Comics and Novels
Jul. 30th, 2017 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brokenmnemonicSo, this was my reading list for this week...
Death: The High Cost of Living - I picked up this Neil Gaiman short story run as three individual comics at the comics fair in June. I finished reading the Sandman graphic novel run relatively recetly, and I'd like to pick up some of the odd single issues and tie-in stories that didn't make it into the main graphic novel run at some point. This was an interesting three-issue story involving Death spending a day as a walking, talking, breathing human being - and one who gets pulled into a mystery involving finding something for Mad Hettie. In general, I liked it, although our viewpoint protagonist is a sullen male teen, which had me eye-rolling a bit. It was nice seeing Death in a short run that didn't involve the rest of the family, and in a story which was so tightly focussed. In the end, everybody pays.
Clockwork Angels: My other buy at the comics fair was the Clockwork Angels comic adaptation, as a six issue run. I picked it up because it looked interesting and I'm looking for more steampunk-themed things to read. The author - Kevin J. Anderson - is a name I recognise, I think from sci-fi novels, but the fact that the comic is inspired by the lyrics from a Rush song or songs went compeltely over my head when I was purchasing it. I'm vaguely aware that Rush is a popular band of some kind, but my grasp of music is pretty vague. (I grew up in a house where my dad is an audiophile, with an encylopedic knowledge of blues, jazz, classical and opera music - and not much enthusiasm for things more recent than Bob Dylan. When I was in school, someone had to explain to me who Freddie Mercury was after he died, and I only got the reference because I was a fan of the Flash Gordon movie... so I suck when it comes to music-related trivia.) The comics wre gorgeously illustrated, in a style that looked almost as if it'd been painted. The plot rambled a little bit, with themes of order versus anarchy playing out through two of the major sub-characters, but in the main it was about the protagonist defying the orderly future defined for him and exploring the world - sometimes without choice. It was nice, and ended up being more low-key than I anticipated; I suspect ther eare some things that only become clear if the novels are read (like what was going on with the Clockwork Angels of the title) but it was an amiable read.
Copperhead #14: the plot for this title is picking up, with an ongoing murder mystery, political manipulation/corruption, and a murderous creepy ex breaking out of prison with his deluded girlfriend. I'll withhold judgement on the current run until I find out what happens with the plotline involving the ex though, because that has a lot of potential to disappoint me. One thing that continues to charm me is the depiction of the various alien races in this series, though.
Crosswind #2: this body-swap tale from Gail Simone still feels like it's in the setup stage before the story really gets started, but it was fun watching the two characters trying to blend in as each other whilst they worked out what was going on. There's a decent chance the asshole teens are going to end up having an unpleasant encounter with the hitman in the housewife's body, which would be satisfying, but I'm more invested in the plotline where the housewife is having to pretend to be a hitman. Worth a read.
Cannibal #7:Star Trek: Boldly Go #10 - I still haven't seen Star Trek: Beyond (it's not on Netflix yet) but this issue was probably my favourite of the week. It's a fun romp with tiny aliens who have an over-inflated opinion of the importance of where Captain Kirk parks his backside. It was genuinely funny, in a fashion that reminded me of the whole "we look for things to make us go" episode of ST:TNG.
Wayward #22: - while this is still one of my favourite comic book series, this issue of Wayward felt a little bit like filler. It managed to annoy me somewhat - I'm a little tired of the idea that you have to suffer and sacrifice to come into your own power - but this issue was mostly explanation and traveling. I could also be sore about not knowing if my favourite character in the comic is actually dead or not, of course. Some of the background was quite interesting, and as always, there were a couple of pages of mythology and folklore at the back of the issue about topics covered in the comic, which is one of the things I like about this run.
Shifting Reality, by Patty Jansen: I think I got this novel in one of the Storybundle bundles, and I'm hopelessly behind on those while I try and work through the backlog of crime novels I've been loaned by acquiantances at work. I wish I'd read this one sooner, because it was really, really good. One of the strands in the book is a solid sci-fi story, with an interesting mystery and is set up to be part of a multi-novel arc. The other strand, which I found more interesting, is about the protagonist trying to work out where she fits, what she wants to do, and how to do the right thing. She's a third-generation immigrant on the space station, which has a mixed population of military mercenaries, corporate types and a cheap labour workforce. The company and military people live in a nicer part of the station, while the Indonesian expatriate population lives in another section. The protagonist is under pressure from all sorts of directions; as a third-generation immigrant, her culture is that of the barang barang population of the station, not Indonesia itself, which only her grandparents remember, but the barang barang all want to keep their culture alive, and wear it as a badge of pride. It also works against them - they don't take advantages that are available, like the scheme for recruiting people into the government labour force with decent pay, prospects, etc, instead all working as miners - and at the same time, claim that the opportunities aren't there and that they're being kept deliberatley trapped in poverty so that they can be exploited. Able to see both sides, Melati (the protaonist) is frustrated at how stubborn the barang barang are, and how they adopt a culture of blaming their problems on others, while at the same time loving her family and culture. She's subject to the pressures of expectations from her family, which are as traditional as you might expect; the perception that she's selling out her people by working for The Man, rather than doing what good barang barang women should do, and having a family; she's furious that criminals from New Hyderbad (a nearby colony) are able to run criminal schemes on the station, particularly ones that target women, without being thrown out; she's conflicted over the way she's perceived by those in Tier 1, the government/corporation level... I'm rambling, but basically, it's a really good novel about trying to find your place, help other people, balance family/culture/tradition with your own moral code, effect change and work out what you want. The fact that it's the first sci-fi novel I've ever read from the viewpoint of someone who is ethnically and culturally Indonesian made it even more entertaining. I'd really reocmmend giving this one a try.
A Lily Among Thorns, by Rose Lerner: I had high hopes for this historical romance, but it ended up being good rather than great. I think in some ways I was expecting something akin to Joanna Bourne's "Spymasters" series of novels, given the blurb and setting, and it wasn't really like that. (Bourne's Spymasters series is one of my favourites, to be fair.) The setting was interesting, and I liked the initial setup of the protagonists; it was nice to have a pair of protagonists where neither was sitting gentry or nobility at the time, and I thought there was a lot of potential for the two of them to do interesting things, particularly with Serena being the largely-independent owner of the Ravenshaw Arms and Solomon a chemist/tailor dyer and with a spy-story and a dead relative linking the two of them. It also included as the two major secondary characters an angsty pair of gay spies working for opponsing governments and in love with each other, which I thought was well done. Unfortunately, I found a lot of the drama to be quickly and easily solved, and I found that the relative youth of the characters (who were all in their early-to-mid twenties) stretched my suspension of disbelief because of how many skills they had that they were surprisingly good at. If they'd been a pair of cynical, worn people in their late thirties, I would've enjoyed the novel much more. The novel has generally good reviews, and it was an amiable read, so I'm maybe being critical... or I'm feeling the lack of protagonists close to my own age in novels a little more keenly this week... but this one wasn't close enough to my tastes to be a great read for me. I don't regret reading it, as I did enjoy it, but it's not going to end up on the favourites shelf on goodreads, and I suspect it's not one I'll feel the need to re-read.
Death: The High Cost of Living - I picked up this Neil Gaiman short story run as three individual comics at the comics fair in June. I finished reading the Sandman graphic novel run relatively recetly, and I'd like to pick up some of the odd single issues and tie-in stories that didn't make it into the main graphic novel run at some point. This was an interesting three-issue story involving Death spending a day as a walking, talking, breathing human being - and one who gets pulled into a mystery involving finding something for Mad Hettie. In general, I liked it, although our viewpoint protagonist is a sullen male teen, which had me eye-rolling a bit. It was nice seeing Death in a short run that didn't involve the rest of the family, and in a story which was so tightly focussed. In the end, everybody pays.
Clockwork Angels: My other buy at the comics fair was the Clockwork Angels comic adaptation, as a six issue run. I picked it up because it looked interesting and I'm looking for more steampunk-themed things to read. The author - Kevin J. Anderson - is a name I recognise, I think from sci-fi novels, but the fact that the comic is inspired by the lyrics from a Rush song or songs went compeltely over my head when I was purchasing it. I'm vaguely aware that Rush is a popular band of some kind, but my grasp of music is pretty vague. (I grew up in a house where my dad is an audiophile, with an encylopedic knowledge of blues, jazz, classical and opera music - and not much enthusiasm for things more recent than Bob Dylan. When I was in school, someone had to explain to me who Freddie Mercury was after he died, and I only got the reference because I was a fan of the Flash Gordon movie... so I suck when it comes to music-related trivia.) The comics wre gorgeously illustrated, in a style that looked almost as if it'd been painted. The plot rambled a little bit, with themes of order versus anarchy playing out through two of the major sub-characters, but in the main it was about the protagonist defying the orderly future defined for him and exploring the world - sometimes without choice. It was nice, and ended up being more low-key than I anticipated; I suspect ther eare some things that only become clear if the novels are read (like what was going on with the Clockwork Angels of the title) but it was an amiable read.
Copperhead #14: the plot for this title is picking up, with an ongoing murder mystery, political manipulation/corruption, and a murderous creepy ex breaking out of prison with his deluded girlfriend. I'll withhold judgement on the current run until I find out what happens with the plotline involving the ex though, because that has a lot of potential to disappoint me. One thing that continues to charm me is the depiction of the various alien races in this series, though.
Crosswind #2: this body-swap tale from Gail Simone still feels like it's in the setup stage before the story really gets started, but it was fun watching the two characters trying to blend in as each other whilst they worked out what was going on. There's a decent chance the asshole teens are going to end up having an unpleasant encounter with the hitman in the housewife's body, which would be satisfying, but I'm more invested in the plotline where the housewife is having to pretend to be a hitman. Worth a read.
Cannibal #7:Star Trek: Boldly Go #10 - I still haven't seen Star Trek: Beyond (it's not on Netflix yet) but this issue was probably my favourite of the week. It's a fun romp with tiny aliens who have an over-inflated opinion of the importance of where Captain Kirk parks his backside. It was genuinely funny, in a fashion that reminded me of the whole "we look for things to make us go" episode of ST:TNG.
Wayward #22: - while this is still one of my favourite comic book series, this issue of Wayward felt a little bit like filler. It managed to annoy me somewhat - I'm a little tired of the idea that you have to suffer and sacrifice to come into your own power - but this issue was mostly explanation and traveling. I could also be sore about not knowing if my favourite character in the comic is actually dead or not, of course. Some of the background was quite interesting, and as always, there were a couple of pages of mythology and folklore at the back of the issue about topics covered in the comic, which is one of the things I like about this run.
Shifting Reality, by Patty Jansen: I think I got this novel in one of the Storybundle bundles, and I'm hopelessly behind on those while I try and work through the backlog of crime novels I've been loaned by acquiantances at work. I wish I'd read this one sooner, because it was really, really good. One of the strands in the book is a solid sci-fi story, with an interesting mystery and is set up to be part of a multi-novel arc. The other strand, which I found more interesting, is about the protagonist trying to work out where she fits, what she wants to do, and how to do the right thing. She's a third-generation immigrant on the space station, which has a mixed population of military mercenaries, corporate types and a cheap labour workforce. The company and military people live in a nicer part of the station, while the Indonesian expatriate population lives in another section. The protagonist is under pressure from all sorts of directions; as a third-generation immigrant, her culture is that of the barang barang population of the station, not Indonesia itself, which only her grandparents remember, but the barang barang all want to keep their culture alive, and wear it as a badge of pride. It also works against them - they don't take advantages that are available, like the scheme for recruiting people into the government labour force with decent pay, prospects, etc, instead all working as miners - and at the same time, claim that the opportunities aren't there and that they're being kept deliberatley trapped in poverty so that they can be exploited. Able to see both sides, Melati (the protaonist) is frustrated at how stubborn the barang barang are, and how they adopt a culture of blaming their problems on others, while at the same time loving her family and culture. She's subject to the pressures of expectations from her family, which are as traditional as you might expect; the perception that she's selling out her people by working for The Man, rather than doing what good barang barang women should do, and having a family; she's furious that criminals from New Hyderbad (a nearby colony) are able to run criminal schemes on the station, particularly ones that target women, without being thrown out; she's conflicted over the way she's perceived by those in Tier 1, the government/corporation level... I'm rambling, but basically, it's a really good novel about trying to find your place, help other people, balance family/culture/tradition with your own moral code, effect change and work out what you want. The fact that it's the first sci-fi novel I've ever read from the viewpoint of someone who is ethnically and culturally Indonesian made it even more entertaining. I'd really reocmmend giving this one a try.
A Lily Among Thorns, by Rose Lerner: I had high hopes for this historical romance, but it ended up being good rather than great. I think in some ways I was expecting something akin to Joanna Bourne's "Spymasters" series of novels, given the blurb and setting, and it wasn't really like that. (Bourne's Spymasters series is one of my favourites, to be fair.) The setting was interesting, and I liked the initial setup of the protagonists; it was nice to have a pair of protagonists where neither was sitting gentry or nobility at the time, and I thought there was a lot of potential for the two of them to do interesting things, particularly with Serena being the largely-independent owner of the Ravenshaw Arms and Solomon a chemist/tailor dyer and with a spy-story and a dead relative linking the two of them. It also included as the two major secondary characters an angsty pair of gay spies working for opponsing governments and in love with each other, which I thought was well done. Unfortunately, I found a lot of the drama to be quickly and easily solved, and I found that the relative youth of the characters (who were all in their early-to-mid twenties) stretched my suspension of disbelief because of how many skills they had that they were surprisingly good at. If they'd been a pair of cynical, worn people in their late thirties, I would've enjoyed the novel much more. The novel has generally good reviews, and it was an amiable read, so I'm maybe being critical... or I'm feeling the lack of protagonists close to my own age in novels a little more keenly this week... but this one wasn't close enough to my tastes to be a great read for me. I don't regret reading it, as I did enjoy it, but it's not going to end up on the favourites shelf on goodreads, and I suspect it's not one I'll feel the need to re-read.
