Crossing Midnight: A Map of Midnight (by Mike Carey, Jim Fern, Eric Nguyen and Mark Pennigton) picks up where Cut Here leaves off so it was great to be able to sit down and essentially read them together. I actually liked this volume a bit more. There was less exposition to wade through because that was all set up in the first volume so this one could get down to the story that Carey wants to tell. And it's a great story.
The twins get pulled further into their respective courts and further from each other. The world was better merged than in the first volume. There was more of a feeling that the real world and the world of myth and legend existed not just beside each other but with aspects dipping in. I really want to learn more about what's expected of Toshi and just what is expected of Kai.
The gifts of the twins are starting to become more defined and there seems to some kind of destiny attatched to them. With their birth status, one on either side of midnight, I'd expect there was something tied to that. I found the end of Toshi's story in this volume a little predictable, it makes sense that she'd be set against her brother, but I was intrigued by the direction that Kai seems to be taking. I thought he'd just be her protector but it seems as if someone has plans for him too.
For just being tighter and more focused (the art seems to be settling down as well) I'm giving it a 5.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Crossing Midnight: Cut Here
Crossing Midnight: Cut Here (written by Mike Carey, penciled by Jim Fern and inked by Mark Pennigton) was kind of a surprise addition to my pile of books. I say it's open to stuff to rise to the top if it's something someone just wants me to read and this one jumped to the top pretty quick.
I really like the concept of this one: boy/girl twins born on either side of midnight and marked by the forces of the Japanese parthenon. I'm a fan of legend and mythology, although I don't know much about the Japanese tradtions. It took a little time for me to wrap my brain around what was happening because I'm not that familiar with that world but once I learned the "language" of the story I really enjoyed it.
The are was kind of hit and miss for me. It seemed like Fern was really going for a Japanese style but couldn't always keep to the style he was aiming for. The Afterword by Carey was helpful in filling in the holes in what I'd figured out about the difference between the two courts the twins were dealing with. The only real complaint I had was with the story dealing with Toshi going for the gun. It didn't seem to fit in as well. That could have been the point as modern methods of dealing with the problem are not going to save them. I'm giving it a 4.
I really like the concept of this one: boy/girl twins born on either side of midnight and marked by the forces of the Japanese parthenon. I'm a fan of legend and mythology, although I don't know much about the Japanese tradtions. It took a little time for me to wrap my brain around what was happening because I'm not that familiar with that world but once I learned the "language" of the story I really enjoyed it.
The are was kind of hit and miss for me. It seemed like Fern was really going for a Japanese style but couldn't always keep to the style he was aiming for. The Afterword by Carey was helpful in filling in the holes in what I'd figured out about the difference between the two courts the twins were dealing with. The only real complaint I had was with the story dealing with Toshi going for the gun. It didn't seem to fit in as well. That could have been the point as modern methods of dealing with the problem are not going to save them. I'm giving it a 4.
The Memory Keeper's Daughter
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards was a tough one for me. My mother recommended it as one of those books that I'm supposed to read to get in touch with my feminine/motherly side. I have that side; it doesn't really need to be touched. I expected to not like the book. And I didn't like it when I first started because I didn't like David Henry for te choice he made.
I can't imagine looking at my newborn and deciding that the rest of the family would be better off not knowing she ever existed. Maybe it's because I grew up in a different time. Maybe it's because I've known people with Down Syndrome. I don't know, it just seemed like a stupid decision. I wanted to keep reading to find out the consequences of his decision but I kept finding more stupid decisions.
The prose typifies what I consider "chick lit". It speaks in way too many metaphors. Something always relates to something else and nothing is simply what it appears to be. Everything has layers. That's fine in moderation but not everything is an onion.
In the end, none of the characters were really likable, the climax was kind of anti-climatic and I wish Phoebe had been explored more. She was central to what everyone was going through but Edwards never tried to show things from her perspective. It's possible that she didn't feel her talents were up to writing something from the perspective of someone with Down Syndrome but I was hoping for at least one chapter where she at least tried. Without that I didn't see Phoebe so much as a person but as a plot device.
The book was OK, not great and I don't think it lived up to the hype that I've heard surrounding it. I can understand the fears of both David Henry, who gave Phoebe up, and Caroline Gill, who fought for Phoebe's life but I don't feel like I really got to know anyone any better than when I started the book. I'm giving it a 3.
I can't imagine looking at my newborn and deciding that the rest of the family would be better off not knowing she ever existed. Maybe it's because I grew up in a different time. Maybe it's because I've known people with Down Syndrome. I don't know, it just seemed like a stupid decision. I wanted to keep reading to find out the consequences of his decision but I kept finding more stupid decisions.
The prose typifies what I consider "chick lit". It speaks in way too many metaphors. Something always relates to something else and nothing is simply what it appears to be. Everything has layers. That's fine in moderation but not everything is an onion.
In the end, none of the characters were really likable, the climax was kind of anti-climatic and I wish Phoebe had been explored more. She was central to what everyone was going through but Edwards never tried to show things from her perspective. It's possible that she didn't feel her talents were up to writing something from the perspective of someone with Down Syndrome but I was hoping for at least one chapter where she at least tried. Without that I didn't see Phoebe so much as a person but as a plot device.
The book was OK, not great and I don't think it lived up to the hype that I've heard surrounding it. I can understand the fears of both David Henry, who gave Phoebe up, and Caroline Gill, who fought for Phoebe's life but I don't feel like I really got to know anyone any better than when I started the book. I'm giving it a 3.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
What a fun read! The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World (gotta love the subtitle) by A.J. Jacobs is just a plain, funny read. It's about following the quest - the reading the the Encyclopaedia Britanica from A to Z.
The book is written sort of like an encyclopaedia itself, little ancedotes arranged in alphabetical order. Some are about the section he just read, some are about what people thought of him, his quest, or how he brought the section out into his life and some are just how that particular section related to his life. If the book had just been bon mots about what he had been reading then it would have been pretty boring but adding in the trials that he and his wife Julie were having trying to conceive thier first child and the relationship he had with his brother-in-law Jacobs makes a narrative out of reading the encyclopaedia.
I liked that he was trying to find outlets for the knowledge he was accumulating. He tried to get on Jeopardy but, because he'd interviewed Alex Trebeck, ended up on Who Wants to be a Millionaire instead. I liked that he often failed. There were points in the book that I wondered if things happened the way he wrote them or if he gave a spin on them to meet the characters he was trying to develop. I half expected that I'd get to the listing for pregnancy and find that his wife was expecting. I'm glad he wasn't that obvious if he shifted the events around to better follow his A to Z structure.
Being an admitted knowledge geek myself and having contemplated reading the entire encyclopaedia I really related to Jacobs. I found the book funny, entertaining and interesting. I really enjoyed it so I'm giving it a 5.
The book is written sort of like an encyclopaedia itself, little ancedotes arranged in alphabetical order. Some are about the section he just read, some are about what people thought of him, his quest, or how he brought the section out into his life and some are just how that particular section related to his life. If the book had just been bon mots about what he had been reading then it would have been pretty boring but adding in the trials that he and his wife Julie were having trying to conceive thier first child and the relationship he had with his brother-in-law Jacobs makes a narrative out of reading the encyclopaedia.
I liked that he was trying to find outlets for the knowledge he was accumulating. He tried to get on Jeopardy but, because he'd interviewed Alex Trebeck, ended up on Who Wants to be a Millionaire instead. I liked that he often failed. There were points in the book that I wondered if things happened the way he wrote them or if he gave a spin on them to meet the characters he was trying to develop. I half expected that I'd get to the listing for pregnancy and find that his wife was expecting. I'm glad he wasn't that obvious if he shifted the events around to better follow his A to Z structure.
Being an admitted knowledge geek myself and having contemplated reading the entire encyclopaedia I really related to Jacobs. I found the book funny, entertaining and interesting. I really enjoyed it so I'm giving it a 5.
Monday, February 11, 2008
The Day Watch
The Day Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko is the sequel to The Night Watch that I read earlier this year. Like the other, it's three stories in one book and is the story of the struggle between the Light and the Dark in Moscow. This time the focus is on the Dark Others.
That's sort of the problem with this book. It's hard to have empathy for characters that you know are evil. This is most evident in the first story. The witch Alisa appeared in the The Night Watch as a villian. Telling the story from her perspective and trying to be drawn into her story was a little more difficult because she just wasn't a nice person. I didn't want her to have what she wanted because I didn't like the way she went about getting it. I got the feeling that Lukyaneko was going for a kind of Romeo and Juliet tale with the first story. A Dark Other falls hopelessly in love with a Light Other and it ends badly for all involved. Except it didn't quite make it there.
There was more success in the next two stories. The characters were more empathetic as they weren't really EVIL, but they were selfish. The characters were drawn such that I could see their motivations for what they chose to do, or to not do.
I'm looking forward to the third in the series as this one had movement to a final chapter. There's definately some kind of climax building that will change this world. Even the title of the final book, The Twilight Watch, signals something different because that's something that hasn't been introduced before. I'm going to give this one a 4. It was better than OK and it did make me want to keep reading.
That's sort of the problem with this book. It's hard to have empathy for characters that you know are evil. This is most evident in the first story. The witch Alisa appeared in the The Night Watch as a villian. Telling the story from her perspective and trying to be drawn into her story was a little more difficult because she just wasn't a nice person. I didn't want her to have what she wanted because I didn't like the way she went about getting it. I got the feeling that Lukyaneko was going for a kind of Romeo and Juliet tale with the first story. A Dark Other falls hopelessly in love with a Light Other and it ends badly for all involved. Except it didn't quite make it there.
There was more success in the next two stories. The characters were more empathetic as they weren't really EVIL, but they were selfish. The characters were drawn such that I could see their motivations for what they chose to do, or to not do.
I'm looking forward to the third in the series as this one had movement to a final chapter. There's definately some kind of climax building that will change this world. Even the title of the final book, The Twilight Watch, signals something different because that's something that hasn't been introduced before. I'm going to give this one a 4. It was better than OK and it did make me want to keep reading.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Volume 3
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus 3 is completely entrenched in Season 3 of the television series. That makes it interesting in some ways because it's obvious that the season was moving faster than they could print the comics. Angel's gone for a big chunck then suddenly appears with none of the reactions from the other characters, specifically Xander, than the reader would expect if he or she had seen the show. Faith doesn't appear at all. I'm guessing she makes more of an impression in the collection.
The art is wonderful in this collection. It's easy to tell who everyone is, there's good pacing for the action (something that's very difficult to do in the comics medium), and it's fun to look at. Some of the stories fall flat unfortunately. The pacing is sometimes a little off and sometimes the continuity just doesn't work within the comic, nevermind within the broader aspect of Season 3.
"Wu -Tang Fang". Pretty good story, pretty good art. The depiction of Xander was not great. First, it didn't really look like him and second, Xander? Karate? I don't think so.
"Halloween". Meh. Another Halloween story where something goes wrong when it shouldn't. I was hoping for something a little more inspired but I think this one existed solely to set up something later in the volume.
"Cold Turkey" by Andi Watson with art by Joe Bennett and a Rick Ketchum. A throw away story. Buffy at Thanksgiving where the vampire she defeated at Halloween wants to eat her! Not that great.
"Dance with Me" by Christopher Golden with art by Hector Gomez and Sandu Florea. I really liked this one. It felt most like a Buffy episode. It better captured the soul of the characters and the way the show is put together. The art could have been better.
"White Christmas". Another good one.
"Happy New Year". This one's a miss.
"New Kid on the Block" by Andi Watson with art by Hector Gomez and Sandu Florea. This one is not good. It just doesn't work on so many levels. I don't think there's any reasonable explaination for the disappearance of a pool. Even in Sunnydale.
"Food Chain Part 1" by Christopher Golden with art by Christian Zanier and Sandu Florea. This one succeeds in all the places that "New Kid on the Block" fails.
"Play with Fire" by Christopher Golden with art by Hector Gomez and Sandu Florea. An attempt at a ghost story that just doesn't quite work.
"Food Chain Part 2" by Christopher Golden with art by Christian Zanier and Sandu Florea. Not as good as the first part but still and entertaining read.
"The Final Cut" by Andi Watson with art by Cliff Richards and Joe Pimentel. It's an interesting idea but doesn't really fit the Buffy gang. It's something that Cordelia would have fallen for but I don't think the others would have gotten involved.
"The Latest Craze" by Christopher Golden and Tom Sniegoski with art by Cliff Richards and Joe Pimentel. At least the art's good. The story, again, just doesn't have the right feel. The characters act with different motivations than one might expect.
I keep getting these because I'm interested in what was done with the comics series in relation to the television series. I can appreciate the difficulty in trying to write something concurrent with something that has an actual story line. It's interesting to see them collected in chronological order. This collection is not the best work. It's a 2 out of 5.
The art is wonderful in this collection. It's easy to tell who everyone is, there's good pacing for the action (something that's very difficult to do in the comics medium), and it's fun to look at. Some of the stories fall flat unfortunately. The pacing is sometimes a little off and sometimes the continuity just doesn't work within the comic, nevermind within the broader aspect of Season 3.
"Wu -Tang Fang". Pretty good story, pretty good art. The depiction of Xander was not great. First, it didn't really look like him and second, Xander? Karate? I don't think so.
"Halloween". Meh. Another Halloween story where something goes wrong when it shouldn't. I was hoping for something a little more inspired but I think this one existed solely to set up something later in the volume.
"Cold Turkey" by Andi Watson with art by Joe Bennett and a Rick Ketchum. A throw away story. Buffy at Thanksgiving where the vampire she defeated at Halloween wants to eat her! Not that great.
"Dance with Me" by Christopher Golden with art by Hector Gomez and Sandu Florea. I really liked this one. It felt most like a Buffy episode. It better captured the soul of the characters and the way the show is put together. The art could have been better.
"White Christmas". Another good one.
"Happy New Year". This one's a miss.
"New Kid on the Block" by Andi Watson with art by Hector Gomez and Sandu Florea. This one is not good. It just doesn't work on so many levels. I don't think there's any reasonable explaination for the disappearance of a pool. Even in Sunnydale.
"Food Chain Part 1" by Christopher Golden with art by Christian Zanier and Sandu Florea. This one succeeds in all the places that "New Kid on the Block" fails.
"Play with Fire" by Christopher Golden with art by Hector Gomez and Sandu Florea. An attempt at a ghost story that just doesn't quite work.
"Food Chain Part 2" by Christopher Golden with art by Christian Zanier and Sandu Florea. Not as good as the first part but still and entertaining read.
"The Final Cut" by Andi Watson with art by Cliff Richards and Joe Pimentel. It's an interesting idea but doesn't really fit the Buffy gang. It's something that Cordelia would have fallen for but I don't think the others would have gotten involved.
"The Latest Craze" by Christopher Golden and Tom Sniegoski with art by Cliff Richards and Joe Pimentel. At least the art's good. The story, again, just doesn't have the right feel. The characters act with different motivations than one might expect.
I keep getting these because I'm interested in what was done with the comics series in relation to the television series. I can appreciate the difficulty in trying to write something concurrent with something that has an actual story line. It's interesting to see them collected in chronological order. This collection is not the best work. It's a 2 out of 5.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
The Night Watch
I picked up The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko because we'd seen the movie. To be honest, I didn't enjoy the movie. I had a hard time putting my finger on what I didn't like about it. Sometimes with a dubbed movie (it's in Russian) I find the words distract me from the images and I lose the connection. There was alot to look at in the movie and I guess I just felt like it was missing something. I knew that it had been based on a book and felt that it had probably made a much better book than it had a movie. I was right.
The first thing I discovered was that the book was actually three books. The first is the basic plot of the movie (the movie changes the action in quite a few ways) and the second two books continue the story of the protagonist, Anton, as he gets both deeper and further from his role as a Night Watchman. Since it's told in first person perspective I felt the reader got more insight into the motivation of the character. Being able to see through his eyes and hear his thoughts both introduced the world, and his place in it, as well as letting the reader understand why he was doing things the way he was.
The world is probably the most interesting thing about the novel. There are two factions, the Light and the Dark, that are locked in a war in which neither side can really win. They've long since realised this and have signed a Treaty that strives to maintain a balance between Good and Evil. Those of the Light, like Anton, patrol the night and make sure that the Dark maintain the Treaty. During the day the Day Watch, made up of Dark Others, make sure that the Light follows the Treaty. I found it interesting that the Light, the Good, would have to be monitored by the Dark.
There's magic in the world but most of it is not the over the top fantasy magic as the Others have to share the same world as the humans do. The Others are born that way, no one can learn to be a magician and they have different levels of power. Sometimes their power never manifests. At the moment they become an Other, by entering the Twilight, they then make the choice to be Light or Dark. It's they way they feel at the time that determines if they will be good and try to help humanity, or be evil and simply look after themselves.
Set in contemporary Russia the book is well written, engaging and not entirely formulaic. Of course, it is Good vs Evil but Good doesn't always win in the way one might expect it to. I'm glad that I purchased the sequel The Day Watch at the same time. It was a bit of a gamble because I wasn't sure I was going to like the first one. Now I'm pretty sure I'm going to kep an eye out for the final book in the trilogy The Twilight Watch. I'm going to give this one a 4 out of 5.
The first thing I discovered was that the book was actually three books. The first is the basic plot of the movie (the movie changes the action in quite a few ways) and the second two books continue the story of the protagonist, Anton, as he gets both deeper and further from his role as a Night Watchman. Since it's told in first person perspective I felt the reader got more insight into the motivation of the character. Being able to see through his eyes and hear his thoughts both introduced the world, and his place in it, as well as letting the reader understand why he was doing things the way he was.
The world is probably the most interesting thing about the novel. There are two factions, the Light and the Dark, that are locked in a war in which neither side can really win. They've long since realised this and have signed a Treaty that strives to maintain a balance between Good and Evil. Those of the Light, like Anton, patrol the night and make sure that the Dark maintain the Treaty. During the day the Day Watch, made up of Dark Others, make sure that the Light follows the Treaty. I found it interesting that the Light, the Good, would have to be monitored by the Dark.
There's magic in the world but most of it is not the over the top fantasy magic as the Others have to share the same world as the humans do. The Others are born that way, no one can learn to be a magician and they have different levels of power. Sometimes their power never manifests. At the moment they become an Other, by entering the Twilight, they then make the choice to be Light or Dark. It's they way they feel at the time that determines if they will be good and try to help humanity, or be evil and simply look after themselves.
Set in contemporary Russia the book is well written, engaging and not entirely formulaic. Of course, it is Good vs Evil but Good doesn't always win in the way one might expect it to. I'm glad that I purchased the sequel The Day Watch at the same time. It was a bit of a gamble because I wasn't sure I was going to like the first one. Now I'm pretty sure I'm going to kep an eye out for the final book in the trilogy The Twilight Watch. I'm going to give this one a 4 out of 5.
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