Into The Woods

This past Saturday (the 8th of December) Newcastle City Library, much as it did last year, played host to the 2nd annual Canny Comic Con. I, much as I did last year, attended the event, had a really good time and spent far more money than I should have done.

In this post I shall discuss one of the many titles I bought at CCC, but UNLIKE last year, I'll do it before a month and a half has passed and everyone else has moved on. Never let it be said that I don't learn from my mistakes. Sometimes.

This years pick of the haul; meaning no disrespect to anything else I picked up but I read this first; is Into The Woods: A Fairytale Anthology (ed. Stacey Whittle). This book has actually been out a good while and I had intended to pick it up last year but one thing led to another and life got in the way. I figured, though, that if I went to an event organised in large part by the books editor and still didn't pick up a copy then I had no one to blame but myself. So I did, and I'm glad I did.

First thing you notice about Into The Woods is that it's a very handsome package; card cover (adorned with some rather lovely artwork by the team of Andy Bloor and Steve Howard) with a proper spine and everything, wrapped around good quality glossy paper throughout, which really allows the artwork of the various contributors to look it's best.

With 9 short stories across 46 pages of comic; all from different creative teams and between them spanning as wide a spectrum of styles and tones as the Fairy Tale remit will allow; I would imagine that there is something for pretty much everybody here, with nothing outstaying it's welcome either. In fact, if anything I'd say that a couple of these stories end slightly abruptly; if never unsatisfactorily.

Personal highlights for me were A Time For A Change (Ollie Masters and Valia Kapadai) which sees the deities of old coming to terms with their obsolescence in our age of reason; Changeling (Alexi Conman and Conor Boyle) which is just depressing as hell, in the best possible way (and has a killer panel on page 3 that made me laugh out loud; buy the book and guess which one I mean); and Samhain (Mathew Gibbs and Alice Duke), concerning the consequences for two young lads when they try to cover up a fatal hit and run.

I must confess that I didn't enjoy Samhain quite so much on first reading, and I blamed Duke's art for not doing enough to differentiate between the two protagonists, which made the whole thing confusing. Then I read it again and realised that they were wearing completely different outfits, so... and I wasn't even drunk.

The book is rounded off with an afterword from editor Stacey Whittle which is a trifle gushing; she is a girl after all; but obviously sincere and full of an infectious enthusiasm that makes you cross your fingers that this first excursion into the field will not be her last. Roll on volume two I say.

Just in case there's any doubt, I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone; comics fan, lover of fairy tales or just someone who appreciates a good story. You really can't go wrong.

In the event that I've moved you to want to buy this book, you can do so here. Go on, you'll thank me later.

If you do buy a copy though, I'd advise against visiting the editors blog, whittlewaffle, which is pimped on the back cover; a back cover which also has a beautiful piece of art on it, this time by Vicky Stonebridge, just to round out the package in style; because  I've been a follower of said blog for some time and it's all...pink and...girly and...full of posts about Strictly Come Dancing. *shudder* You have been warned.

House of Mystery: Love Stories For Dead People

Comics! With the pictures and the words and the coming together of the pictures and the words to make the stories happen! Yeah, you know what I'm talking about!

This week, we delve once more into the mysteries surrounding The House of, well, Mystery, funnily enough, to see how new resident Fig is doing, after finding herself trapped there in the first book.

It turns out, she's been moping, with occasional breaks to throw tantrums. Can't blame her though, it must have been an adjustment.

As you might expect from book 2 of a series, this is very much a bedding in tale. Having established the premise in the first book; certain lost souls end up trapped in the House of Mystery, serving bar and waiting tables for the clientele who are free to come and go at will; the writers now set out to give us an idea of who some of these characters are, beyond the archetypes they seemed to embody when we first met them.

So, we get a tale of The Pirate, Anne, and how she fell in love with a man who betrayed her, with violent consequences; or The Bartender, Harry, who's been in the house longer than any of them, and had adventures they wouldn't believe with some of the powers and forces behind the House's origins (and who sometimes hears the house talking to him, which is perfectly normal, thank you very much).

Harry meets Abel. Abel is cool.

 and of course The Drama Queen, who believes herself to be under a curse, with the story she tells to prove it having some inspired guest characters.

Writers Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges aren't new to this game though, and for every tidbit of information they give us, they leave twice as many mysteries still to be revealed. They're also well aware that a series of flashbacks and character monologues; however creepy, violent, intriguing, or combination of all three they may be; do not a narrative make and they tie the whole thing together with a good old fashioned quest, as three of our leads head off on an ill fated escape attempt, into the tunnels in the basement.

This escape, which spans the five issues collected in this book, isn't just a shoehorned in attempt to convince us there is a plot though.

The end of the journey. Miranda is *awesome*

No, it leads slowly and surely to a revelation, to a tragedy, and in the final instance to the introduction of a new character that will be sure to send the series in some very interesting new directions.

What it doesn't lead to (spoiler alert) is anyone getting out. The three intrepid adventurers are right back where they started at the end of the book, along with their new 'friend', but that's ok; this series has a long way to go yet, and they need to be there to play their parts; the time for happy endings will be later.

Maybe.

The Hunger Games

Another of my 'where the hell did this come from and how can there be 3 books already and everyone has already read them and they're making a movie and no-one will shut up about them and I'm going to be spoiled on everything before I open the first book and oh god whatever, just give me it I'll read it now' posts this week.

For the record, I hate when I'm forced to let books jump the queue in order to avoid spoilers. I need my incredibly complicated and strict system of what I read when to remain intact if I don't want the universe to implode behind my eyes. So thank you, spoilery people!

Anyway, I've read The Hunger Games.

You all know the plot; young girl volunteers to take part in a fight to the death against a bunch of other youngsters to prevent her little sister from being drafted; she and lots of other kids, some nice, some not, are shipped into an arena and start killing each other; rich folk get their jollies by watching; it's all a propaganda/morale crushing technique used by corrupt government to keep the populace in line. It's not a hard concept to grasp.

Much has been made of the unoriginality of the concept; with most citing Battle Royale as the victim of Suzanne Collins 'plagiarism'; because people haven't been rewriting the Greek myths or Shakespeare's plays for centuries, have they?

I once read an interview; and I can't remember where it was, sorry; with Terry Pratchett. He was being asked about a certain big hotshot new author who was making a killing with a bunch of stories based around a school for magically inclined people. Unseen University, anyone? Perhaps the interviewer was hoping, though they never came out and said it, that they would get a bitter rant about ideas theft. If they were expecting that, they were disappointed.

Instead what they got was common sense. He was far from the first to write stories about a school for wizards, and never expected to be the last; when you're working in the fantasy genre, some items are universal, one might even say generic; and what crime had this author committed, other than to get an awful lot of young kids who never would have otherwise to read books? You tell 'em, Tel!

I read an interview recently with Suzanne Collins, where she addressed her inspirations and thought processes behind The Hunger Games. While you'd expect her not to come out and say 'yeah, you got me, I'm a big old hack who nicked her story', the reasoning she did profess was so solid, in-depth and obviously genuine that you'd have to be the most cynical man alive to think she was making shit up to cover her backside. It's churlish and it's mean and it's disrespectful; so stop it.

Rant over. So what did I think of the book itself? Well, I'll tell you.

I loved it. The end.

Ha, that's not really the end. Me needs to waffle.

Katniss Everdeen is an engaging heroine, tis true, even if she is saddled with the tension killer that is a first person narrative; I really don't like them; and it's a good job she is because if you weren't happy in her company you'd find the first half of this book very boring. Not because nothing happens, but rather because nothing that you expect, happens; you go into a book about gladiatorial combat to the death and you expect people to be killing each other, so the fact that it takes almost 200 pages for the contest to begin is bound to be a bit of a drag.

Don't get me wrong, the opening sections do a masterful job establishing this world, and a sense of history, and manage to make the many districts and their respective populations truly distinct; in a way that the movie never quite managed; but it just takes a little too long to do it. I can't help but feel that a happy medium could have been found between the books languid pace and the overly rushed opening of the movie. Never mind.

As a consequence of the first person narrative; I really don't like them; the secondary characters are of course only seen through Katniss' eyes. For characters like Gale and Peeta, the two boys who form the inevitable love triangle with Katniss that all teen novels seem obligated to have, this works; Katniss is confused and unsure about how they feel about her, so the reader needs to be too. Up to a point, of course, because while Katniss may be oblivious to the romantic aspects of life, having grown up worrying more about putting food in her belly than her next kiss, you'd have to be pretty much an idiot to not get where this story is headed. Collins understands this though, and gets around it quite cleverly by giving just enough of a wink that you know she knows you know...er you know what I mean; before long the reader is in on the joke, and is allowed to feel that they're ahead of the character.

The much ballyhoo-ed violence is not, to be fair, as bad as some would have you believe; though still quite nasty in places; but rather it's the emotional shock that packs the weightiest punch. One death in particular, which you know, intellectually, is inevitable, still manages to knock the wind out of your sails when it comes and I will freely admit that I had to put the book down when I read it. Even the (inferior) movie version of the scene got a tear from me, I'm not too proud to admit.

The book stumbles a little in the big finale. If you saw the movie and thought the final bit of peril came out of nowhere and seemed tacked on you'll be pleased to hear that there is a proper explanation for it in the book, and a nasty and chilling one at that, but it still didn't quite work for me, and seemed maybe a step too far into the fantastical. I'm actually glad that the explanation wasn't used in the movie, because I'm not convinced they'd have been able to get it across in a way that made sense.

Slight pacing issues at the start, and a cluttered finale can't detract from what is, without a doubt, a brilliant, tense, thrilling and ultimately moving piece of work by Collins. which had me grasping for the sequel immediately. Highly recommended.

Suzanne Collins

The Boys: Get Some

Comics this week, with Volume 2 of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's The Boys,  entitled 'Get Some', from the 4 part arc that opens the volume.

And what an arc it is! I've seen some criticism elsewhere on the internets, even from those who were complimentary about volume one, that this book sputters a little; that having used up all the obvious jokes in book one Ennis struggles to segue into an actual proper plot. I couldn't disagree more.

An investigation into the death of a young man that the police are suspiciously keen to close the file on leads cockney psycho Butcher and fish out of water new boy Hughie to poke their noses into the world of high-tech costumed vigilante Tek-Knight and his assorted allies and enemies. Which couldn't come at a worse time for Tek-Knight, who's having some 'emotional issues.' Namely, he can't stop fucking anything vaguely resembling a hole.

Unlike the majority of superhero characters that we've met so far, Tek-Knight seems like a relatively decent chap at heart, who's genuinely torn up about these compulsions; one suspects that any of the supes we met in book one would have embraced it, or not even noticed the difference, so depraved have they allowed themselves to become, but TekKnight does everything he can to resist. The scene of him undergoing therapy is, while very much played for laughs; the incongruity of him in his huge suit of armour, hunched up in a very proper Doctor's office is comedy gold in itself; you can't help but come to like the guy, and sympathise with him.

Tek-Knight gets some help

The ending to Tek-Knight's story is one big sex joke, it's true, but it's also a genuinely stirring and moving moment. That it is instantly undercut by more gags is par for the course; Ennis doesn't let you wallow; but that doesn't change what it is.

That's one of the things the Ennis detractors continue to be oblivious to; he uses the smut and the gore and the creepy sex gags to lull you into thinking you're reading a juvenile bit of fluff, so that it hits you even harder when moments of true joy, true sadness, or true beauty come at you. The criticism that his work is just swearing and tit jokes could have had some credence in the early years, when he was writing Hellblazer or Preacher, because he hadn't yet shown, as he would as those series developed, just what was going on under the surface; that those criticisms are still being thrown at him today beggars belief. And they are; I read a recent article to that effect when looking up some stuff for this post.

Anyway, with the murder solved and the Tek-Knight story ended we get another arc, and if I tell you it's called Glorious Five Year Plan I should think you'd be able to guess where our intrepid heroes are headed for this tale. Need another clue? It's really cold, and they're fond of vodka.

This story begins to delve into the deeper political machinations that are going on behind the scenes and show us that while the bulk of the action is US based, these 'bad guys' have global intentions. It also has an incredibly bloody finale, with a truly massive body count, which is always nice, but the true joy is in new character Vasili Vorishkin, aka Love Sausage, Communist superhero turned bar owner. I mean seriously, Love Sausage.

As I say, this story delves into the deeper workings of the conspiracy at work in The Boys world but as this is only the 2nd volume it doesn't give us too many answers. What it does do is make it abundantly clear that the people we need to fear, the people who are the true 'villains' of this series are not the superheroes, arrogant abuse of superhuman abilities notwithstanding, but the humans; the corporations in fact; that are pulling their strings. There's probably a message there somewhere.

I adore this series, I'm not going to lie to you. It can be hilarious one moment, moving the next, and horrific the moment after that: then it'll throw in a moment that's all three at once, just to keep you on your toes. I'm reading nothing else like it, and I really don't want it to end. Lucky for me then that I'm so far behind, and have so much still to come.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest

I don't know what there is for me to say about The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest that I haven't already said about ...Played With Fire. But here's my biggest problem.

I've never visited Sweden, let alone lived there. I am completely uneducated in it's politics or social customs. But here's the thing; I refuse to believe that it is anything at all as Stieg Larsson describes it in these books.

I'm not talking about the organised crime or the shady government agencies; that stuff happens everywhere, to a lesser or greater extent, and this is fiction after all so exaggeration for dramatic effect is to be expected. I'm talking about the fact that 2 out of every 3 male characters is a misogynistic pig of the vilest sort. We aren't talking sexist, 'put the kettle on love' or 'get em out for the lads' which would be bad enough but believable; we're talking vile woman hating scumbags.

 Not a chapter goes by without one character or another; be they Private Eye, Cop, Politician, Spy, Doctor, Social Worker or Drug Dealing Mass Murdering Psychopath; spout off about whores, bitches and cunts, and it just gets ridiculous. When everyone is as hateful as that, what possible impact can your 'main' villains have?

Of course it's always possible that Larsson made virtually every male character behave in that fashion because he understood that it was the only way to make his hero look good by comparison. Don't get me wrong, I like Mikael Blomkvist; when he's being a capable reporter and/or a doggedly pursuing proof of Salanders innocence. It's when he's doing anything else that he pisses me off big style. This is not giving your lead 'foibles' or having him be 'difficult'. This is having your lead be a total shit. Seriously, how does this man have friends? His sexual attitudes alone... I'm no prude, I once read a Jackie Collins novel, but I just want to punch this man whenever his attitude to sex, or monogamy, came up.

What of Lisbeth Salander though? Well for a start off she barely registers. Huge swathes of the book are people sitting around talking about her; take a drink every time someone uses the phrase 'lesbian satanist' and you won't live through the first 100 pages; but we don't see her actually do anything much of note until probably the last 50 pages or so. At which point Larsson realises she doesn't have her 'big scene' of the book; and other people have pretty much resolved her plot for her; so he contrives to give her one last 'kick-ass' fight scene against the unstoppable man mountain killing machine who feels no pain. Yeah.

And that's where it ends. We go from the title character in mortal danger, to the book being over and her (spoiler)  perfectly safe in the space of about 3 pages. Then she forgives a man she should by rights have been slapping the face of and the book's over. A far cry from the 'when will this bloody thing end?' feeling that the last 100 pages of book one engendered, but still far from perfect. Never did find that middle ground, this series.

So yeah, this book is one big bundle of flaws. Which is a crying shame, because it has a really intriguing plot at it's core, if you can forgive the horrible convenience of everyone in the world seemingly being connected to Salander in some way. He just never quite manages to dig the plot out from under the exposition and 'gritty' sex talk.

Anyway, that's the end of the Millennium trilogy. I didn't hate it, but I can't say it particularly blew me away either. Onwards and upwards though, because next week I talk about the 2nd trade paperback collection of The Boys. Good times.

Stieg Larsson

Fables: Animal Farm

Comics again this week, and I continue my reading of story lines everyone else read 10 years ago with Fables: Animal Farm, the second collection of the ongoing Fables series.

After introducing us to the likes of, among others, Snow White, King Cole, Prince Charming and Beauty and her Beast in first volume Fables in Exile it's now time to meet those Fables who can't really be expected to blend in to a normal New York setting. Yes, it's off to The Farm, to meet giants, dragons, a certain 3 pigs, and of course some porridge loving bears; one of whom has a more than platonic friendship going on with a certain blonde haired petty thief. Yes, they go there.

Following her actions in the first volume, Snow White decides that Rose Red needs straightening out, so it's family outing time as she drags her wayward sister along for the ride on her annual inspection of The Farm. Before they ever arrive though, Snow is convinced that something is wrong, and when they are greeted by a populace acting very strangely indeed her suspicions would seem to be confirmed. But just what is going on with the non-human fables? And will Snow and Rose be able to set aside their differences long enough to sort things out?

It seems that some of the fables confined to the farm are a little fed up of their lot; if they can't live openly in this world, then they want to return to their homelands. The Fable government won't allow this, at least not yet, so there is only one thing for it; armed revolution.

Having the 3 pigs; or 2 of them at least; as revolutionary ring leaders is, one suspects, one of the easier choices Bill Willingham had to make in the writing of this story but his choices of who else to include within the rebel party may surprise. While some are already villains in their original tales, such as Shere Kahn of Jungle Book fame; or, as in the case of the monkey king from that same tale, at the very least mischievous; others are very much the heroes and/or heroines of their stories. Indeed, one such 'heroine' is portrayed as the biggest psychopath of the entire tale, and it is glorious. She comes this close to stealing the show.

For a story that features the 3 little pigs as major players and has Chicken Little as it's comedy relief, this is pretty dark stuff. The revolutionaries are not messing about, with one minor character from the first book being dealt a nasty death early on, to reinforce that fact, and a truly shocking moment at the climax of the penultimate issue contained in this collection that I guarantee will make you sit up and swear at the page. Not to mention the aftermath; we get a reminder that the worlds these characters come from are not the sanitised, whitewashed, Disney-fied worlds of today's fairy tales when the heroes flat out execute the captured rebels. This is harsh reading.

Snow learns the truth. Or some of it.

One of the major villains gets away at the end; and it's my favourite, so I look forward to their future mis-deeds with some glee; but for the most part we see the status quo restored. One suspects this is a temporary measure however, because many seeds are sown that would seem to indicate troubled times ahead.

More to the point, we get a conversation that would indicate that a Fables immortality may well be linked to how powerful a hold they have over the public consciousness; so if your name is on every pre-schoolers lips and Disney are prepping a blu-ray of your animated classic, you can pretty much rest easy but if not... don't go getting into any duels any time soon. This conversation seems designed, at least to my tired and easily confused brain, to let us know someone major is going to die soon, and set us to guessing as to which major characters within the series are 'famous' enough to be safe. We'll see.

All told, this is another fabulous run of issues from the Fables team, and its easy to see from this just why the series has proven so massively popular over the years since; I for one am looking forward to seeing what new avenues will be explored, now that all of the characters, both human and non-human, have been introduced.

Join me here next week for, in a slight change of pace, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest. No pigs, bears, or beautiful princesses in that one.

Horus Heresy: The Outcast Dead/Deliverance Lost

Since last I spoke of the Horus Heresy series, I have read not one, but two further novels in the series; The Outcast Dead, by Graham McNeill and Deliverance Lost by Gav Thorpe. And now I shall make discussion of them, as is traditional. 

It's been a while since I read them though, and I've read a few other things since then, so I'll not do a full analysis (hahahaha shut up, you know what I mean) but rather just a quick comparison between the two, and why they are, taken back to back, such a good example of why I enjoy this series so much, even after having read almost 20 books. 

Which is not to say that they are good books, necessarily. 

In fact, Deliverance Lost is pretty much the definition of a poor book, and The Outcast Dead, while better; as you'd expect from Graham McNeill; is far from without it's flaws. 

It's in their subject matter, rather than the quality of the work involved, that they serve as good examples of the Horus Heresy series' current charm; namely, it's versatility. In the early days of the series it ran the risk of, and often succumbed to, repetition; so many novels, by so many authors, all recounting this Space Marine battle or that one, but the wider ramifications of the great betrayal at the heart of the series, and the intricacies of how this Universe actually functioned, were never explored; or  if they were it was in a perfunctory manner designed to give you just enough information to herd you to the next gunfight. 

Of late, things have changed.

We'd had hints of a new direction for a while; notably, but not exclusively, in the 13th book, Nemesis. It was with book 16 though; novella collection Age of Darkness; that they fully embarked on their new direction. These two books embrace that change wholeheartedly, with TOD dealing with events among the 'little people' on Earth for the first time, and DL, while it does deal with Space Marines and has a couple of battles, has as it's main focus a story of obsession, genetic engineering and espionage. As I said above, neither book is entirely successful and DL falls apart completely at the end but it's pleasing to see these new avenues being explored, and new story telling roads being traveled. 

I'm not suggesting for one second that Space Marine battles should be excised completely from the series; it's entirely based on a tabletop game involving Space Marines shooting each other; but it's nice that they're acknowledging that they have created, perhaps by accident, a Universe ripe for exploration. Some very good writers ply their trade in the Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000 tie-in range; as well as some very bad ones of course; and it should be interesting to see what they come up with now that they're free to spread their wings. Mistakes will be made, like Deliverance Lost, but when they find their rhythm I predict some excellent space opera could be forthcoming. Can't wait.

100 Bullets: Split Second Chances

Finally time to start writing up my thoughts on the second volumes of the various comic series I'm reading in collected trade paperback form. First up, as before, it's 100 Bullets. (Book one is here)

It's hard when you're reading something as old as 100 Bullets; the issues in this collection are well over a decade old; to avoid spoilers but I've pretty much managed not to find out any specifics of plot. I don't know, for example, what anyone's motivations are, or when major characters are going to get killed off, or anything like that. What I do know, though, is that this series does not adhere to it's seeming anthology format for the duration of it's run. There is a lot going on under the surface, and many clues are being laid. Even knowing this, though, I didn't expect the major background story to erupt as early as this 2nd book.

Chucky Spinks

Of course, at first glance this collection seems much like the first. We open on a two issue arc about ex con Chucky Spinks who learns from Agent Graves; he of the irrefutable proof against those who wronged you and 100 untraceable bullets to do with that information what you will; that he had been set up, and just who exactly had done the framing.  After some soul searching, we see what he does about it. Just as with Dizzy Cordova and Lee Dolan in the first book, things refuse to play out how you'd expect.

After a brief one issue stop over in which Graves sits down for a coffee with an old colleague and we learn a hell of a lot about the world he inhabits, although one suspects not nearly enough to so much as scratch the surface of what's really going on, it's back to business as usual. Someone has been wronged, and Graves is here to help.

Recipient this time is Cole Burns, ice cream man and seller of knock off cigarettes who is given evidence of a certain local mob bosses culpability in the death of a loved one.

Cole Burns

Whatever will he do? I'm not telling, except to say that, well, it doesn't go well for him and things are looking bad. Until...

Lilly Roach

Lilly Roach is up next and her story is perhaps the darkest we've seen so far. Her daughter ran away from home, and Lilly doesn't know why. Or maybe she doesn't want to know. But Graves is going to make sure she can't hide from the truth forever. Lilly begins and ends her story in one issue.

It's at this point that the series takes the turn that I knew was coming but didn't expect anywhere near this early. We meet a reporter who has been investigating the shady figures behind Graves, and previous recipients of his 'help' start showing up again; at least, those who survived the events of their opening stories; Dizzy is back, just in time to receive a dire warning, Cole Burns seems to be taking to his new circumstances rather well, and Graves' adversary, who may not be quite so much of an adversary as we were led to believe, is beginning to show his hand.

All told, I have absolutely no idea where things are going to go from here. With one character going through some very weird Manchurian Candidate/Bourne style mind altering freakery, and the growing idea that some kind of uber-conspiracy may be essentially running everything, this could go anywhere. I'm definitely along for the ride.

Mr Branch. May have uncovered more than is healthy.

As is customary in my comics posts I shall now make my perfunctory 'I don't understand art but I know what I like' comment. I like this art. There, done. Eduardo Risso has, as you can see from the character panels above, a style which you couldn't really describe as 'realistic', but it complements Brian Azzarello's dark, twisty scripts, with their dark, twisty, tragic characters, to perfection. I wouldn't have thought it would, which shows what I know.

Next week; assuming I write a post, which lets be honest is never exactly a done deal; I shall be discussing The Outcast Dead, from the Horus Heresy series. Something for you to look forward to there. 

Getting back to the olden days

Most of my non-genre reading (and by that I mean non sci-fi/fantasy, because that is what 'genre' has come to mean in my head, so don't shoot me please) is of the cop/thriller variety. I can't really pinpoint the exact moment that this state of affairs came into being but I do know that it never used to be this way.

In my younger years; for almost the entirety of my school life, in fact; I was all about the history. Naturally, sci-fi/fantasy was my first love, but when I did branch out, it was into the time streams, not onto a beat. Bernard Cornwell is of course the name that immediately springs to mind, so prolific was he; and so beloved of my local library, so never out of reach; but there were others.

Very few names have survived the gradual degradation of my memory cells, which is a shame as I vividly remember the feeling of reading and loving these works, and would dearly love to be able to recommend, and maybe even revisit some of them.

Masters of Rome 1: The First Man In Rome

I do remember one particular series that I was very much into; although I don't think I ever finished it; was the Masters of Rome series, by Colleen McCullough, which charted the Roman Empire over a hundred years or so. That's one I think I'll definitely return to.

  I'm telling you this because having caught up, almost, with the crime series I came late to and had a backlog of (mostly Mark Billingham and Kathy Reichs stuff) I figured rather than the original plan of starting another big haul; contenders were the alphabet books by Sue Grafton or the Alex Cross books by James Patterson; I'd take the opportunity to return to the history books. I just have no idea where to start.

Bernard Cornwell's Grail Quest series. On the shelf.

I have picked up a load of Cornwell books that he's brought out since I stopped reading him; because he apparently never stops writing, ever; but I'm wary of getting sucked into that trap of trying to keep up with a really prolific person and never reading anything else. So I took a plunge and picked up a couple of chunky omnibuses from authors I've never read that, while big in themselves, are at least complete. A trilogy called Viking, by Tim Severin, and a collection of short stories about a guy called McAuslan by Flashman author George MacDonald Fraser. I flipped a coin to see which got read first.

Can't Sleep? Take one chapter before bedtime.

Viking it was. The first of the 3 novels contained in the book is called Odinn's Child. It's dull. It's brain freezingly dull. It is a novel, about Vikings. And it's dull. It has battles and feasts and quests. And it's dull. Reading this novel is legitimately one of the toughest challenges I've ever faced as a reader; the urge to toss it aside being so strong so much of the time. When I finished it, and was faced with the prospect of reading the second novel; Sworn Brother; I cried a little before shaking my head and admitting defeat. It stands neglected now upon my shelf awaiting it's return to my good graces.

I will read book 2. And after a no doubt equally essential sanity break, I will read book 3. But not yet. Oh no.

So the utter tedium of more Viking stories and the, one hopes, slightly more fun McAuslan stories await me in my future. Beyond that, who knows. Maybe I'll bow to the inevitable and sink into another Cornwell series. Anyone who wants to suggest something new, feel free in the old comment box below. I'll try anything once.

Hitman: A Rage In Arkham

COMICS! Because I haven't for a while.

Meet Tommy Monaghan. He kills people for money. It's a living.

Garth Ennis is the only writer to have two series in my graphic novel rotation at the moment; I spoke about current epic The Boys in an earlier post, while DC are currently collecting his 90's classic Hitman for what I believe is the first time; at least in the case of the later issues.

It's fabulous.

Tommy Monaghan is a hired gun, working freelance amongst the various feuding factions of the Gotham City (yes, that Gotham City) underworld. After a chance encounter with a not particularly friendly 'giant alien space vampire parasite' he gains certain powers that come in very handy in his line of work; namely x-ray vision and telepathy. He was already good at his job; now that he can see where you're hiding and hear what you're thinking, he's positively unstoppable. Or so he thinks.

Tommy first appeared in DC's The Demon comic, in it's second annual and then twice more before that title folded. This first volume collects the first of these appearances only, skips the other two, throws in Tommy's appearance in Batman Chronicles 4, and then launches into his own series, Hitman, with the first 3 issue arc. The completist in me might have balked at the two missing stories but in truth, I didn't know about them when I read this book and you'd never notice from the stories. Whatever happened in those missing tales, Ennis does a flawless job of giving you everything you need to know to dive right in.

In fact, even had they omitted Tommy's 'origin' tale from Demon Annual #2 and picked straight up with Hitman #1, this book would have been as accessible a debut volume as I've read. Literally everything you need to know to start following the character is laid out for you in the minimum number of pages, without ever seeming like rushed exposition, and we're propelled straight into Tommy's first 'mission'. Someone has hired him to kill The Joker.

Yes, the Joker. Elements of the Batman mythos are all over this book. The man himself is on the cover, not to mention the story, where he receives less than reverential treatment from Tommy (and Ennis); the title, A Rage In Arkham (the name of the first arc) refers to Arkham Asylum, home away from lair for all of Bats' myriad of foes; and as mentioned, The Joker looms large over events towards the finale. Or does he?

Kill The Joker? Fat Chance Mate

It's a sensible, and most likely editorially mandated, route to take. After all, if you're launching a new comic with an essentially all new cast, it can't help to play up it's links to one of your biggest characters. The assumption the reader makes is that, once the introductions are made and Tommy and friends are established in their own right, the Batman links will be pared back and phased out. These characters are strong enough to stand on their own and tell their own stories.

So what kind of stories are we talking here? Well, by virtue of being published as a Demon issue, the origin story is heavily reliant on the Supernatural, and the Rage in Arkham arc has as it's villains The Arkannone, a group of Lords of Hell, eager to recruit Tommy to their cause. However, there is nothing to suggest that the series will always focus on that aspect. One virtue of being set in the regular DC line is that there is a precedent for books of all genres. Superhero fare, gritty crime drama, war stories, and supernatural horror stand side by side in this world, and Tommy has a foot in all of those worlds. This series could go anywhere, and with Ennis writing, it almost certainly will.

Of course, this being the first book in the series, Tommy comes out on top and walks off into the sunset. None of his enemies are truly defeated though, and he's managed to make a few new ones along the way; it looks like there could be a very complicated road ahead for our hero.

And now for my traditional perfunctory appraisal of the art on offer; prefaced by the equally traditional caveat that no disrespect is intended, I just don't feel qualified to discuss art.

John McCrea is brilliant. His is a very cartoony style, which works wonders when the book is meant to be funny, which is often, but is also strangely well suited to depicting violent, bloody death.

In his introduction, artist Steve Dillon (frequent Ennis collaborator) talks of the 'acting ability' that comic book artists need to imbue in their characters, stressing that McCrea is very good at it. In my humble, unqualified opinion, he's absolutely right,as evidenced by Tommy's cheesy as hell grin when pretending not to know who Batman is. Taking the piss, and loving it.

And there you have my thoughts on the first Hitman collection. Another stonking start to what looks like being another stonking series from the always stonking Mr Ennis. Stonking.

Garth Ennis

John McCrea

The Girl Who Played With Fire

It's ironic that a novel with as tedious and drawn out beyond all sane reason an ending as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo had should spawn a sequel that's biggest, though by no means only flaw, is it's overly busy and rushed climax. Yet that's exactly what you get with The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Leaving the end until the end though, what else is there to be said about The Girl Who Played With Fire?

Well, you could say that within it's 569 pages is a taut 250/300 page thriller fighting desperately to get out.

You could say that the peril befalling the protagonists veers worryingly close to cartoonish at times.

You could say that the plot relies *far* to heavily on coincidence.

You could even say that Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, so mesmerising as creations and so competent as characters in the first book, are compromised beyond repair.

The plot this time around, when it finally gets going, is a far more personal one for Salander, and delves much further into her history, her social circle such as it is, and the behavioural issues that saw the state declare her incompetent to manage her own life. All of which, sadly, is presented with all the dramatic flare of a cost/benefit powerpoint presentation at the AGM of a plastic spoon manufacturer. Persevere though, and there are some nuggets of gold.

Blomkvist, on the other hand, is brought into the plot entirely by a series of coincidences and he  blunders around being even more of an arrogant, selfish tit than he was in the first book, while his sexual/relationship proclivities continue to present the burning question of why any woman with half an ounce of grey matter would give him the time of day.

Neither character comes out of this book looking particularly good, but they can at least rest easy in the knowledge that they are the leads so Larsson doesn't dare do as thorough a hatchet job on them as he does on every other character in the book.  Every second man  we meet is a sadistic misogynistic pig, and those who aren't are borderline incompetent; while the women, who are few and far between, spend all their time acting like gullible mugs. It's all well and good to tell us how smart and independent and savvy the women are, but when their every action belies that assertion, you're doing something wrong.

That last paragraph leaves something of a sour taste, because it would be obvious to a blind pheasant who only reads Urdu that Larsson has some pretty hefty anger towards what he sees as social injustices, whether motivated by misogyny or otherwise. His message is a good one. It's just a shame he isn't a better writer, and the whole thing comes off smacking of naivete.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is full of narrative dead ends as well. To give one, very prominent, example; the whole opening of the book. Not to put to fine a point on it, but it's entirely pointless. Salander is living it up in a secluded paradise with some of the money she nicked in book one when she figures out that one of the other guests at the hotel is planning to kill his wife. A storm hits, and Salander uses it as cover to kill him first.

Now, had this been used as a means of saying "Look, she's willing to kill, so she might be guilty of these crimes she's accused of" I could understand it, but that's never even intimated. Had the police discovered her crime, or at least suspected it, and used it to bolster their theories about her, I could have understood it. Neither of those things happen though, and you're left to wonder why Larsson bothered writing any of it.

From the beginning of the book, to the end of the book; it just stops. Absolutely nothing is resolved; he villains are still out and about being villainous, Salander is still on the run accused of murders she didn't commit (but not accused of the one she did) and while Blomkvist has figured out a fair amount of the story he's in absolutely no position to do anything about it. Come back for book 3 suckers!

In fact, you could spend almost as long relaying the books flaws as Larsson spent creating them. It would be pointless though, and not a little churlish; because you see, the book is eminently readable and immensely addictive. The flaws niggle and the flaws annoy, but they don't stop you reading. I'd like to tell you why but... I don't know. What meager critical faculties I might once have possessed have admitted defeat at the hands of this book and all I can say is... it's objectively rubbish, but if you read it, you'll probably enjoy it.

As I typed this post I came to a realisation that I didn't reach while actually reading; Larsson is a Star Wars fan! A standalone first story, followed by a sequel that digs into the lead's past, makes a massive reveal about their paternity, leaves another major character incapacitated, has no real ending to speak of and is pointless without the 3rd part. The Girl Who Played With Fire is The Empire Strikes Back! Only not as good, obviously.

Seizure

Tory Brennan and her friends Hi, Shelton and Ben are, along with wolf pup Cooper, the Virals; a psychically linked 'pack' who, as a result of exposure to an experimental virus have achieved, in addition to the aforementioned psychic link, heightened senses and varying degrees of super speed, strength and agility. Unfortunately they also seem to have gained a heightened ability to get themselves mixed up in weird and dangerous situations as well.

The first book in the Virals series; called, appropriately enough, Virals; told of how the gang got their powers, and their subsequent efforts to bring down the nasty scientists and mobsters responsible, whilst simultaneously keeping said powers secret. I mean, you would, wouldn't you? No-one likes being vivisected.

Book 2, Seizure, is having no truck with that though and sets about examining what the kids will do with their new abilities. Which, it turns out, is hunt for buried pirate treasure to fund their parents lab so they don't lose their homes and have to split up. So basically, The Goonies.

Reichs doesn't attempt to disguise the similarities, even going so far as to have characters mention the movie in conversation. But acknowledging an influence doesn't relieve you of guilt if you don't live up to it; if anything, I'd say it's quite the opposite; and this book in no way lives up to the legacy of said movie. Sadly, it's The Goonies with all the wit and charm replaced by stilted dialogue and science lessons.

Reichs can tell a story, that much should never be in doubt. The problem is that she can't tell this story. Her background is in forensic anthropology, and her 'day job' of remains identification; be it for disaster relief, war zone/genocide clear up or, ore often, law enforcement; is shared by the heroine of her 'adult' novels, Temperance Brennan. As such, Reichs' technical jargon and propensity for lecturing the reader in aspects of her discipline, sits easily in the context of those books. Of course coroners and cops and the like will talk in those terms. Teenagers, however scientifically minded, will not. There isn't a single character among the 'Virals' that comes across like an actual teen.

This could have been a thrilling adventure story. And when she lets herself go, it is; she's certainly capable of writing a decent action sequence. But it's too inconsistent, and all too often she falls into the trap of having her characters explain the plot to each other in a huge chunk of techno-babble. Suspension of disbelief becomes impossible.

Of course, I'm going to keep reading regardless. Not because I'm particularly enjoying the series but because I am still enjoying the Temperance Brennan books and, on an intellectual level, I'm eager to see how the two series co-exist. Reichs is playing a little bit fast and loose with the rules of fiction lately and I'm intrigued as to how she keeps it up.

Not only does she have Tory and her father sit down to watch Bones, a TV show based on novels which, one would assume, don't exist in their world, since they feature a member of their family as a fictional character (and Tory's father has actually appeared in a couple of them himself), but we also have the fact that both the Tempe and Tory Brennan books are existing in the same world; Tempe has mentioned her niece in her books, and Tory has asked her Aunt for help in the Virals books, but the Tempe books are straight thrillers with a hard science basis and the Virals books are, by their very nature, delving into the realms of sci-fi. How closely will she allow them to interact? And will she come a cropper because of it?

I'm not wishing for her to fail. Far from it in fact; I thoroughly enjoy her adult books and genuinely hope she finds a more distinctive voice for her YA work. I just don't think she will.

Vampire Diaries: The Return

Since comparing the Vampire Diaries books to the TV show has become pointless, I have no easy method to disguise my thoughts on them. So, I must bite the bullet and give a straight opinion of the books, in and of themselves. It may not be pretty.

The second series of The Vampire Diaries books, called The Return because there is no lazy cliche to which L. J. Smith will not stoop, is comprised of the novels Nightfall, Shadow Souls, and Midnight. They are none of them very good.

To Smith's credit, she has opted to widen the setting of these books considerably, fleshing out the history and deepening the mythology of her fictional world, when it must have been oh so very tempting to churn out more of the same. Parallel worlds, heavenly 'police', an order of vampire hunters, vicious animal spirits... there is an awful lot going on here, that in the hands of a decent writer could have produced something a bit good. Sadly, in the decades since the first series Smith has not a better writer become. All the annoying little tics that blemished her earlier works are still present and correct, not least the ridiculous need to stop the plot every few pages so the girls can debate the relative 'hotness' of various characters and of course her insistence on using terms no self respecting human would ever utter in real conversation. We know that Meredith and Alaric are 'engaged to be engaged' because characters use that very phrase EVERY SINGLE TIME the couple are mentioned.

"Did you hear about thingy and wotsit?"

"No, what about them?"

"Oh, they're engaged to be engaged! It's ever so romantic."

"Engaged to be engaged, you say? That's ever such big news!"

"I know! Engaged to be engaged!"

You think I'm mocking. There are numerous conversations, exactly as banal as that, throughout these books. It's annoying as hell.

Terrible writing aside though, there is actually a lot to like in the story. Certainly, if the TV show writers were looking for new villains to displace the increasingly tired Originals they could do a lot worse than check out the Kitsune demons seen here. Petty and spiteful their motives may seem at first glance but that doesn't stop the effects of their actions from being truly horrific in places. Indeed, some of the acts of self-mutilation they inspire in those they influence are nothing short of disgusting. Make no mistake, there is some really nasty stuff in here.

Of course, tradition dictates that the story must end on a pathetic cop-out, and sure enough Smith doesn't disappoint. The out of nowhere resurrection of Elena at the end of the first series, which occurs without any explanation and essentially renders the drama of the climax meaningless is actually beaten here by the lead characters essentially asking an angel for a do-over and the angel saying yes. So NOTHING BAD THAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE LAST 7! BOOKS MATTERS! It's couched in slightly more complicated terms than that, but the bottom line is, angels fix all the boo-boos. It's an insult, ladies and gentlemen.

So, the story is an improvement over the first, at least until the end, but the writing is as crappy as ever. The question now becomes, how will the third series compare? Smith herself has been fired from the series by the publishers, though you'd never know it from the covers, and a ghost writer is penning them. Can we expect to see an improvement, or will this new pen be even worse, as difficult as that is to conceive? We'll have to wait and see, won't we?

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home

And so it came to pass that several decades after Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 9 launched, I didst sit upon mine writing stool and pour forth upon the page mine thoughts as to the worth of Volume One of... Season 8.

Yeah, I'm slow. What of it?

First things first, let's just get out of the way the fact that a) I'm an unapologetic gusher of superlatives (or I would be if I knew any; my thesaurus has disappeared) when it comes to the writing of Joss Whedon, and b) Buffy The Vampire Slayer is, in my opinion, one of the greatest television shows of it's, or any other, era. That said, I'd like to think I can put aside any lingering hero worship and read this material with my critical faculties intact.

IT WAS AWESOME! Ahem.

 Season 8, for those who don't know, is; or was, since it's long ended and it's successor is in full flow; an official, canonical continuation of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, picking up shortly after the events at the end of the 7th and final season of the TV show. Clue's in the name really.

The worry was that, for all the protestations from the publisher and Joss Whedon, who was on board to plot the 'season' and write pivotal issues, it wouldn't be real Buffy. Tie in comics rarely, at least in my opinion, achieve the true feel of the source material, and there is always the stigma of, 'if it's not on TV it doesn't count.' Hopefully Whedon's involvement would counter the first point, but the second would be harder to tackle; being, as it was, a perception ingrained in the reader for many years. Just ask the Star Trek TV writers how much they worried about contradicting the print stuff.

Luckily, we needn't have worried. At least as far as the first five issues are concerned; that being the material collected in this first volume; the feel is pretty much spot on. Characters sound like their TV counterparts, with all the laugh out loud moments of dialogue that come along with that, and while the storyline is on a much bigger scale to that of the TV show, it's in a way that makes perfect sense, given the way the show ended. After all, when last we waved farewell to Buffy, she'd just saved the world at the head of what was essentially a Slayer Army.

The events depicted in this book could never have happened onscreen. Casting logistics alone; a lot of old faces show up in rapid succession; would cause them problems but the budget... The very first scene in the book is of Buffy leading an assault team of Slayers, by sky diving from a helicopter. Yeah. Oh, and it also features dialogue about Nick Fury, which made me chuckle, given a certain modest little movie Whedon has just released.

We get a lot of plot in amongst the witty dialogue and the action scenes. A couple of old villains show up to cause trouble, another old villain cashes in his chips, the US military make their presence known in a much more overt way than The Initiative ever did and we get a few hints that none of them are  going to be the main villains of the piece, when all is said and done. Because that would just be too easy, wouldn't it?

Oh, and Dawn is a giant. Just because.

Artwise, the interiors (by Georges Jeanty) offer work in which you always know who it is you're meant to be looking at, without ever seeming like exact likenesses of the actors. I'm sure there's probably  a name for that, but I know nothing about this stuff so... The covers of the individual issues, though (by Jo Chen), all of which are included, are incredibly lifelike paintings, very obviously based on the cast's likenesses and in some cases creepily accurate.

Horus Heresy : Age of Darkness

As the seemingly never ending quest to catch up with the Horus Heresy series trundles ever onwards we come to Age of Darkness, which marks a pretty significant turning point in the series.

After the opening trilogy the Horus Heresy series series very quickly moved away from having any kind of traditional linear narrative. Books would explore previously described events from a new perspective, or flash back to show how characters arrived at their roles in the opening story; some going back years, decades, even centuries. Very rare was the story that progressed the plot much beyond the massacre on Isstvan V that closed the 3rd book. Until now.

Age of Darkness is a collection of novellas from various writers; some established contributors to the series, some new names. The stories continue the series tradition of jumping around in time, but with a much narrower window, and one that's looking in the other direction. At last, we get to see the after effects of the Isstvan V event.

Some of the stories are better than others, as is to be expected in any anthology format, and which are the good and which the bad will depend, in this case, on what you want from this series. For many people; those who came to the books from the games; I would imagine a large part of the appeal lies in the weaponry and the technology. For me though, it's all about the world building, the politics, the people and the subtler side of the war.

With that said it's perhaps unsurprising that I was drawn to Liar's Due, by James Swallow; a tale of how propaganda can be used to conquer a people without firing a shot; and The Iron Within, which while on the surface is a fairly basic battle story, also tackles the issue of individuals having to decide whether to follow immoral orders. This latter story deals with something I'd been thinking about more and more as I read the Horus Heresy series; we are told that this Legion or that is on one side or the other of the rebellion, but what are the chances that everyone within those Legions is going to follow suit? It can come across as overly simplistic, if examined too closely, but this story at least addresses the issue. Whether it will be looked at again as the series progresses is something we'll have to wait and see about.

My other favourite story, which will come as no surprise to anyone who has the vaguest inkling of my tastes, was Little Horus by Dan Abnett; partly because it delved into the psyche of an important character that we seldom see, though often hear about; and partly because it employs a favourite trick of Abnett's which to me at least never gets old; that of repetition. As in his last HH novel, Prospero Burns; in which a major character experiences a recurring dream, which is always almost exactly the same until the point of waking, whereupon the dreamer comes a little closer to learning the point of the dream each time; Abnett uses repetition here in his description of his title character, right up to the line "Then again, once they (redacted for spoiler), all he ever looked was..."

It's a clever ploy which ensures that the final iteration of the line; the final line of the story; hits home hard. We come away thinking exactly what he wants us to be thinking about this character, and what I'm sure we need to be thinking about him, going forward, since he's almost guaranteed to be back down the line.

I'm hoping, given that all of these stories take place post-Isstvan and the cover tells us "A new chapter begins", that we are going to see the story move forward into the post massacre period permanently. I've enjoyed the flashbacks, and as someone who comes to the books fresh; not having been a gamer; they've been a boon in terms of getting to grips with the world, but we're nearing 20 books, now, in the series and the time has come I think.

Madame Xanadu: Disenchanted

Comics again this week, as once again we look at Vol.1 of an ongoing series. This week the focus is on Madame Xanadu; a long time minor character, apparently, in the DC Universe, Xanadu's time to shine has arrived as she gets her own series, penned by Matt Wagner, with art by Amy Reeder Hadley, coloured by Guy Major.

This first volume, entitled Disenchanted, collects the story first published in issues 1-10 of the monthly comic, published by DC's 'mature readers' arm, Vertigo.


Usual comics discussion caveats apply here; I'm not the most widely read when it comes to the big mainstream comics universes of Marvel and DC, and have next to zero interest in the seemingly endless Superhero titles that throng the shelves, choosing to mainly concentrate on self contained, often creator owned, serials. My DC consumption is almost entirely limited to Vertigo titles, because they are more likely to fit those criteria, and when they do tie in to DC continuity, as is the case here, they're on the periphery, and don't require a huge commitment to buying 97 titles a month. All of which is just to say, I've not read anything else featuring this character. And it didn't matter in the slightest.

Madame Xanadu is a mystic, a fortune teller, and a guide to those who need aid when supernatural threats come knocking at their door. But why did she decide to dedicate her life to helping others? More to the point, what are the origins of the powers she uses to do so?


With this, suitably epic, opening storyline, Wagner gives us as thorough an origin story for the character as anyone could ask for. In 2 issue jumps we get snapshots of Xanadu's life over the centuries, from the fall of Camelot (you'll never guess who she was in Arthurian myth), through the court of Kublai Khan, Paris in the days of the revolution, and London at the height of Jack the Ripper's spree, to New York City in the 1930's.


Along the way we see Xanadu at the highest peaks of her powers and at her lowest, near death ebb, and come to understand how she became the person she is today, and presumably will continue to be as the series continues. She has lived a long time, and has made a lot of mistakes over that time, many in regards to an equally long lived Phantom Stranger, and it would seem destiny requires her to make amends.


Hadley, ably assisted by Major, produces some absolutely stunning artwork here, and shows a remarkable range, given the wide scope of the settings. The contrast could not be more apparent than in the lush green of her woodland home pre-camelot, and the seedy, dark underbelly of London, as Jack stalks the fogbound alleyways; these disparate settings never derail the book, always managing to feel, for all their differences, like part of the same world. I sometimes struggle to discuss the art in comics, but as the cliche says, I know what I like. And I love this.


The story features a number of references to the wider DC world, but they're very subtle, never once intruding on the story or leaving me feeling that I lacked some obscure piece of canon required to understand the tale at hand. It actually would not surprise me to learn that many other references existed which I'd missed entirely; they are there for the faithful, but the uninitiated are welcome too. Indeed, if you are a relative newcomer to comics, looking for a place to start but put off by decades of continuity, you could do worse than heed the words painted on Madame Xanadu's shopfront; Enter Freely And Be Unafraid.