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Book Recs/Comic Recs, 8/4/09
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 04:19 pmIn Comics:
Runaways: Rock Zombies, written by Terry Moore and pencilled by Takeshi Miyazawa & Christina Strain: This was a highly disappointing entry in the Runaways canon, and not a good day for Wolverine or other Marvel characters, either. The first story has a good villain with a nasty plan (turn all citizens of L.A. who've had plastic surgery into zombies with the help of a Satanic rock song--rock zombies, get it?), but he's far too easily dispatched and watching our heroes bicker instead of being the good team that they normally are gets very old very quickly. The second story features lamentably too-strange/too mainstream comic-y art (Nico suddenly goes from B-cups to DD's, which is alarming, at least to this reader, anyway) and a singularly lame story about Wolverine having to put up with Princess Powerful (who Terry Moore seems to think is about 6 years old when she's more like 12.) I like the idea of passing characters and stories around to different authors, and seeing different interpretations, but I can't help feeling like Moore really phoned this one in. Definitely don't buy this one in hardcover, and, better still, just read it in the store without taking it home. Yes, I'm advocating tachiyomi in the case of this book.
In Books:
From Dead to Worse, by Charlaine Harris: Without giving away any plot points, I envision Harris' office as having walls covered flowcharts, family trees, and diagrams in order for her to keep track of who's who and what's what in this increasingly dense mythology that she's created. I also wonder how she's plotted ahead because the tides are clearly at work in this volume, but it's not clear where they'll pull the heroine. This book was a satisfactory conclusion of some plot points from previous volumes (although I think she'll never put one villain entirely to rest; I wouldn't be surprised if the character reappeared as a ghost or poltergeist at some point in a future work!) and introduction of new ones. There is also a new character of whom I'm rather fond, and several funny asides, like a lesbian vampire date that involves popcorn and the movie Underworld. The only thing that might make these books a bit higher on my reading priority list would be more funny asides like the one mentioned above, and a final resolution to the love triangle the main character's involved in. (Because she may date other men, but it's really about the main two, and I'm growing weary of them.) But a good read, very gripping, and I'm curious to see where the plot goes next.
Finally finished Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham: I did not care at all for the final, nihilist conclusion of this book, which negated everything that had gone before it. However, I did love the deceptively simple prose style, the immense sympathy that the author obviously had for his main character (auto-ficto-biography much?), and the intimate portrait of life in London and Paris about 100 years ago. I wanted to strangle the main character more than a few times, but I could never truly be angry with him because I'd made some of the same mistakes he did. I'm definitely glad I read this, even with the annoying ending.
Runaways: Rock Zombies, written by Terry Moore and pencilled by Takeshi Miyazawa & Christina Strain: This was a highly disappointing entry in the Runaways canon, and not a good day for Wolverine or other Marvel characters, either. The first story has a good villain with a nasty plan (turn all citizens of L.A. who've had plastic surgery into zombies with the help of a Satanic rock song--rock zombies, get it?), but he's far too easily dispatched and watching our heroes bicker instead of being the good team that they normally are gets very old very quickly. The second story features lamentably too-strange/too mainstream comic-y art (Nico suddenly goes from B-cups to DD's, which is alarming, at least to this reader, anyway) and a singularly lame story about Wolverine having to put up with Princess Powerful (who Terry Moore seems to think is about 6 years old when she's more like 12.) I like the idea of passing characters and stories around to different authors, and seeing different interpretations, but I can't help feeling like Moore really phoned this one in. Definitely don't buy this one in hardcover, and, better still, just read it in the store without taking it home. Yes, I'm advocating tachiyomi in the case of this book.
In Books:
From Dead to Worse, by Charlaine Harris: Without giving away any plot points, I envision Harris' office as having walls covered flowcharts, family trees, and diagrams in order for her to keep track of who's who and what's what in this increasingly dense mythology that she's created. I also wonder how she's plotted ahead because the tides are clearly at work in this volume, but it's not clear where they'll pull the heroine. This book was a satisfactory conclusion of some plot points from previous volumes (although I think she'll never put one villain entirely to rest; I wouldn't be surprised if the character reappeared as a ghost or poltergeist at some point in a future work!) and introduction of new ones. There is also a new character of whom I'm rather fond, and several funny asides, like a lesbian vampire date that involves popcorn and the movie Underworld. The only thing that might make these books a bit higher on my reading priority list would be more funny asides like the one mentioned above, and a final resolution to the love triangle the main character's involved in. (Because she may date other men, but it's really about the main two, and I'm growing weary of them.) But a good read, very gripping, and I'm curious to see where the plot goes next.
Finally finished Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham: I did not care at all for the final, nihilist conclusion of this book, which negated everything that had gone before it. However, I did love the deceptively simple prose style, the immense sympathy that the author obviously had for his main character (auto-ficto-biography much?), and the intimate portrait of life in London and Paris about 100 years ago. I wanted to strangle the main character more than a few times, but I could never truly be angry with him because I'd made some of the same mistakes he did. I'm definitely glad I read this, even with the annoying ending.
