Dolans tormentors than meets the eye, so we leave issue 5 - and this first trade collection - with the sense that the world of 100 bullets is much vaster and much scarier than Dizzy Cordova or Lee Dolan have ever dreamed, and that they and no doubt plenty of others, are mere pawns in the games of some very powerful people. I for one am champing at the bit to see what the next move is.

Brian Azzarello

Eduardo Risso

Vampire Diaries. Whats changed? Pt2

So, I waffled, at great length and to no real point, about how the Vampire Diaries of the books differed from the Vampire Diaries of television, over on my TV blog a couple of days ago. It be here Now, because absolutely no-one demanded it it, I'm going to waffle a bit more. Not about the differences in content this time, but rather about the differences in quality.

I could just save us all a lot of time and say that the books are rotten while the show is great. I won't though, because quite aside from the fact that to do so would be irredeemably rude I do actually quite like to waffle on. Hey, no-ones forcing you to read it. (But please do read it.)

In this day and age, it would take the most militant of literary snobs to say that there is not a great deal of original and - more importantly - enjoyable material to be found in the teen (sorry, Young Adult) section of your friendly neighbourhood bookshop or library. (Kids reading this after 2012 can ask their parents what a library is.) Lovers of fantasy are especially well served in this regard, with such series as Lemony Snicket, Skullduggery Pleasant and of course Harry Potter bringing me much pleasure over the years; not to mention Darren Shan for when you're in a more gruesome frame of mind. All of which, coupled with the fact that the show based on them is so good, led me to go into the enterprise of reading the Vampire Diaries books by L. J. Smith with slightly less trepidation than I probably should have done.

I knew going in that I wasn't the target audience for these books. Unfortunately, the target audience which I don't belong to is not that of teenage girls looking for some horror tinged romance. No, it's easily pleased, pseudo-goth hormone factories, all too eager to spew their squee all over anything with the slightest hint of 'brooding bad boy who's also smoking hot' and desperate for reassurance that yes, even if you are a vacuous tart with morals in the gutter and no ambition to rise any higher in life than someones trophy floozy, you too can find true love with a good looking guy willing to overlook your borderline sociopathic character flaws because you're hot and you put out. Because the protagonist (and presumably the audience identification figure) of these novels really is that unpleasant.

Don't get me wrong though, the books aren't without merit. If you forget about the hideous central character - and the horrible writing as Smith desperately tries to convince you that this girl deserves happiness, despite treating all about her like turds on her shoe - then the main storyline that runs through these first 4 novels is actually fairly decent. Not great, mind you, and hardly original, but decent. Decent enough in fact that it formed the spine of the main story arc of the TV show for it's first 2 seasons.

Beyond the central story there are moments. Moments that make you think that there is something deeper here, some much better book trying desperately to claw it's way free. Stefan and Matt, for example; the brief glimpses we get of their friendship feels real, in a way that none of the other relationships do. If only that had translated onto the screen, then maybe the Matt of TV wouldn't have become such an insignificance on the show. There's the casual menace exuded by Klaus, so convinced is he of his superiority. Or the moment when we find out that Damon stood by and allowed a girl to be killed, not because he didn't care, as the others had assumed and accused him of, but because he couldn't save her as no-one had thought to invite him into the house. This side of Damon; the conflicted man who wants to be good but is too proud to admit it and so just lets people assume he's bad; is very much something which the producers of the TV show have run with and it has served to make Damon one of the most intriguing characters on the show.

Moments like these are few and far between though, and the books have just as many that would make any rational man throw them down and run screaming for his sanity to the nearest Terry Pratchett stockist. Most of the these come from the aforementioned horrible lead but we also get the one where said lead dies and within days her best friend is fantasising about her boyfriend. She's grieving of course, but he's just so hot! You have to get your priorities right in this life. Then there is the situation with Meredith and Alaric. The sexual tension leading to full on romance. Between the schoolgirl and her teacher. That is barely remarked upon, and never scathingly. As mentioned in part one, I can recognise the irony of being okay with a schoolgirl having an affair with a guy hundred of years her senior but calling foul with a few years age difference but here's the thing; HE'S HER TEACHER! IT'S A BOOK AIMED AT TEENAGERS! Sorry, and maybe this makes me a prude, but I'm very glad that the Alaric love shifted to Jenna in the show. You have to draw the line somewhere.

The real plus point of these books, and the first time I found myself actively enjoying them, was the build up to the big final confrontation between the 'good guys' and 'Big Bad' Klaus. He's massively outnumbered - even if you count his little understudy Tyler, who is properly a villain in the books, if a naff one - but it never feels like he's the underdog. It's a long held maxim that heroes should never outnumber villains because no matter how bad the bad guy is, ganging up on him doesn't feel fair. This rule is broken here, and to brilliant effect, because a large part of his menace; of what makes him so chilling, is that Klaus knows he's outnumbered, knows he's facing two centuries old vengeance crazed vampires and a very powerful witch, amongst others, and he just doesn't care. He's going to win. That's all there is to it as far as he's concerned. This lot are just flies to be swatted.

Sadly the good work that Smith does in these finishing stages is then thrown away when she chooses to tack on the end one of the most blatant "this makes absolutely no f***ing sense!" cop-out endings I've ever read in my entire life, and I've read a lot of books over the years. A dead character comes back to life and everyone has a dance. This is literally how the book ends. After a big part of the good guys winning was down to this dead person using up the last of her ability to affect this plane, and one last excruciatingly bad romance scene was forced on us, this character seemed pretty much dead and gone for good but apparently not. Smith wants a happy ending so she's back, making a total mockery of the sacrifice made to defeat Klaus. I read it 3 times and I have no clue how she came back but she's back. I actually swore at the book, it was that bad. From what I can gather, there may well be some repercussions from this in the new trilogy but that's no excuse. The new books have come about because of the success of the show. The ending we get here was how the story ended originally. Fixing it 20years later doesn't change what a nonsense it was.

So, the books aren't all bad, but they're bad enough that I feel no qualms about calling them bad books. That Kevin Williamson, Julie Plec and their team have managed to make a show as good as the one they have, with source material as weak as this is, is a real testimony to their skill, talent and hard graft. I may complain from time to time that it is a little too densely plotted but I know that that's just down to the gaps in scheduling caused by being so close behind the US screenings (I don't know how American audiences put up with it, although I understand they get pertinent re-runs during the gaps, to help them remember what's going on).

I hope this hasn't been overly negative. I've tried really hard to get away from the 'these books are rubbish' tone that early drafts had. I hate to slag off anyones work too badly, when they've poured their sweat into it.