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The Weekly Haul: Reviews for March 6, 2008

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  • March 6, 2008

Welcome to the inaugural Weekly Haul, a collection of reviews of this week’s comic book issues brought to you by none other than ComicMix. It was a big week for floppies, with four new series worth giving a read and several old standbys seeing new developments. Without further ado, let’s get to the reviews.

Book of the Week: The All-New Atom #21 — Anyone wondering whether this title would keep being a must-read after Gail Simone stepped aside as writer and Rick Remender took the reins can go ahead and relax. The All-New Atom is better than ever in this issue, which takes the classic archetypal conflict of man vs. himself and gives it one heck of a twist.

While trying to figure out if Ray Palmer’s experiments were responsible for Ivy Town’s craziness, the new Atom, Ryan, shrinks down to explore a sample of his own blood (sounds weird, but it makes sense). Remender makes that effort alone a pulse-pounder, but then Ryan finds some terrible infestation in his blood and all hell breaks loose.

While still a bit text heavy, the series remains just as zany as under Simone’s watch and is a bit more focused. Good stuff all the way around.

Runners Up:

Logan #1 — Brian K. Vaughan and Eduardo Risso taking on the most famous mutant is pretty well guaranteed to be a quality read. And while this issue is far from mind-blowing, it’s a far superior story of Wolverine getting his memory back than anything we’ve seen in Wolverine: Origins. The downside is Marvel once again arbitrarily slapping a $3.99 price tag on a book for no good reason.

Northlanders #4 — This is the classic "from bad to worse" part of the story, but Brian Wood pulls it off well. The best quality of this vikings series is how Wood gives depth to his characters and doesn’t let any of them fall too far into stereotypical roles of heroes and villains. Life is complicated, especially for blood-hungry Scandinavians.

Omega the Unknown #6 — For the most touching tribute yet to the recently deceased Steve Gerber, this issue merits a purchase. It’s also another darn fine bit of comics by Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple. After all the action of the past few issues, this one serves as a bit of set up to the coming battle with the robots before culminating with a well done metatextual flourish.

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GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Some Greasy Kids Stuff

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Some Greasy Kids Stuff

 

 

Today I’ve got three books that either are for kids or look like they should be, so, if any of you are allergic to greasy kids stuff, just move on to the next post.

[[[Dinosaurs Across America]]] is the new book by Phil Yeh, who has spent the last two decades promoting literacy and art across the world in various ways, including lots of comics. In fact, this book was originally a black-and-white comic that was sold at various Yeh events. It’s a quick look at all fifty states in the US, with a concentration on quick facts and learning all of the capitals. One of Yeh’s recurring characters, Patrick Rabbit, has been suckered, and a group of dinosaurs (also recurring Yeh characters) set him straight on the real facts. There’s no real story here, but it’s a great book for kids interested in state capitals or geography in general. (Or even for kids who aren’t interested in that, but need to learn some of it.)

 

 

[[[Korgi]]], Book 1 is the first in what’s planned to be a series of all-ages wordless comics stories. It’s by Christian Slade, and seems to be his first major comics work. It’s cute and fun and adventurous by turns, though the wordlessness doesn’t always help with a fantasy story like this. (The dogs, such as Korgi, are obvious Special somehow, but it’s hard to convey the specifics of something like that without words.) This is perhaps pitched a bit older than Andy Runton’s [[[Owly]]] books – also wordless comics stories from Top Shelf for all ages – simply because there’s more action and suspense in Korgi. (There’s certainly nothing here I’d worry about giving to my six-year-old.) Slade uses a lot of scribbly lines for shading and tones, and – especially after reading James Sturm’s America recently – that looks a bit amateur to me. Slade is very good at it, but it does leave an impression of lots and lots of little lines all over the page; it would be interesting to see him use other ways of showing tone and shading, and concentrate on drawing just a few, bolder, stronger lines. Or maybe not; he gets some great effects with his many lines, creating clouds and rocks and monsters that come to vivid life on the page.

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MARTHA THOMASES: Everyday I Write the Book

MARTHA THOMASES: Everyday I Write the Book

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  • September 15, 2007

These are the Days of Awe.  While that sounds like a World Wrestling event, it is, in fact, the ten-day period between Rosh Hashonah (New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).  It’s a time to consider the previous twelve months, make amends, and resolve to do better in the year ahead.

It’s a good thing that it lasts ten days.  In my case, not only do I have the usual apologies to make, but I need a little extra time to get over myself.  This has been a good year.  I have a job I love with people who are really fun, and we’re going to bring happiness to billions.  I must be fabulous!

The Jewish God, whatever else S/He may be, is one heck of a storyteller.  There is the part in the service where one prays to be inscribed for another year in the book of life. We all want to be characters in that book. 

And that’s why I must resist the temptation to consider myself too fabulous.  It’s not dramatically interesting to have a character achieve success and/or happiness in the middle of the story, then coast along to the end.  If there is a Book of Life, I want to be around to find out what happens next.

Writers like to play God, and we like to think we’re clever about the way we move our characters around, putting them in and out of jeopardy.  Comic book, science fiction and fantasy writers can be feel this way especially, as we can not only put our characters through the dramas and adventures humans experience, but we can also put them into space colonies, make them invulnerable to bullets, and magical wonderlands. 

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Science Fiction/Fantasy Book Reviews

Science Fiction/Fantasy Book Reviews

I should warn you about these link-lists: Mondays tend to be longer than usual (since there’s a lot of content that goes up on the weekend, or early on Monday), and the beginning of the month tends to be longer than usual. Since we’re just past both of those things, this is going to be a really long one…

Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist reviews Dragons of the Highlord Skies by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

A.N. Wilson reviews Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go in the Telegraph.

SF Crowsnest reviews a whole bunch of things this week:

  • first, here’s a review for Paranormal Borderlands of Science, edited by Kendrick Frazier – a collection of essays by scientists about the plausibility of and evidence for various paranormal claims.
  • and there’s a review of Cory Doctorow’s new short story collection, Overclocked
  • another review covers Kay Kenyon’s new science fantasy novel Bright of the Sky
  • a review of Ian McDonald’s Brasyl
  • a review of Eliot Fintushel’s Breakfast With the Ones You Love
  • a review of Kage Baker’s new “Company” short story collection, Gods and Pawns
  • a review of David Deveraux’s Hunter’s Moon
  • a review of a new art book – James Bama: American Realist – about the cover artist best known for his ‘70s Doc Savage series
  • a review of Charles de Lint’s Memory & Dream
  • a review of Chris Moriarty’s Spin Control
  • a review  of David Anthony Durham’s first fantasy novel, the epic Acacia
  • and several other reviews, too, but my fingers are getting tired.

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In Memoriam: Fred Saberhagen (1930-2007)

In Memoriam: Fred Saberhagen (1930-2007)

Frederick Thomas Saberhagen is reported to have died at his home in Albuquerque, NM on the afternoon of Friday, June 29th, after a two-year battle with cancer.

Fred Saberhagen was best known for the long series of novels and stories about the implacable life-destroying thinking machines known as the Bersekers; the series began with the collection Berserker (1967) and ran for nearly two dozen books in the years since. The Berserkers typified the central SFnal conflict of Humanity versus the coldness of the universe, and Saberhagen rang dozens of changes on that idea, always championing the impulse of life to go on and thrive against all odds. He also wrote many other science fiction novels and stories, beginning in 1961, when Galaxy published his debut story, "Volume PAA-PYX."

Saberhagen’s fantasy work was centered around the long "Book of Swords" series, which began as a trilogy in the early 1980s and extended into a further eight-novel "Book of Lost Swords" sequence, a connection to his earlier Empire of the East trilogy, and a new series begun with 2006’s Ardneh’s Sword. Saberhagen was quoted at the time as wanting to try a fantasy series with a large number of magical objects — the twelve swords — since most such series had only one or two powerful items.

Saberhagen’s horror novels were also notable, with his The Dracula Tape (1975) being a then-modern, very atmospheric retelling of the events of Bram Stoker’s Dracula from the point-of-view of the Count, in his own words. The series continued for another nine books, including The Holmes-Dracula File (1978), in which Dracula encounters Sherlock Holmes.

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