Thursday Book

Terminal World - Alastair Reynolds

In one of the mid-level regions of Spearpoint - a city divided into societies of different technological levels - the pathologist Quillon is about to perform a post mortem on an "angel" that has fallen from the highest reaches. And then the subject turns out to be not quite dead. Fortunate, since it carries a terrible warning for Quillon, who is himself an infiltrator from another zone. It looks like his only option may be to flee Spearpoint altogether...

Terminal World is a heady cocktail of awesome ideas that never quite lives up to its potential. It seems rather similar to Reynolds' earlier Century Rain, but without the intensity or atmosphere. There are intimations that Reynolds might be setting up a new series of books here, but, although I enjoyed exploring this intriguing world, the story itself feels a lot like an author simply turning up to collect his pay cheque.

Thursday Comic

Batman: Streets of Gotham, Hush Money - Paul Dini, Dustin Nguyen et al.

Batman's dangerous foe Hush has now assumed the likeness of the deceased Bruce Wayne, and even when Catwoman and the new Batman and Robin apprehend him, his complex schemes continue. Meanwhile, a brutal new vigilante stalks the streets, the pyromaniacal Firefly is implanting incendiary devices in the unsuspecting citizens of Gotham, and self-mutilating serial killer Zasz is planning something so horrific, a key member of the underworld resolves to rat him out.

If that sounds like the set-up for a stirring superhero yarn, let me get to my chief problem with this book: I just described everything that happens in it. It's not that they ran out of space, the book's really thin. It's just that all we get are a few disparate beginnings all but one of which go nowhere, and then you've turned the last page. Dustin Nguyen's art is as lovely as ever, but even he disappointed me a little, toning down the prettiness of his Bruce Wayne (or Hush, in this case) in favour of a more typically beefy depiction. Boo-urns.

Almost Thursday Book

Forgotten London: A Picture of Life in the 1920s - Elizabeth Drury, Philippa Lewis

A collection of photographs taken from the contemporary book Wonderful London, and provided with modern commentary. Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin.

Thursday Book

Nights at the Circus - Angela Carter

Jack Walser, American journalist, has secured an interview with the famous aerialiste, "Fevvers", also known as the "Cockney Venus", a woman who claims to have been hatched from an egg with fully functional wings. Intending to debunk her as a fraud, Walser instead falls in love, and runs away with the circus to follow her across Russia. But with Fevvers an accomplished egoist and Walser very much a man of the Victorian era, it's not clear that either of them could ever bring one another happiness. Then again, this is the cusp of the onrushing twentieth century - so who knows what's really possible?

A barefaced work of literature that makes few, if any, concessions to marketability, Nights at the Circus is brazen, provocative and slippery, luring you in with strong writing and a bizarre cast of impossible characters, then bamboozling you with imagery both magical and political. Deposited at the end, dazed and confused, I can only conclude that I really like the thing. The final chapter, in particular, answers the question of what Fevvers "is" in a way that I found unexpectedly beautiful.

Batman: Private Casebook - Paul Dini, Dustin Nguyen et al.

An eclectic collection of Batman stories that Dini manages to always make snappy and enjoyable, even where we're clearly only getting a fraction of a larger, more convoluted story. And the further development of his character Peyton Riley, I thought, worked particularly well.

And then there's Dustin Nguyen's art, which I love. In these stories he also seems to draw an unexpectedly handsome Bruce Wayne - a little touch that makes his playboy persona suddenly seem much more believable.

I am, at this point, pretty much just picking up all of Nguyen's art I can find in my local book and comic book shops, but I have to say that Paul Dini makes this whole book work well, art and writing both, even if the stories still feel a bit piecemeal.

Thursday Comic

Batgirl: Kicking Assassins - Andersen Gabrych, Alé Garza, Pop Mhan et al.

Sent by Batman to Gotham's neighbouring city of Blüdhaven, separated from her mentors and friends, Batgirl Cassandra Cain has to face up to some enormous challenges by herself. Yes, of course, there are the usual murderous psychopaths in strange costumes. But even worse for a girl raised from birth to be a merciless killer is the prospect of having to interact with other people at the local coffee shop...

Let me get this out of the way first: the worst thing about this book is the plotting. Maybe I didn't read it carefully enough, but a couple of times I stumbled over what looked to me like out-and-out plot holes. That doesn't matter, though. What Gabrych does do extremely well (aided by some bold artwork) is characterisation. Cassie treads that thin, but compelling and often unexpectedly cute line bordering damaged, dangerous and naive. Alfred is portrayed as protective of her, but confident in her abilities and never patronising. And Cassie's friendship with coffee shop owner Brenda is amusing and touching - the moment where Brenda realises Cassie is illiterate is probably the best in the book.

So, yeah, I really dug this thing, but it still has problems particular to superhero stuff. At one point I realised that something bad had happened to Cassie's close friend Stephanie Brown, so, to get the background, I Googled the answer. "Oh right," I discovered, "it was that." I mean, I knew about it, but how was I supposed to know that this book was from just after that event?

Thursday Book

The City & the City - China Miéville

When an unidentified woman is found dead in the city of Besźel, Inspector Borlú quickly begins to suspect that this is far from a typical case for the Extreme Crime Squad. For Besźel is a unique place, where the inhabitants must live every day without seeing what's right in front of them. Anyone who breaks this taboo is subject to terrible penalties. Could this murder be tied up in the very nature of Besźel - and the other city?

Okay, this book blew me away. Kafkaesque is probably the most obvious adjective to use to describe it - not Kafkaesque like Brazil, I mean Kafkaesque like, you know, Franz Kafka. But that's not all there is to it, I mean Kafka was this guy who didn't finish much and died young, while this is a carefully planned and plotted book with memorable characters and a strong sense of cause and effect (at least, within its surreal premise). It has these great, obvious, seemingly overwhelming themes, and then it engages with them and files them down with nuance and complication. And, at the same time, it's a crafty crime novel with a fantastic setting.

The City & the City is, in my ignorant opinion, a stonking great work of modern literature - but, just as importantly, it's also a bloody good read.

Thursday Comic

20th Century Boys, vols 10-13 - Naoki Urasawa

So volume 12 sees Urasawa finally blow the lid on a mystery that has so far been central to the series. And then, reading volume 13, I couldn't help but think, "Wow. This is the book where it all kicks off."

Thursday Comic

Batgirl: Fists of Fury - Various

This is another victory for my local comic book shop. I've been interested in reading some Cassandra Cain as Batgirl stories for quite some time - she's always seemed like a character I'd appreciate - but until now I've not really had the opportunity. Fists of Fury is a collection of miscellaneous Batgirl stories: some stand-alone vignettes, others detailing Cassie's part in larger stories (apparently as opaque to her as to me).

Damion Scott takes the pencil for four of the chapters, drawing in a highly stylish, deformed style that turns Batgirl into a graffiti-esque silhouette flowing around her opponents like liquid shadow. The chapter pencilled by Phil Noto is a lot less interesting by comparison, but he does draw an extremely cute Oracle, which you should know is more than enough to curry my favour. And another chapter is pencilled by an artist who seems to be trying to emulate Scott's style, but in a way that feels like the collision of two artists' weaknesses.

As for Cassandra Cain, well, my instinct was pretty accurate if this book is any indication. It was a bold move to come up with a Batgirl who, in contrast to Barbara Gordon's lighter, fun-loving vigilante, is actually even darker and more serious than Mr No-Fun himself, Batman. The almost mute daughter of an assassin who brutally indoctrinated her into his line of work, Cassandra is frightened of her own capacity to kill and possesses a strangely innocent callousness. On reflection, it's no surprise that the strongest story in this collection is about Cassandra's interactions with the child of a bank robber. You can feel that this Batgirl is desperate to use her skills to help people, but not entirely sure just how to do that.

And then there's her costume, which is inspired in its simplicity, so inescapably bad-ass that even Ed Benes struggled to sexualise her during her brief appearances in Birds of Prey.

So, yes, I did really enjoy Fists of Fury for its star character. But even without that, this book is worth picking up for Damion Scott's art alone, and the chance to see such an atypically kick-ass superheroine rendered in such a confident, equally kick-ass style.

Thursday Book

1920s Britain - Janet & John Shepherd

A slim reference, with little interest in narrative or theory. A nice recap of things I've learned elsewhere.

Really, I just bought it for the pictures.

Thursday Book

Biomega, vols 2-5 - Tsutomu Nihei

The first two volumes of Biomega seem to set the pace for the rest of the series: synthetic human heroes ride around on supersonic motorcycles, blowing the shit out of biomechanical zombies and the masked transhumans responsible for them. At one point in volume two, the series' iconic talking grizzly bear, Kozlov, remarks that there now seem to be no normal human beings left. You might take this for a throwaway acknowledgement of a genre-typical setting, but Nihei has actually shown some measure of development in his world up to this point, and its an omen of things to come.

The third volume sees both hidden fracture lines and unexpected alliances become apparent in the frantic build-up to a massive conflict of post-human ideals. It's clear early on in the story that Nihei isn't afraid to follow strange speculations through to their extreme logical conclusion, and the culmination of this conflict in volume four results in such a stonking great development in the story that I don't want to spoil it, save to say that at one point a hole is blasted right through planet Earth.

But the thing that impresses me so much about this series is that for all its epic scale and unswerving commitment to massive ideas, this is always first and foremost a laconic action comic. Far from being laden with exposition, Nihei often has his characters barrel headlong into the surreal aftermath of a new plot point, only explaining it after the fact. Things which have a visual consistency with the otherworldly logic of the settings are frequently left satisfyingly unmentioned in the dialogue. In this way Biomega manages to be both fast-paced and also surprisingly thoughtful speculative fiction. I'm eagerly anticipating the final volume.

Thursday Comic

Batman: The Long Halloween - Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale

Shrouded in corruption, Gotham City's Falcone crime family seems unstoppable. But three different forces for justice have allied against them: police captain James Gordon, district attorney Harvey Dent, and masked vigilante Batman. And on the opposite side of the law, Catwoman, the Joker and the mysterious new Holiday Killer seem to have it in for the Falcones as well. Faced with the rising tide of Gotham's freaks, kingpin Carmine Falcone decides that his only option is to fight fire with fire...

Compared to his cramped and hyperactive introduction to Hush, Loeb has a lot more room to work in on this book, as well as a much more grounded story. The result is a gripping mystery thriller that's not quite as clever as it thinks it is, but still managed to keep me guessing to the end (even if it does seem to go a twist too far in terms of credibility). Some of the dialogue is pretty weak (every single one of Alfred's lines is painful), but for the most part this is the kind of dark, gritty, street-level story you want from a Batman book.

Tim Sale's art is beautifully stylish, evoking the shadowy aesthetic of a well shot film noir, but it's often loose and not very detailed, which is not really to my tastes. Nevertheless, after reading The Long Halloween, I can easily see why this is an oft-cited source text for Christopher Nolan's Batman movies.

Thursday Comic

Batgirl: Year One - Scott Beatty, Chuck Dixon, Marcos Martin, et al.

You'd think that having the police commissioner as your father would help with a career in law enforcement, but Barbara Gordon finds that her overprotective dad only gets in the way of what she wants to do. Even Gotham City's freaky superheroes won't pay any attention to her talents - at least, until one Halloween when the bat-costumed Babs crosses paths with Killer Moth, a man who wants to be to Gotham's underworld what Batman is to its law abiding citizens.

So you may have noticed that Oracle, a.k.a. Barbara Gordon, formerly Batgirl, is my favourite superhero. That "formerly Batgirl" bit is, of course, one of the many cool things about the character, but I have to say that for me the emphasis is kind of on the formerly. This backwards-looking book, then, could almost be aimed at me, as throughout Batgirl: Year One, a lot of common criticisms of Babs' Batgirl are retroactively countered (isn't she just a cheap knock-off of the main Bat? Why isn't she Batwoman?) Which is nice... if also kind of cheating.

More effective are the nods to her future - the references to oracles are a little heavy-handed, but nifty all the same, and while having Black Canary (seen above, THOK-ing) beam into the story from a space station may set a stark contrast to the brutal realism of Batman: Year One, it's the (somewhat rocky) start to a friendship that will come to underpin Birds of Prey, my superhero comic of choice. Elsewhere, a couple of casual comments about the Joker take on a chilling significance in the wider context.

Probably the strongest thing about the book is the art: bold, colourful and rather cartoony - reminiscent of Bruce Timm's animated character designs. It sets a distinctively Batgirl-ish tone to the book, and probably does more to convey the character of the young Barbara Gordon than the internal monologue that crowds each panel. The story itself has its strong and its weak points, but it does the job: neatly defining Barbara Gordon's adventure-seeking Batgirl, while also quietly scattering the seeds that will grow into a mighty Oracle.

Thursday Comic

Birds of Prey: Sensei and Student - Gail Simone, Ed Benes, et al.

Black Canary, the Gotham superheroine with the voice of a sonic weapon, is in Hong Kong to visit the death bed of her former martial arts master - a man who was also apparently one of the many tutors of ice cold assassin Lady Shiva. Someone seems too impatient to let nature take its course, however, and their sensei is murdered, leading the two women to form an uneasy partnership in pursuit of the guilty party. Meanwhile, back in Gotham, the USA PATRIOT Act comes calling for Oracle, and, in the absence of Black Canary, she's once again forced to call upon her least favourite vigilante, Huntress.

A few months back a genuine comic book store opened up in my two horse town. I dutifully paid a visit, expecting a decent selection of independent and Japanese comics. I was disappointing to find a range vastly inferior to that in my local bookshop. Later, I went back looking for a couple of specific superhero comics. And I still couldn't find what I was looking for. Instead, I found this: one of the two Gail Simone Birds of Prey collections that I don't already own. Score one, local comic book shop.

This is basically the Birds at their best: a relatively small cast; a focused, character-driven story; and a dearth of the greater excesses of superhero mythology. The typically bright and bold artwork of Ed Benes (who does most, but not all of the pencilling) fits the mood perfectly - even if his penchant for T&A; goes spectacularly overboard on some pages. And Simone writes great dialogue: with just a few speech bubbles she can express a compelling and entertaining relationship between even the bitterest of enemies. It all makes me rather happy that the latest issues of Birds of Prey are now back in her capable hands.

Thursday Book

Above the Snowline - Steph Swainston

In the harsh environment of the Darkling mountains, two almost-human races are competing for territory: the winged and urbane Awians, and the ruthless, uncivilised Rhydanne. Seeing her people driven to starvation by Awian overexploitation, the uncompromising Rhydanne huntress Dellin seeks help from the Emperor and his immortal Circle of paragons. And the Emperor sees fit to call on Jant, whose half-Rhydanne, half-Awian ancestry makes him the only man in the world who can fly.

But selfish, arrogant, and ashamed of his own heritage, it's not clear that Jant is really the right mediator. And, despite Jant's overconfident condescension towards his new charge, is he really the one who's in danger from Dellin? Could she even be the only woman in the world with what it takes to break his hardened, misogynistic heart?

The end of the third novel in Swainston's superlative Fourlands fantasy series featured such a breathtaking, tear-jerking twist that I was absolutely desperate to find out what happened next. And so I must confess I was disappointed to learn that the fourth book was a prequel. A prequel set in a time when our dashing anti-hero is not wrestling with his addiction to a drug that also transports him into the bizarre alternate dimension of the Shift. A prequel set in his backwards homeland rather than the front lines of the Fourlands' war against giant Insects. No addiction, no Shift, no Insects... Is there any meat left on Swainston's premise when you tear out these seemingly vital organs?

The answer, I quickly realised, is, "Yes, don't be stupid." I love these books so much because of Swainston's ability to imagine the most outlandish, out-of-this-world settings and characters and then incorporate them into properly plotted, intricately characterised, convincingly detailed stories. This is an author who can write a scene in which a giant insect tears the wings off a man and leave you wincing at the anatomical veracity she lends not one, but two impossible creatures. The Darkling mountains may be a lot more grounded than the most surreal locations Jant has encountered in the Shift, but this is still a highly imaginative story told with that same unexpected realism.

The characters are all sympathetic, even when they're clearly wrong-headed, and the shifting first person narration allows even minor characters the chance to leave an impression (as well as giving us a chance to see the Fourlands without the added tint of Jant's ego). Emotions flow tangibly from the page, and the darkness is balanced with good humour and wit. Above all, though, this is a book, like the three before it, that throws out any and all genre tropes in favour of telling a damn good story.

Thursday Book

Coraline - Neil Gaiman

I've carefully avoided the film version of Gaiman's Stardust because I loved the book so much I don't want to risk changing my memories of it. Which is kind of the opposite from my relationship to Coraline. As a fan of Henry Selick, I saw the film version first, and was surprised to find the book comparing unfavourably, at least during the beginning and middle. In this version, Coraline isn't really much taken in by the "other" house and family that she finds through a bricked up door in her new home, and while most film adaptations leave things out, a lot of the coolest parts of Selick's vision are clearly his own, and not Gaiman's.

But then the book comes into its own in the final act, charting quite a different course of creepy scares and ghostly resolutions. And there's also the simple fact that this is here a culturally British story, despite its Americanisation for the silver screen (after Harry Potter, I thought Hollywood had gotten over that?) And yet, while this is an excellent read, I have to admit that, for me, the film took it to another level.

Thursday Book

We Danced All Night: A Social History of Britain Between the Wars - Martin Pugh

As a novice on the subject, I can't claim to hold any opinion on the success of what Pugh believes is an attempt to redress established modern misconceptions about this period. I will say that I was drawn to this particular book because, as the title implies, it takes a positive view of twenties and thirties Britain.

And it's also easy to be impressed by the effort Pugh takes to be as broad as possible - which means both covering often specialist subjects such as aviation and motoring, and ensuring that each topic is related to every relevant sector of society (and region of the country). There is, for example, a dedicated chapter on the changing role of women - but Pugh also touches on this subject in relation to every other, from sport to the decline of the aristocracy.

It does make things a little repetitive at times, but it also means that each chapter feels like a comprehensive overview of each facet of the inter-war period.

Thursday Comic

Batman: Heart of Hush - Paul Dini, Dustin Nguyen, et al.

So here I've gone and read another Hush book, even after last time. You could be forgiven for thinking that I had some specific interest in the character of Hush, but I have to say there are a lot of other Batman villains I'd sooner read about. But then I encountered the artwork of Dustin Nguyen online and wanted to pick up a book he'd worked on. Coupled with Paul Dini (Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: Arkham Asylum) taking the writer's chair, this became an unexpected must-buy for me.

And I have to say that Dini's take on Hush is a lot smoother than Jeph Loeb's (not that I bear any grudge against Loeb, his name is on by far the thickest graphic novel on my stack) - there's a more focused cast, more exploration of Hush's motives and pathology, far more touching moments between Batman and Catwoman (and, so it seems, between Hush and a mobster's daughter). There are also a few quintessential Dini touches - Zatanna plays a supporting role, and Harley Quinn and Mr Freeze put in brief appearances.

On the strength of this, I was quite happy to pick up the first collected edition of Dini and Nguyen's Batman: Streets of Gotham. W-wait... that's about Hush too? Oh well.

Thursday Comic

20th Century Boys, vols 5-9 - Naoki Urasawa

Yes, I'm still reading 20th Century Boys. Yes, I'm still loving it to bits. No, I still can't tell you what it's about.

Probably the best description of this series is that it's in the vein of expansive mystery TV shows like Lost - except that you never doubt that Urasawa has the whole thing planned out in meticulous detail, and he's also very adept at resolving minor mysteries when they've run out of steam or introducing entirely new branches of the plot.

The other thing he does well is audacity. Not just in the way he can convincingly introduce pretty much anything to the storyline, but also in the way he's quite happy to go straight from a scene of epic science fiction, say, to an everyday moment of personal drama - sliding effortlessly between what some might expect to be entirely disparate genres.

Recommended with all the commends I can rec.

Thursday Book

The Great Silence - Juliet Nicholson

This history of Britain from 11th November 1918 to 11th November 1920 provides a very readable account of the nation's slow recovery from the Great War - charting the path from stoic weariness, through a gradual acknowledgement of the need to grieve, and finally the desire for some much needed peace and recreation at the dawn of the twenties.

Nicholson's focus is largely biased towards the higher classes, and the focus on London is so deeply ingrained that in certain places the fact that the text is about the capital is only mentioned incidentally. There's also a stronger interest in the prosaic and everyday than the impersonal or theoretical. Which, actually, is entirely suited to my purposes - namely: trying to get a feel on a personal scale for the cultural forces that would shape 1920s England.