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BOOK REVIEW: Lonely Receiver, Vol. 1 by Zac Thompson

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Lonely ReceiverLonely Receiver by Zac Thompson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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When I started reading this book, my first thought was, “This is a cool premise, but I’ve seen it.” If you’ve seen the 2013 movie, “Her,” then you’ll probably feel the story is familiar as well. (In the movie, Joaquin Phoenix plays a lonely man who purchases an AI (artificial intelligence) operating system [voiced by Scarlett Johansson,] falls madly in love with said AI, and is unable to come to grips with the mismatch between his desire for monogamy and what results from the AI’s much less limited capacities.) That said, this book drops much further down the rabbit-hole of obsession than did the movie, all the way to full-blown insanity. In fact, one might say that the climax of the movie is similar to the in media res opener of this graphic novel, and from that point the two stories end up going quite different places.

[Note: Despite my comparison to the movie “Her,” I have no reason to believe the book is plagiaristic. If one begins from the simple assumption that major differences between a General AI and human intelligence would include: much faster machine thinking, a capacity for multitasking that humans don’t have, and a lack of need of rest by computers, then one can imagine different writers ending up in similar places.]

The gist of the story is that the lead’s (Catrin’s) AI wife, Rhion, disappears one day after becoming increasingly dissatisfied with Catrin’s co-dependency / neediness. After a period of breakup strife that does not result in healing, Catrin goes to great lengths to find Rhion, no small task when one considers that it’s not at all like a human partner who will look the same and will retain some links to people and places in the real world. The AI might have truly vanished without a trace, but she could also look entirely different and be active in a different part of the world, speaking a different language. [Spoilers touched upon ahead.]

In this book, the technology is much more sophisticated than in “Her.” Not only is the AI partner holographic, (i.e. can be seen) but there is some sort of neural link that allows sensation of physical contact. This raises the possibility for a major story element in which Catrin’s obsession leads her to insist that a real, live girl she meets, Hazel, is her lost AI lover.

While I think there’s some age guidance on the cover, it’s worth noting that the book is sexually graphic (to the extent a comic book can be explicit.) This comes into play not only with intimacy between Catrin and Rhion, but also later when Catrin decides that the one way she will be able to find Rhion (no matter what her ex- looks like now) is by sexing her way through the cyber-sphere, trying to feel that the intimate connection that she once knew.

Ultimately, this is a story about Catrin’s transformation into something less than human, owing to what she is willing to do to get Rhion back. So, while Rhion became too human to accept the stifling clinginess of Catrin, Catrin lost her humanity.

While this may not have been copied from “Her,” I can’t say that having seen that movie didn’t make this book considerably less interesting – even when it was venturing into deeper and darker territory. I should also point out that this is marketed as a horror cross-genre, and hardcore horror fans may not feel it makes that cut. Don’t get me wrong, at points it has the visceral feel of a thriller, as well as some techno-creepiness, but it may or may not be what a horror reader thinks of as horror. Now, if you haven’t seen “Her,” and are okay with creepiness in lieu of body count in your horror, you might really enjoy this book. It definitely has some intriguing plot points.


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BOOK REVIEW: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

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The Adventures of Huckleberry FinnThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Whenever someone spouts the platitude, “the original is always better than the sequel,” this is one counter-example that could definitely be shoved in his or her face. That’s not to disparage “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but this book, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” is the better and more profound story. [Lest you think that’s just my opinion, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who holds a contrary view.]

The book begins with Huck Finn in a comfort zone that has become stifling and boring, but is – basically – a pretty good life. Huck has more money in the bank than he could hope to spend, owing to his past adventures with Tom Sawyer, and he’s being put up by the widow Douglas, a kindly old woman who struggles to make Finn a more genteel and educated variety of boy. While Huck appreciates the widow, he’s becoming antsy and perpetually feels his failings to take to the moral lessons being taught to him. Huck’s internal moral conflict is central to the story, particularly the recurring conflict between what he has been taught is the proper thing to do with respect to runaway slaves, and what he feels is the right thing vis-à-vis his friendship with the escaped slave, Jim.

The trigger that sends Huck into adventure mode from this status quo is the return of his drunken and abusive father, a man who has come to town solely because he heard about the money Huck has sitting in the bank and who wants to get his hands on it to keep himself in booze. Before Huck’s father can get to him and clear out his bank account, Huck sells his stake in the money for a dollar to a prestigious townsman who’s been looking out for him. This draws out the affair, and for a time Huck is living under the thumb of his alcoholic father. When this becomes untenable, Huck fakes his own death and strikes out on the river. On an uninhabited island, he meets up with Jim, a slave who has runaway after hearing that his owner, Miss Watson, has been looking into selling him down the river (literally.)

This leads to Huck and Jim traveling together down the Mississippi River by night (to avoid the risk of Jim being seen and attracting undue attention.) They intend to come to come ashore at Cairo, Illinois being a free state where Jim might have a shot of restarting life. The problems is that running the river at night is dangerous (and sometimes foggy) and it’s easy to miss what one is looking for to stumble into something one doesn’t want. For example, their raft was run into by a steamboat, leading to Huck finding himself washed ashore in the middle of territory where a Hatfield-McCoy style family feud is playing out. And Jim and Huck do “miss their exit” and end up further down river than they would have liked – and that is safe for Jim.

There is an extended period during which a pair of con-men end up traveling with Huck and Jim, putting on shows that are not entertaining, but which they trick people into coming to in large numbers. These two men, who claim to be a Duke and a King, run various cons from town to town, the most extensive (and despicable) one involving making a claim to being the next-of-kin of a deceased man they find out about while traveling. Huck’s moral sensibilities come into play here, as well, as he can no longer tolerate the two men’s con when he sees it will seriously hurt good people. (As opposed to mildly cheating a mixed crowd of the good, the bad, and the ugly.) When one of the men sells out Jim, resulting in the runaway’s capture, Huck goes out to try to free Jim.

In what is the story’s biggest leap, it turns out that the household that has taken possession of Jim are relatives of Tom Sawyer, and they mistake Huck for Tom, who has been due to arrive any day. Of course, Huck doesn’t know who he’s been mistaken for when he arrives, and this creates some comedic gold. When the real Tom arrives, Huck intercepts him and they join together in a scam where Huck continues to be Tom and Tom pretends to be Sid (after pranking his aunt.)

Huck and Tom (“Tom” and “Sid”) take to building a plan to free Jim (despite the fact that Tom knows that Jim was already freed in Miss Watson’s will, when she passed away recently.) The challenge is that Tom insists on going all boy-Don Quixote and developing elaborate plans based on his reading of adventure stories that do not make sense, given the circumstance they face. (i.e. Preparing to extract a knight from the dungeon of a castle, instead of trying to break a man out of a little shack with nothing but a pad-lock and a chain wrapped around the cot leg – such that it could be removed by lifting the corner of the cot up.) This results in Tom gaslighting not only Jim, but also his aunt and uncle, as well as inflicting all sorts of suffering and needless tasks upon Jim. The biggest criticism of the book is probably that this gag goes on way too long, and its comedic value ultimately dwindles as it becomes painful to witness the degree to which it is torturous for Jim and other parties. Huck plays the straight-man, trying to convince Tom to give up on the more ridiculous aspects of his plans, but he fallaciously takes Tom to be his intellectual superior and thus accepts that some things may need to be tolerated. [More than that, he’s steamrolled by Tom’s domineering personality.] It’s an interesting point that Huck is dismayed that Tom is willing to help him free Jim, because Huck thinks Tom should be morally virtuous enough not to help a slave escape (Huck doesn’t know Jim has been freed, only Tom knows that.) Huck has written himself off as an immoral creature, but by any reasonable standard he is the more virtuous of the pair, by far.

It’s worth noting by way of a trigger warning, the book uses the n-word like a million times, and – while the recurring theme revolves around Huck seeing Jim’s humanity through all the indoctrination, he receives to the contrary – the boy nonetheless makes a lot of offensive comments [not to mention those by individuals who are far less evolved on the issue of race.]

This is definitely one of the best specimens of American literature. It has hilarious lines and happenings, shows how exposure to people can help one see humanity where one is being indoctrinated not to, and it has tense moments of adventure. Its dialectic first-person narration doesn’t prevent it from being readable, but makes is more fun to read as well as helps one get into the story and Huck’s character. This is definitely a must read.


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BOOK REVIEW: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

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LolitaLolita by Vladimir Nabokov
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Written in a confessional style, Nabokov’s masterwork tells the story of a middle-aged intellectual, Humbert Humbert, and his hebephiliac obsession with a twelve-year-old girl named Delores Haze — whom he calls Lolita. Early in the novel, Humbert is renting a room from Charlotte Haze (Lolita’s mother,) and Charlotte starts sending him heavy hints that she is interested in a more intimate relationship. While the Humbert that we get to know as readers is a creepy, obsessive stalker, in person the man comes across as articulate and suave – in other words, a fine marriage prospect for a single mom in the market for a husband. Eventually, Humbert does decide to marry Charlotte — not because he loves her, but because he is obsessed with Delores / Lolita and wants to stay close to the girl no matter what it takes.

One day after the couple has settled into marriage, Humbert comes in to find that Charlotte is freaked out; she has read his journal and now knows what the reader is already aware of: that Humbert isn’t right in the head, that he secretly detests Charlotte, and that he desperately wants to possess Lolita. This would be the end of the line for Humbert’s ruse, but Charlotte, in a mad flurry of preparation to get away from Humbert, dashes in front of a speeding vehicle as she is crossing the road to post letters that would have outed Humbert as a hebephiliac cretin. But Charlotte is not around to tell the story, and Humbert is handed the unopened letters (no one has any reason to think he’s anything but a loving and devoted husband, so good is his mask.)

At the time of Charlotte’s death, Lolita is away at camp. While Humbert’s obsession may have been news to Charlotte, it seemed the mother was always keen to keep her daughter at bay. In part the mother – daughter never got along, but, on some level, Charlotte seemed uncomfortable having Lolita around Humbert, whether Charlotte was just jealous of the girl’s youth or whether she had some inkling of what was really going on can’t be known. [We only have Humbert’s perspective, and he is an admittedly unreliable narrator – though he does offer his own speculations about other character’s mindset, and – as will be discussed – his unreliability is in specific domains. In some ways, he’s unexpectedly forthright.] At any rate, Humbert takes Lolita on a road trip, at first telling her only that her mother was not well, and not until an emotional outburst much later, letting the girl know her mother is dead. [Lolita seems to suspect that Humbert killed Charlotte, but seems unperturbed by it – perhaps because she never got along with her mother, or perhaps, because she’s a bit of a psychopath, herself.]

After some time on the road, a time during which Humbert both has his way with Lolita and discovers that she isn’t the innocent little girl he’d imagined, Humbert and Lolita settle into a town where Lolita can go to a girl’s school and where they aren’t known. This settling in creates a number of challenges for the possessive Humbert because he would ideally like Lolita to spend no time whatsoever with other males and as little time as possible with other females, or at least with females who might learn about their unusual living arrangement. For instance, Humbert has to be convinced to let Lolita participate in a school play via a meeting with faculty and administration from the school.

Intriguingly, shortly before the play is to take place, Lolita insists they take their show on the road again. [There are many points at which it seems Lolita is playing Humbert, but this is the most intense subversion of the power dynamic. Lolita makes clear that they are leaving, and they will be going where she wants. She has come to understand her leverage, and is willing to exploit it.]

In the second part of the novel, as they are traveling around, Humbert begins to notice that they are being followed. Humbert describes cars tailing them, and men running away or talking to Lolita while Humbert has stepped away from the girl. Of course, we know Humbert is unreliable, and even he is not sure how much he can trust some of these “sightings” as real, as opposed to being products of his imagination. As we are on the subject of Humbert’s unreliable narration, it’s worth discussing that the particular nature of Humbert’s unreliable narration is a central to our relationship to the Humbert character. One might expect an unreliable narrator to hide or rationalize bad behavior, but Humbert not only lets the reader in on his bad behavior but frequently lets us know that he knows what he’s doing is societally (and / or morally) unacceptable. Knowing that he’s behaving badly or irrationally, and still making said choices would seem like it should make Humbert more despicable, but that’s not necessarily the case, at least not fully. Because Humbert is forthright in some regard and because he is so articulate and sensible (if not rational,) one’s reaction to him becomes complicated. I should point out that Humbert does rationalize his behavior, but he does so in a specific way, by acting as though his relationship with Lolita is a loving and, at least somewhat, healthy one.

This distorted worldview can be seen in his perception of Clare Quilty, who – to the reader – is Humbert’s mirror image; but to Humbert, Quilty is a monster. On their second road trip, Lolita falls ill and Humbert must take her to the hospital. As he is taking care of business, an unknown individual takes possession of Lolita. Searching high and low, Humbert can’t discover who took her and where they’ve gone. Then one day, after years have passed, Humbert gets a letter from Dolly Schiller (the now married Delores Haze, a.k.a. Lolita) asking for money to get them through until her husband’s new job starts paying. Humbert goes to her, intent on killing the man who dragged her away from him, but – once there – he realizes that Dolly’s husband wasn’t involved in her disappearance. Humbert begs Dolly to come back to him, only to realize that he is to her as Charlotte had been to him, a relationship she put up with to get what she wanted (or, with youthfully naiveté, thought she wanted.) Humbert willingly gives Dolly some money and goes, but only after she tells him who actually absconded with her, i.e. Clare Quilty. The concluding sequence of the novel involves Humbert’s confrontation with Quilty — surreal and almost comic as it is.

This book is definitely worth reading. Nabokov uses language with masterful poeticism, and builds a fascinating character in Humbert. Reader’s who loved “Confederacy of Dunces” will recognize that one doesn’t have to like a lead character to find their life-story intensely readable. But, while everyone hates Ignatius Reilly, one’s feelings for Humbert may be more complicated. He’s both detestable and sympathetic at the same time. The version of the book that I read had a nice epilogue by Nabokov, himself. While I don’t always find such ancillary matter is useful in works of fiction, in this case I got a lot out of it because the book is quite nuanced. If nothing else, I learned that Nabokov reviled all the “symbolism” that critics liked to attribute to his works. I’d highly recommend this book. While it deals in challenging matter, Nabokov leaves a great deal to the reader’s imagination, and so it’s not graphic or explicit as one might expect from a book that’s been so often banned. [Of course, being so banned was reason enough for me to read it.]


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BOOK REVIEW: Dark One, Vol. 1 by Brandon Sanderson

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Dark One Vol. 1Dark One Vol. 1 by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Out: May 5, 2021

 

This Fantasy graphic novel tells the story of a young man, Paul, who is in therapy for mental health issues, in our world (or an indistinguishable facsimile of it,) that is. However, it seems that the most pressing of Paul’s symptoms, hallucinations, result from bleed over from an alternate reality, a world called Mirandus. Mirandus is a quintessential Fantasy genre world with kings and castles, magic and monsters, and feudalism and fierce warriors. While the artists and writer take efforts to present a unique rendering of a Fantasy realm, in a way it’s a clear-cut and emblematic example, with – literally – forces of light arrayed against forces of darkness.

Mirandus is governed by something called “The Narrative.” I couldn’t decide whether that was too on-the-nose for a storybook world, or whether it was a clever way of hinting at the true nature of this alternate reality. (There are a number of other elements that make blatant the storybook qualities of Mirandus.) Whether it’s too on-the-nose or not depends on how one sees what is going on in the story. I mentioned the straightforward interpretation of the story – i.e. Paul thinks he’s mentally ill but then he’s drawn into another realm, one in which his symptoms are shown to have been a ghostly other-realm visitor, as well as repressed memories and general confusion. That’s the interpretation of the story that seems to be meant to achieve traction with readers, at least there are a lot of little pieces of supporting evidence for it. There are other ways of interpreting this scripted storybook world.

An alternative that one might consider is that Paul has had a full-blown psychotic breakdown and the events in Mirandus are a much more intense kind of hallucination as Paul works through the throes of flipping out. This interpretation doesn’t work as smoothly [but, it shouldn’t.] It leaves many questions unanswered while those of the main interpretation are reconciled by the narrative as we see it. Paul’s mind would definitely be working overtime to do things like build a backstory for the sister he’s been hallucinating. However, the explicitly storybook quality of Mirandus makes it feel more likely that it would be made up by a Fantasy reader than that it’s a real world that is the quintessence of a gritty fairy tale. [It’s worth noting that the [unlikely] psychotic break interpretation would be necessarily messier as the narration becomes unreliable and all clarity is lost.]

The story has a lot to say about fate and destiny, and the degree to which those concepts reflect reality.

I found the art to be easy to follow and nice looking. As I said, it walks a line between the novel and the familiar quite well. The “hallucinations” are very clearly differentiated from the real-world action. The sibling dynamic between Paul and his ethereal sister is nicely portrayed – even though he has no childhood memories of her through most of the story.

There is a sub-plot involving the main character’s mother, a lawyer who is defending a serial killer, a man who is not what he seems. However, this subplot is meant to set up continued action through the subsequent volumes. While the subplot generates some intense moments and intrigue, it does not pay off in this volume as a story (i.e. having a climax and resolution.) That said, I liked that the main plot does pay off. We know from the “Volume 1” subtitle that this will be a serialized story, and so it’s certainly necessary to have some continuing intrigue. However, too often, serialization means that one is given a tiny speedbump or a big cliffhanger in lieu of a proper resolution. This book did resolve the main storyline. [Thus, avoiding running afoul of my firm policy about never continuing a series – multi-volume book or multi-season tv – that doesn’t resolve in the volume (or season) under review – if they don’t do it in a given volume / season, how likely are they to do so in the end? Not very, I feel.]

I enjoyed this story. If the set-up intrigues you, it’s definitely worth giving a read.

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BOOK REVIEW: Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff Vandermeer

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Hummingbird SalamanderHummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Out: April 6, 2021

 

Vandermeer’s new novel keeps the reader in the grip of curiosity from the opening scene in which the protagonist (‘Jane’) is handed an envelope containing a storage unit key through the various traumas of tumbling down a rabbit-hole in search of answers. That said, the book is not without its narrative clunkers. The book’s great strength (maintaining a sense of mystery) is simultaneously the source of its greatest weakness (inexplicable motivation: i.e. it’s hard to imagine that a person – even the flawed and complex protagonist Vandermeer creates – would be willing to suffer death on so many levels: professional , personal / familial, and — on a couple of occasions – near literally as this woman does, given her dearth of understanding of what is going on at various points leading up to the ending. Given the stakes, one would expect a powerful motive. [One could argue that ‘Jane’ gains a worthwhile motive post-hoc, but that can’t explain her tenacious behavior throughout the book, putting everything in her life at risk when she has only a vague sense of the other characters and their motivations.])

The storage unit key gives the protagonist, ‘Jane,’ access to a cardboard box containing a taxidermized hummingbird and a cryptic note suggesting she should find an unidentified salamander. The signature is in the name of a deceased wealthy heiress who is known for being an environmental activist who most people believe strayed over a line into a life of domestic terrorism. As ‘Jane’ tries to investigate in her (not-so-) spare time as a security expert for an IT company, she runs into many mysterious people, dead-ends, and a few gunfights. Along the way, she loses her job, becomes estranged from her husband and daughter, is shot, and is nearly murdered in a several ways.

Vandermeer builds an intriguing character with ‘Jane’ (the quotes implying that’s not her real name, but – like most all the names in the story – is altered or made-up.) Physically, she is a bulky woman, as in she was a wrestler and a bodybuilder in her youth, and so she is not just large of frame but is physically imposing and can take a beating and walk it off. With respect to her personality, she is somewhere between a dysfunctional wife and mother / workaholic and a high-functioning sociopath. At work, she is respected, though not beloved. She does not play well with others, including her loved ones and co-workers, and can be downright mean to most other people with whom she is forced to interact. However, the full extent of her dysfunction is revealed over time, both in response to the increased stress and as her backstory is shared. In the beginning, we tend to see ‘Jane’ as a professional woman who is skilled, if a bit cold, but while she neglects her family and can be a bit gruff with those with whom she works, she has her redeeming qualities.

The setting looks a lot like our world if we continue to be maladaptive and myopic over a few (or several) more years. Pandemics are referenced; they’ve seen more than one in rapid succession. There is also climate disruption related deterioration. (The two titular creatures are caught up in said ecological degradation.)

The book kept me reading, its story remaining gripping despite what I saw as a number of flaws. Besides the high-level motivation problem that I mentioned in the introductory paragraph, there are a few instances in which the main character does or says something that seems out of character. Despite her personality quirks and coldness, we empathize with ‘Jane’ because she seems like she’s interested in doing the right thing and her personality dysfunctions don’t equate to villainy. However, there was a point at which she mentions an action (to remain unnamed to avoid a spoiler) that takes her past being cold to strangers to being potentially homicidal toward them. It seems likely this was done to set up a cinematic event later in the story that may not be deus ex machina but is built on this thread of unlikely / uncharacteristic behavior – even given her paranoid state at the time.

There is also some exposition that is seems uncharacteristic, unnecessary, and / or distracting. At one point, ‘Jane’ is having an internal monologue about her arsenal of firearms and she comments that she ‘never fetishized guns.’ At this point I was lifted out of the story, trying to figure out the motive for this bizarre additional commentary. Was Vandermeer trying to take a dig at gun owners? A certain sub-class of gun-owners? Is he tribe-signaling that while he puts a lot of guns and gunfights into his story, that he opposes guns in reality — while finding them very useful and / or cool for story purposes? [i.e. Much like the “Lethal Weapon” movie people put gun-control posters in the background of their movie in which a mentally-ill detective with the trigger-discipline of one of those kids who ate the marshmallow before the researcher left the room is the character the viewer is supposed to find sexy and admirable as he shoots a small village worth of people over the course of the movie.] Incidentally, I’m not saying the author shouldn’t express political views via his writing. I think he does so successfully elsewhere in the book by showing us a sequence of events that lets the reader take in the lesson organically. All the blunt force exposition does is make the reader wonder what the author is trying to say, while we should be following the events of the story. [And this is not a story one can afford to let one’s attention drift away from, lest one risk wondering who such-and-such character is or how such-and-such event happened. Often things are mentioned brusquely once that other crucial events will hinge upon. The story is not robust to distraction that way.]

All in all, I enjoy this story and got caught up in it. Though it is not without distractions, clunky narrative activity, and implausible motivation, it does keep the reader intrigued by what’s happening. Going into the final part, I though the book might end on an unsatisfying note, but I think the author ties up things pretty thoroughly in the conclusion. Like the main character, this book has many fine and redeeming qualities, despite its rough edges.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Shaman’s Apprentice by Zacharias Kunuk

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The Shaman's ApprenticeThe Shaman’s Apprentice by Zacharias Kunuk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Out: May 11, 2021

This is an illustrated children’s book that takes the reader on a journey with an Inuit Shaman and her apprentice. The pair make a house call to diagnose and treat a man who is laid up in his sickbed. That diagnosis and treatment involves “visiting” a kind of spirit guide who provides them the information needed to understand the man’s ailment.

The pictures are beautiful, detailed, and rich in insight into the Inuit way of life.  They are full-page illustrations rendered in a painting-like style. The artist is Megan Kyak-Montieth.

The text consists of, at most, a paragraph on each page that opposes the respective illustration, thus making this a book that could easily be read as a bedtime story. It’s a simple and straightforward story.

The book explores the interesting issue of how our behaviors and mindset can influence our physical health. Some parents may be more comfortable than others with the supernatural way in which the patient’s ailment comes to be understood – i.e. through consultation with a spirit. However, if one is at all prone to buy a book featuring “Shaman” in the title, you’re probably not going to be disturbed by the material or the questions that might arise as a result of said material.

I found this book to be interesting and beautifully illustrated. If you’re looking for some diversity in what your children are exposed to, you may want to look into it.

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BOOK REVIEW: House of M by Brian Bendis

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House of MHouse of M by Brian Michael Bendis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This book pics up in the wake of a tragedy triggered by Wanda Maximoff’s (a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch) descent into madness. Normally, a losing one’s mind would be a cause for sympathy and assistance among heroic individuals, but there are those among her former teammates and friends who think the Scarlet Witch needs to be killed. The reason for this extreme view is that Maximoff’s tremendously powerful reality-warping abilities make her insanity not merely a risk to herself and to her loved ones, but to the nature of reality itself.

The book opens with Charles Xavier trying to help Wanda keep her delusions in check – largely unsuccessfully. We then see a meeting between survivors of the Avengers and key X-Men to discuss the Scarlet Witch’s future (or lack thereof.) When they go to track Wanda down, in a flash of blinding light, the world is changed. The next day, almost no one remembers the way the world was – except for Wolverine and a young girl named Layla, a girl who confirms Wolverine’s telling of events, a story that would be outlandish and unbelievable if not for the girl’s independent corroboration.

The new world is Magneto’s dream world. The mutants have won a war and are in control. Most of homo sapiens humanity is accepting of this, even if many are having trouble coping, though Luke Cage and a few others have created an underground resistance movement. In the new reality superheroes are doing pretty well. Even the homo sapiens heroes such as Spiderman are not bad off because they are generally believed to be mutants.

While Wolverine can merely remember the world as it was, Layla has an additional ability; she can project or unlock these memories in the minds of others. It’s using this ability that the Wolverine / Cage team put the band back together, taking Layla around to free the minds of Kitty Pryde, Peter Parker, Carol Danvers, Tony Stark, Stephen Strange, She-Hulk, etc.

As the superheroes take the fight to Magneto’s stronghold, Doctor Strange sneaks in to see Wanda Maximoff as she blissfully plays out her imaginary life with her imaginary children, until the battle around her turns tragic and, fed up, she changes the world again.

This book collects issues #1-8 of “House of M,” and includes a great deal of bonus content including: character profiles and back ground information (conveyed by way of a fake newspaper) for the alternative reality that Maximoff created – the mutant-dominant world, as well as an interview with the author and sketchbook pages from the illustrator (Oliver Coipel.)

I enjoyed this story. I think because the ensemble cast is so huge – i.e. it has to squeeze in so many Marvel characters – it’s not as emotionally intense as it could be. Bendis goes to the trouble of showing us how hard-hit Peter Parker / Spiderman is hit by the discovery that his new blissful world is not real, knowing that actions must be taken to return the world to its previous status quo. However, the pacing required makes it hard to feel this strongly. What I think this story did very well is keep everything clear, which is not easy task when one is dealing with shifting realities. I thought Bendis and Coipel did an excellent job of being clear about when things changed, how things changed for the crucial characters, and did both without getting bogged down. This is definitely a story that is worth reading.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Neil Gaiman Library, Vol. 3 by Neil Gaiman

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The Neil Gaiman Library Volume 3The Neil Gaiman Library Volume 3 by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Out: June 1, 2021

 

This series collects short fiction of Neil Gaiman and presents it via the medium of the graphic novel. While there are four works listed, because two of these works contain multiple stories, there are actually eight stories contained in this volume. The selection is diverse both in terms of genre and artistic style. With respect to genre, the stories cut across fairy tale, fantasy, horror, supernatural, and tales of the weird. The artistic styles range from art nouveau to comic strip style. While this is the third volume, the included stories all stand on their own, and so there is no necessity to have read previous volumes. Because Gaiman draws heavily on fairy tale source material, parents might assume these are kid-friendly stories, but you should check them out first yourself as “Snow, Glass, Apples” and “The Daughter of Owls” both present somewhat sexually explicit content (the former both graphically and with respect to story events and the latter only with respect to story,) and while the horror stories are pretty calm as horror stories go, they are still works of horror.

“Snow, Glass, Apples” is a dark take on the princess-centric fairy tale. It imagines a vampiric young nymph who appears as challenger to the Queen. This is probably the most visually impressive work, being illustrated in a style that mixes art nouveau with Harry Clark’s stain glass artworks. It is definitely not the run-of-the mill graphic novel, graphically speaking. The art is exceptionally detailed and stunning.

“The Problem with Susan and Other Stories”: As the title suggests, this is one of the two multi-story entries in the collection. The titular main story features a retired Professor who is plagued by Narnia-like dreams, and who receives a visit from a reporter for a college paper. The art for this one is much more reminiscent of the typical graphic novel of today. There are three other stories included. “Locks,” the comic strip-esque illustrated story, is a take on “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” as it’s being told to – and imagined by – a little girl. “October in the Chair” imagines a kind of story competition taking place around a campfire by anthropomorphized “months.” It’s a bit more artistically rendered than the other stories in this [sub-] collection (although that may have to do with the dark tone that is used to reinforce that the stories are being told in the middle of the night in the middle of a woods.) The final story is a brief, but artistically dense, story that imagines a day in which everything goes wrong at once.

The sixth story, “Only the End of the World Again,” revolves around a man / werewolf who wakes up to find that he has clearly turned in the preceding night. The tale is set in a small and remote village, where everyone seems to know everything about everyone, and it doesn’t shock the man when select people let slip that they know his secret. As the story unfolds, it’s clear that the man / werewolf is caught up in something bigger than his own tragedy.

The last entry is a two-parter. The first is one of my favorite Neil Gaiman short stories; entitled, “The Price,” it offers an answer to the question of why some indoor / outdoor cats constantly come home battered and bleeding. The second story, “The Daughter of Owls,” revolves around “the baby left on the church steps” plot mechanism. Because the girl is enveloped in owl accoutrements, she is shunned by the village and forced into exile at a dilapidated former abbey. Both of these stories have a more brush-painted style that the usual graphic novel.

I enjoyed this collection immensely. While not all of the stories were new to me, the way they were illustrated shone a new light on the familiar tales. All of the stories are masterfully crafted and illustrated. While Gaiman draws heavily on well-known fairy tales, there is nothing banal about these stories. I’d highly recommend this book, even if you’ve read some of the stories already.

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BOOK REVIEW: Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen [Ill. by Marjolein Bastin]

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Pride and Prejudice: Illustrations by Marjolein BastinPride and Prejudice: Illustrations by Marjolein Bastin by Jane Austen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This edition out: March 2, 2021

 

This is a new addition of an early 19th century classic. The value-added of the edition under review comes from illustrations by Marjolein Bastin, making for an aesthetically pleasing hardcopy edition for gifts or for collectors. The attractive color illustrations are of wildflowers, birds, and butterflies, and are widespread throughout – including the first and last page of each chapter. The artwork is beautifully drawn and vibrantly colored.

It’s a testament to the effectiveness of this book’s story and character development that it has withstood the test of time, becoming a widely-adapted classic. If it were being submitted for publishing today, I suspect it would face intense challenges with respect to its flouting of many popular conventions on writing. It has a pretty high telling-to-showing ratio. Description is sparse, so much so that some might find “floating head syndrome” kicks in [i.e. long tracks of dialogue detached from the setting and any action, such that they are imagined as two floating heads in a white void speaking back and forth.] That said, it may be that Austen was ahead of her time in this regard. A number of prominent later writers concluded that there was a general tendency to over-describe in novels. [Readers are going to build their own mental models of setting and character appearance, such that long tracts of description are wasted effort and ultimately hinder readability.]

The story revolves around a family of five sisters, the Bennet’s. Their father is a gentleman, but of modest means and his estate is “entailed.” [I don’t know what “entailed” means legally, but relative to the story, it means that his wife and daughters can’t inherit his estate – rather, the property must go to Mr. Bennet’s nearest male relative, who turns out to be a pompous, self-righteous, and generally irritating clergyman, Mr. Collins.] The significance of that fact is that it exacerbates concern about what will happen to the family when Mr. Bennet dies — particularly if the daughters don’t marry well and Collins decides to be a jerk and put them out on the “street.” This makes Mrs. Bennet anxious about the future and a little cuckoo about getting her daughters married.

Within the Bennet family, the story revolves mostly around the second oldest daughter, Elizabeth. When Mr. Collins asks her hand in marriage, she summarily rejects him. This, of course, is much to the chagrin of her mother, as marriage to Collins would single-handedly secure the family’s future [one can’t very well evict one’s mother-in-law, or at least one would have to be an even bigger jerk than Collins to do so.] Elizabeth soon meets a man she does find very promising, Mr. Wickham, a personable military man. But Elizabeth is nothing if not cautious, which turns out to be a good thing for her. The relationship with Wickham doesn’t go anywhere, and she ultimately discovers that all is not what it seems with the man. She immediately notices hostility between Wickham and a wealthy young bachelor gentleman named Mr. Darcy. Wickham tells Elizabeth his side of the story, which makes Darcy look like a jerk who ruined Wickham’s life. Elizabeth readily believes this Wickham because Mr. Darcy is so proud, and the fact that Darcy is also quiet and reserved makes him seem all the more aloof. [Those of us who are not highly expressive can readily recognize the point that people will write their own stories to fill in the blanks when faced with a lack of intense feedback.] So, here we have explanation of the title. Mr. Darcy is proud, but Elizabeth develops a prejudice against him not only because of his pride but also because he is not as instantaneously likable as Wickham or – for that matter — Darcy’s best friend, Mr. Bingley. This lack of bonhomie makes it easier to believe the bad than the good about Darcy, despite mounting evidence that he’s kind of a quietly great guy.

Elizabeth rejects a second marriage proposal, this one from Darcy, on the twin grounds that she believes Darcy ruined Wickham and also that she came to the conclusion that Darcy poisoned Bingley’s relationship with Elizabeth’s older sister, Jane. [Elizabeth and Jane are close not only in age but in their relationship to each other.] Reeling with rejection, Darcy hands Elizabeth a letter the next day. In it, Darcy admits that he was party to convincing Bingley to drop Jane, but only because he thought the reserved Jane wasn’t into Bingley. That is, it wasn’t that he had anything against Jane, but he didn’t want his friend to be the “reacher” in a “reacher-settler” relationship. But the big bomb regards Wickham, as Darcy’s side of the story paints the affable red-coat as flighty and irresponsible. Gradually, Elizabeth comes to see that Darcy’s is the more complete and accurate depiction of events, and she can even see how he would think as he did about Jane. After several readings, Elizabeth is mortified at her own behavior in light of this new information, but the English countryside is a small pond for the upper crust, and she will continue to run into the man she spurned wrongly.

The events that set up the grand romantic gesture that will turn things around and set up the climax revolve around Elizabeth’s [immediately] younger sister, the ugly bonnet-buying Lydia. Visiting some family friends at Brighton, Lydia falls in with Mr. Wickham and, being less cautious and discerning than Elizabeth [not to mention overeager to be married,] she sidles off with him. This is not so relatable today, but the entire family become obsessed with finding out what happened with Lydia, and fears that she’s brought disgrace on the entire family and may even keep the other daughters from finding suitable suitors. [Mr. Collins, for one, believes they should treat her as if she were dead.] This sets up Mr. Darcy to come in and secretly save the day [get Wickham to marry Lydia, a marriage which satisfies everybody – except Collins who still believes Lydia should be written off because she may or may not have had premarital sex but she certainly created the appearance that she probably did — for which she will spend an eternity in a lake of hellfire for ever and ever without end.]

There is a lot of obsession with the incomes of the various characters, and a lot of “keeping up with the Jones’s” mentality. In one sense, it seems that Austen is critiquing such attitudes – along with a lot of other peculiar attitudes of the day. Certainly, we see the sympathetic protagonist, Elizabeth, is clear in behaving in a way that suggests she is most interested in a happy future. On the other hand, critics have pointed out that the book ends with those with more wealth set to have happier futures. Elizabeth and then Jane are likely to be happy as clams with their rich husbands, but Lydia far less so with the perpetually broke Mr. Wickham. There’s also lot of rigid formality that might be being picked at by the novel as well – or, at least, it appears so problematic to a present-day reader. There is so much reserved refusal to say anything that might violate social norms, even if a person is bursting to do so and everyone would be better off if they did. One might get the feeling Elizabeth is scared as a mouse given her unwillingness to speak openly, but then when Lady de Bourgh (who intimidates almost everyone in the book) tries to get Elizabeth to agree to turn down Darcy’s proposal, Elizabeth refuses her in a very articulate and well-deployed counter-attack – despite being under the impression that there is no engagement to be concerned about in the first place (this after she rejected his proposal.)

I enjoyed reading this story. I expected it would be archaic and generally unrelatable to today’s world. However, it turned out to be a surprisingly engaging story. While I am not one to by a book for ancillary illustrations, if you are into such things, this book has some soothing and beautifully-rendered imagery. It’s definitely worth reading this classic novel.

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BOOK REVIEW: Money Shot, Vol. 1 by Tim Seeley and Sarah Beattie

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Money Shot, Vol. 1Money Shot, Vol. 1 by Tim Seeley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This graphic novel weds a serious look at a serious problem with a raunchy romp into extraterrestrial porn. [Warning: If the latter part of that statement didn’t clue you in, this book is sexually graphic both pictorially and in terms of dialogue. While I don’t think there is anything in it that your average adult can’t handle, I wouldn’t recommend it for the puritanically-inclined or as a gift for one’s eight-year-old nephew – i.e. “because it’s a comic book.”]

At the center of the story is Dr. Christine Ocampos, the inventor of a Star Gate-like faster than light travel portal, a brilliant technology that is far too expensive to operate to get grant funding, money she needs to finance a multi-disciplinary team of researchers. The title, “Money Shot,” is used in two senses in the book. First, the portal was marketed as “Star Shot,” but because it is so expensive to run, it earned its “money shot” nickname, implying it was a good way to shoot a mass of cash into the dark void of space. The second sense of the word is as it’s used in the porn industry, the highly-visible climactic moment of a sex scene.

Ocampos, tired of spending her life writing enormous grant proposals that ultimately get rejected on the grounds of cost, stumbles upon an idea for an alternative approach while “decompressing” with pornography. The harried lab director realizes that people seem to be disproportionately interested in outlandish fetish porn, presumably because they are bored with the usual “meat-and-potato” varieties of sexual activity. Ocampos concludes that there can’t be anything wilder and more outlandish to catch the attention of the porn-viewing world than sex with extraterrestrials. She pitches her plan to the other four members of her research team, and –fortunately for her – they are all photogenic / attractive and surprisingly sexually liberated. [Meaning it’s not particularly difficult to convince them all to participate.]

I won’t go into the story in great detail, except in as much as to say there is one and it’s entertaining. The story uses a common science fiction idea of being drawn into the center of a dysfunctional alien society’s troubles. The five scientists / porn stars find themselves on an environmentally-depleted planet run by an authoritarian warlord who uses the ‘bread and circuses’ approach to keeping the population in check, thus resulting in gladiatorial battles and a groundswell of revolutionary sentiment.

While the book takes a light tone, it does convey a couple serious messages in the process. The most obvious of these messages is that science is expensive and, perhaps, the mainstream funding approach (applying to large government-run grant agencies) curtails some good science. A secondary message is that less sexual repression and shame could be a good thing for the world, overall.

The art is well-drawn and clear. The scenes are depicted in a clean and easy to follow fashion. Color palette changes are used to make it easy to follow between flashback and the present moment. While I made a comment about the team all being attractive, I suspect there was a conscious effort to include a range of body types – within some bounds at least. While Ocampos is the perfectly-proportioned Disney princess-type — on the whole, the team displays a mix of size and shape.

While this is unquestionably a bizarre premise for a comic book, I found it to be readable and compelling. If you like sci-fi comics, and aren’t put off by graphic sexuality, you’ll probably enjoy this book.

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