Book Review #28

Skull-Kickers Treasure Trove volume 1, by Jim Zub, Chris Stevens, Edwin Huang, and Misty Coats. Hardcover, collecting issues 1-11 of the comic book, and containing fun extra features! Image Comics.

Writer Jim Zub described this comic book series as “Lord of the Rings meets the Hangover.” That’s pretty accurate, but for comic book fans, I’d call it “Groo the Wanderer meets the Punisher.”

This volume contains eleven issues of awesome fun.  In a fantasy setting, a pair of warriors hire themselves out as mercenary thugs. Except that the big one, Baldy, has a gun, and it is made clear in the story that nobody in this world has ever seen such a weapon. It is mysteries like this that make the world of Skull-Kickers seem very lived-in, as we are thrown into the middle of an ongoing epic.

Baldy and his feisty little partner, Shorty, are in the town of Mudwich when the first five-issue arc (“1000 Opas and a Dead Body”) begins. When the visiting chancellor is assassinated, the skull-kickers go after the 1,000 opa reward. Their efforts go reasonably well, and attempts by their enemies to poison them go hilariously awry. After that adventure, they head to the capital fortress city of Urbia.

The second five-story arc (“Five Funerals and a Bucket of Blood”) find the pair going up against a band of faeries who want the city returned to its natural state. Faeries that have a huge, man-eating plant at their disposal. The version of faeries that Zub and the artists give us is a unique mix of light and dark, of humor and violence.

The stories are strong, the characters are interesting, and the situations intriguing. But what makes this book stand out is the sense of humor contained in the book. Skull-Kickers makes better use (and funnier use) of text boxes and sound effects than any comic I’ve run across before. It is these humorous elements that make each issue enjoyable, but the overarching story and mysteries are what will bring me back to Treasure Trove, volume 2.

We had a delightful conversation with Zub, along with a couple of guys from Comixology, in the Book Guys Show episode #76. A link to the video can be found here.

source: Amazon  http://www.amazon.com/Skullkickers-Volume-Treasure-Trove-HC/dp/1607063743

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:

Grab your current read.

Open to a random page.

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

From Chapter 1 of Elizabeth the First Wife, by Lian Dolan: "Now he was close enough to touch, and I was tempted, because his T-shirt, stretched poetically across his chest, appeared to be made of the softest cotton ever spun. I needed to physically stop myself from petting him."

Now I admit that I am not the target demographic for this adult ladies contemporary novel. But I am a big fan of Lian, her podcasting, and I really enjoyed her first novel.

Book Review #27

The Dalek Generation, by Nicholas Briggs. Paperback.

The Doctor (in his 11th incarnation, as portrayed by Matt Smith on TV) stumbles across a small spaceship that is under Dalek attack. Although he cannot save the married couple on board, he does save their three children. When he takes the children to their home planet and makes his claims about a Dalek attack, he is swiftly arrested.

He finds himself in what must be the only section of the Galaxy where the Daleks are considered the good guys. They administer the Sunlight worlds with justice and kindness, and have brought the inhabitants prosperity and peace. But the Doctor knows that something is going on, that the Daleks must be "up to something." What they are up to, in fact, is what archeologists have found on another Dalek Foundation planet -- technology that may be the most dangerous weapon in the universe. 

There is some wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey aspects to the conclusion of the novel, but fans of time travel in general and the Doctor in particular can forgive that. The character beats at the ending seemed natural, and flowed properly from the rest of the novel.

Nick Briggs has been involved in the world of Doctor Who for more than twenty years, mostly through his role as executive producer with Big Finish, who produces original audio adventures featuring various incarnations of the Doctor. Since the TV show's return in 2005, Briggs has also voiced many of the monsters on the show, most notably the Daleks. Despite this being his first published novel, Briggs captures the spirit of the show very well , and his characterization of the 11th Doctor is spot on.

This story takes place during a period of the Doctor's life when he travels alone. But the necessary roles of companions are filled by the children, and also by Lillian Belle. Like many other companions in the long history of the Doctor, she is a journalist, and is suspicious of the Daleks. The Doctor's presence on the planet stirs the Daleks to action against him, and an underground rebellion movement attempts to arise.

There are interesting commentaries in this book, although they are not terribly subtle. For example, there is a scene where the Doctor announces on live TV to everyone on the planet that the Daleks are evil and need to be resisted. The vast majority of the populace responds by mocking him, ignoring him, and then by changing the channel to a reality-style game show. The language of "hate crimes" is also a topic right out of our modern society.

source: public library

Revisiting Holmes: The First Collection

Book #26. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Unabridged audio.

This is a collection of the first dozen Holmes short stories, containing stories that were first published in the Strand Magazine in 1891 and 1892. The first two novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, had previously appeared in 1887 and 1890, respectively.

This collection begins with the only appearance of one of the series most notable characters, Irene Adler, in "A Scandal in Bohemia." As time has passed and as the Holmes legend has been continued by authors beyond Doyle, she has become an iconic character. If these stories were written in the modern era, I imagine Doyle himself would have brought her back into later stories himself.

 

It is interesting to note that Holmes is not always successful in the stories in this collection. I will pay attention to see if this trend continues as the legend of Holmes grows throughout Doyle's writing of the character.  The great detective loses to Irene Adler, for example. At the beginning of The Five Orange Pips, Watson reveals that not all of Holmes' cases end in success -- in that case specifically, Holmes' version of justice is stolen by an act of God on the high seas. This story deals with the Ku Klux Klan, in a way that is reminiscent of how Doyle used the mysterious Mormons as a way into the story in The Sign of Four.

Some of these stories have all of the action taking place in the drawing room, the consulting detective truly doing his work with only his mind. I appreciate this element of Holmes, but am glad that not every story is of this variety, as I tend to enjoy the "on location" stories more. Another interesting point is how Doyle seems stumped by how to deal with Watson's marriage. He continually has to invent reasons for the men to come together to tackle a case. In a trick that Doyle will later come to rely on ever more, he presents a few of these stories as having occurred earlier in Holmes' career, one even before he had met Watson.

Ummm, spoiler alert?

There are many stories in this collection that have become classics, and have been revisited often in the many adaptations of Doyle's work. This category of story include "The Speckled Band," the solution of which is revealed on the cover of one version of the printed book -- perhaps the concept of "spoilers" was not a concern at this point in publishing. "The Copper Beeches" and "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League" are also among the memorable stories contained in this volume.

I have read every one of the stories at least once, probably twice, and some many more times than that. But certain of the stories had completely fled my mind, and I found it delightful to read the strange "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb," the mysterious "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor" and the bizarre "A Case of Identity" without knowing where the stories were going. This was a pleasant experience for me, and I hope that as I progress with the Holmes canon I run across more of these stories that are "new again" to me. 

source: public library.

Podcast Marathon

Summer vacation + not much on the DVR = opportunity to listen to lots of podcasts yesterday!  Here is what I listened to:

Hope of All Trades, Post 221B Convention episode. host Hope Mullinax talks with Heather & Crystal, the organizers of the recent 221B Convention. They talked about the con, and about general Sherlock Holmes topics, including the Doyle works (which I am re-reading this year), the current BBC and previous PBS adaptations, and Elementary.

The Tony Kornheiser Show. Local sports & general chat from Washington, DC.

A Podcast of Ice and Fire, Episode 110: Second Sons. This is the longest-running podcast dedicated to the George RR Martin books, and during the TV season, about the show. This was a discussion of the most recent episode of the show, and the hosts all thought it was better than the one before.

Arsenal Review USA: Post-Newcastle. A pair of Americans chatting about how the end of the season went for the English soccer team. At least we finished ahead of Spurs.

Who True Freaks, episode 4: Sarah Jane. A very nice discussion about Elisabeth Sladen's character, focusing on the "School Reunion" episode of Doctor Who and the "Death of the Doctor" episode of The Sarah jane Adventures.

More Than One Lesson, minisode #14: Tyler and Josh talked about Josh's 8th favorite movie, The Godfather. These minisodes are counting down each host's top 10 movies, in between their longer, standard episodes.

DH Unplugged, #182: Don't Short! Yet. John C. Dvorak and Andrew Horowitz talked about the drop in the vlaue of gold, recent earnings announcements, and how exactly the stock market is staying so high.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:

Grab your current read.

Open to a random page.

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

From Chapter 6 of The Dalek Generation, by Nicholas Briggs: "The Doctor and the children rolled and scranbled their way to safety. All the while, the thought pounded through the Doctor's mind ... Have I miscalculated thie time? Is this how it ends? A stupid bit of over-confidence on some depressing human colony planet where everyone thought the Dalek were the good guys?"

New 52 Review: The Dark Books

I, Vampire volume 1: Tainted Love, trade paperback. Issues 1-6, by Joshua Hale Fialkov & Andrea Sorrentino. And Justice League Dark, volume 1: In the Dark, Issues 1-6, by Peter Milligan and Mikel Janin.

These are related volumes in that they both fall into the "Dark" line of DC's New 52 titles. They overlap at the end of their stories, and begin a crossover in the issues following these, so I am reviewing them together.

I enjoyed the I, Vampire issues, these being the first I have ever read from that title or with that character. There have been plenty of stories about vampires and/or vampire hunters, and even of vampires who turn to hunting other vampires. But this sentiment that drove this story was unique to a world with super-powered characters, a sentiment voiced by Mary the Queen of Vampires: "Today we begin our holy war against the humans. Many of ours will die, more of theirs will. We were meant to inherit the earth, but instead we let it be stolen by aliens and masked men."

The narrative style was interesting, as Fialkov wrote each of these six issues from only one person's perspective. This made for very tight writing, and perhaps one book that might actually read better as single issues than as a collected whole. Batman guest stars in one of the issues, and this is just enough of a tie to the greater DC Universe.

John Constantine also appears as a guest star in I, Vampire, another tie between these two series. Madame Xanadu (also a character in Demon Knights) peers into the future and sees a coming global destruction, from the out-of-control Enchantress.

She recruits her Justice League friends to take the Enchantress out, but they fail miserably. Xanadu attempts to form a team of more supernatural heroes to aid her instead -- Deadman, John Constantine, Shade the Changing Man, Zatanna and Mind Warp fight the powerful magic of the Enchantress, but they manage to find plenty of time to fight each other, as well.

I enjoyed the fact that even after their joint adventure, these characters all mistrust each other, and many flat out dislike each other. They come across as well-rounded fully thought-out characters, and their conflicts seems natural. It is pointed out at one point that dealing with powers of magic and the supernatural does have consequences, and the wrecks that each of these people have made of their lives are testament to that. The story moved a bit slow for my taste, as the gathering of the team members was a bit repetitive, and dragged on an issue or two more than it needed.

Fortunately, the team never calls itself the "Justice League Dark," at least not in these six issues. But it is a testament to the power of the words "Justice League" that this title continually lands in the top half of DC's monthly sales, despite having a cast of (mostly) little-known or unknown characters. Yes, Constantine is here, but the New 52 version will be much less "mature" than the Vertigo version that lasted 300 issues.

I am personally a fan of Deadman, and thought his portrayal here was strong. Milligan strikes the right balance of including critical parts of his pre-New-52 character, while modernizing him just enough to give this version a fresh start. I am not as familiar with the rest of the cast, except for Zatanna, whose powers and personality seem similar to her earlier incarnations, as well.

The end of issue 6 of both JLDark and I, Vampire was exactly the same, indicating that these two books will cross over in the following issues. I am looking forward to reading those joint issues. This crossover is at least partially an attempt to bring new readers to I, Vampire, which consistently sells about half the number of issues that JLDark sells.

Source: public library