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.