Book Review: Requiem

After the recent and sudden death of his wife, Tom Webster, a thirty-something school teacher, quits his job and journeys to Jerusalem in search of an old college friend.  While venturing through the city Tom battles inner demons and experiences mysterious visions of an old woman who seemingly wants to deliver him a message.  Before too long, a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls falls into his hands, which may  be the key to translating the mysterious vision/message he keeps receiving.  Already a nearly broken man from the sadness and guilt he is carrying, Tom is driven closer to the far edge of sanity by these wild visions that may or may not be the spirit of Mary Magdalene who is trying to reveal a long covered up secret about the Resurrection.

Ever since reading The Prestige, people have been telling me that I need to read something by Graham Joyce because he too can deliver a great fantasy tale that reads like "literature".  After some research, I figured Requiem would be as good a place as any to get a taste of Joyce's material.   What I found here was some strong prose and yarn-spinnin' ability, and a story that reminded me a bit of The DaVinci Code...except much more skillfully written and with more magic.

The biggest problem I had was that I never really felt that engaged by the characters or the plot.  Tom Webster is a total wreck of a man, he's a shitty husband, burnt out teacher, and there's a chance he's slept with one of his students...not exactly a laundry list of things that make me want to root for the guy.  Though I didn't care for Tom, I will say that he was a well developed character, just not one I cared about.

The other characters, namely his friend Sharon whom he visits in Jerusalem, wasn't that easy to relate to either.  When I can't connect with characters I experience a detachment from the story, and sorta go along with the flow, but never really get fully immersed in the narrative, and that was definitely the case here.

In the past I've been at least intrigued, if not enthralled by stories that tend to debunk or "spit the truth" about various spiritual/religious faiths, figures or events.  With that in mind, I figured the plot of Requiem would be entertaining for me, but I can't say that I ever got that into it.  This is partially a byproduct of the fact that I couldn't connect to the characters, but when major plot events would turn up, I was mostly ho-hum about it all.

For me, the most interesting aspect of the book was the slow unraveling of the story of Tom's past.  Joyce was quite masterful in slowly revealing what exactly happened with Tom's wife, why he quit his job, and whether or not there were illicit liaisons going on.  Sadly, this was more of a side plot and mostly served to explain Tom's frail mental state throughout the book.

Joyce clearly put in a lot of research effort into Requiem.  There were times when I really felt like I was in Jerusalem.  In the scenes where Tom is wandering the streets, Joyce bombards the reader's senses with tons of stimuli.  Joyce also handled the psychological unraveling and analysis of Tom quite well.  This was the one area where I actually felt a connection to Tom, as I got a sense of how mixed up his head was.  I still didn't really like the guy though, and I certainly didn't care much about what happened to him.

In the end, this one wound up as a mixed bag.  While there were some aspects of the book that I thought were handled well, I still didn't connect emotionally with the characters or the story, which left me with a mostly hollow reading experience.  Joyce is a strong writer, I think Requiem just wasn't for me.  This one does have plenty of strengths, and I think it could be enjoyed by other folks.

Grade: C+

Comic Quickies: War and Tights

Peter Panzerfaust #1: This one here is my surprise of the week.  Why? Because even though it is written by Kurtis Wiebe, (who is pretty much the shiz in creator owned comics lately) I hadn't planned on picking this one up.  However, when I made my weekly pilgrimage to the comic shop I decided to give this bad boy the flip check and it really caught my attention.

First off, the art here is pretty cool.  It's got this loose energetic feel to it that fits very well with the narrative. What you have here is a hefty helping of WWII action and mayhem with a bit of a re-imagining of the Peter Pan story.

Yeah, the concept sounded a little iffy to me too, (I mean Peter Pan isn't exactly the coolest guy in school) but so far things are looking pretty good.  I'm not sure yet if Peter is all that magical, or if his feats just seem magical through the eyes of the other orphan boys in his crew. So far the guy is an enigma.  All in all this was a pretty solid first issue, and I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about the characters and seeing what else Peter Panzerfaust has to offer.

The Activity #3: I'm on a bit of an espionage/war kick right now (which you'll see manifest itself around here in the from of reviews prolly in March) and it all stems from  this comic.  I wasn't totally sold on the first issue of The Activity but over the past couple of months, this comic has slowly grown on me, and now I'm pretty much smitten.

Nathan Edmondson has taken a very realistic, non-glorified approach to espionage in this title and the results are pretty great.  While his previous effort Who is Jake Ellis was an adventure-romp, this one is much more gritty, and character driven.

So far, each issue has been more or less a stand alone, and has centered around a mission where the team goes in and gets the job done in an incredibly professional manner. However, in this third issue, the shit hit the fan on their latest mission, and what we get is the aftermath rehash and finger pointing session with bits of the actual mission mixed in.  It is a pretty cool way to tell a story, and Edmondson pulled it off quite well.  This guy is pretty impressive.  Looking forward to seeing more of this title.

Batwoman #6: This title is still the best thing to come out of the DCnU, even with an artist switcheroo for the second story arc.  Taking over the artistic duties for the next five issues is Amy Reeder.  I was disappointed to hear that she and J.H. Williams III would be trading art duties for the story arcs on this title, but it turns out Reeder is a pretty solid fill in, despite the monstrously huge shoes she has to fill.

This issue takes a unique story telling approach as it delivers the story through six different POV characters.  This was a little bit confusing at first, but once I got the gist of what was going on, I actually thought it was a creative idea and it worked out pretty well.

Like I said earlier, Reeder's art is pretty great.  Sure, her art is a step down from J.H. Williams III, but just about anyone would be a step down.  Anyway, Reeder still delivered on series art specialties like changing art styles depending on the story, and delivered six or seven double page spreads too.  Her art felt a little more cartoony than I'd like for this title, but some of the pages here are quite impressive.  Out of all the DCnU titles I've tried, this is the only one I can say I love.

Action Comics #6: The last time I talked about comics, I mentioned that it looked like Action Comics was about to take a turn towards more epicness, and that Grant Morrison needed to bring the thunder to this title...Well, be careful what you wish for!

This latest issue definitely got more epic, and Morrison definitely brought some extra thunder to the story, but I'm not so sure the results are positive.

This was a strange and confusing issue, despite having some very familiar Superman plot moments.  What goes down is that Superman punches some shit, gets poisoned by kryptonite, almost dies, then at the last minute doesn't die.  However, why these things are happening is anyone's guess.  Oh, and from what I can gather, all this shit is occurring sometime in the future, but some of the people involved are from even further in the future and already know how shit will turn out.  Uh huh.  Part of me thinks that I'm missing something, part of me thinks I'm over-thinking things too much.  Maybe the next issue will clear things up.  I'm putting my faith in you Grant Morrison.

Graphic Novel Review: It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken

About a year ago, at the Emerald City Comicon, Scott Kowalchuk told me I should check out some of the comics works by a writer/artist that goes solely by the name of Seth.  Kowalchuk is an incredibly solid dude, and I figured his comic recommendations would follow the solid trend, so I filed the name away in the back of my head, and kept my eye out for Seth's stuff anytime I was browsing the shelves in various shops around town.  It took a while to track something by Seth down, but I eventually wound up with a couple of his titles, and decided to read It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken first.

In this semi-autobiographical comic, Seth tells the story of himself and his obsession with tracking down comics by an obscure cartoonist from the 1940's by the name of Kalo.  Seth's compulsive search takes him on a journey of both distance and time and while on his search to find obscure comics, finds a bit of himself as well.

One of the things that most impressed me about this graphic novel was Seth's ability to tell an engaging story in a way that seems simplistic, yet upon further scrutiny, proves to be quite detailed.  Seth's art style is definitely on the cartoon side of things, but his buildings and locations all have a great power to evoke a strong sense of time a place.  His small towns, railway stations, living rooms, bookshops and cafe's all have an air of familiarity and warmth to them, which helped me feel right at home in the narrative.  This comfort opens up the door for the reader to pay more careful attention to the juxtaposition of Seth's personal development and his search for Kalo's comics.

Another impressive aspect about Seth's art is the amount of emotion he is able to portray in his panels.  To put it simply: his stuff is moody.  He achieves this through a combination of what the character is doing in a given panel, and what the character's surrounding environment is.  It seems like a simple feat to derive emotion in this way, but it's not something I've seen done very often or done as well.

Seth sort of lures the reader in with a slow burning start to the story, and maintains a relaxed pace throughout.  To be honest, the writing here didn't impress me nearly as much as the art.  I didn't relate so well to Seth's character, and didn't care too much about whether or not he found more Kalo comics either.  I more or less just cruised along reading the story, but was never very engaged by it. Still, the cruise was a comfortable one, and relatively pleasing as well.

It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken is more about the journey than the destination, and it's an artful journey for the reader.  The illustrations here will most likely provide the lion's share of entertainment value as the story itself is not as strong.  Still, this graphic novel is a fine example of how comics, and the art side of the medium can really tell an evocative story.  Trust me, or trust Scott Kowalchuk, Seth's work is worth a look.  Definitely something different from the mainstream norm.

Grade: B

Book Review: The Knight

I've been told by a lot of people that I need to read something by Gene Wolfe.  I've heard a lot of good things about the author, but I've also heard that his books can be challenging reads because he uses unreliable narrators, and hides meanings and such within the narrative, which sometimes I like, but other times I dislike, especially if I feel like I'm not "getting it", which can be an especially frustrating feeling.  So, I was a bit torn as to whether or not I should answer the call of the Wolfe.  Eventually curiosity got the better of me.

The Knight features an unnamed adolescent boy who gets magically transported from our world, into a magical realm.  Soon after arrival he meets a lovely aelf maiden named Disiri, and she hooks him up with the knightly name, Sir Able of High Heart, and transforms him into a handsome, muscle bound manly man.  She also promises him the magical sword Eterne, with the caveat that all he has to do is face down a dragon to get it.  With that, Sir Able promises his undying love to Disiri and sets off on his quest to become a great knight, and to find his sword of destiny.

A lot happens along the way, and reading The Knight sorta made me feel like I was reading someone play an RPG like Skyrim.  Like my rpg adventures, Able would set out to do one thing, then see something else that catches his fancy and head off in a completely different direction.  This tangential plot movement was a bit of a double edged sword because while it could be frustrating to feel like I was getting dragged along by a blundering imbecile, the plot never slowed down and the pacing was fantastic.

The Knight is told, for better or worse, through Able's first person perspective.  I definitely had a hard time trusting him as a reliable narrator though.  Even though he was magically given a man's body, Able is still very much a confused, sometimes stupid adolescent.  As a reader I was pretty much at his mercy for figuring out what was going on, and there are plenty of times when he doesn't describe things so well, or seemingly omits details, or just completely skips over things he doesn't want to talk about.  This led to a few "wait a minute..." moments where I could tell something was fishy, but wasn't quite sure what it was.

Because of Able's whimsical nature, his journeys take him all over, on land, sea, and even to different levels of reality, which are stacked on top of each other, and Mythgarthr, (the realm Abel got transported to), happens to be right in the middle of.  Along the way he meets some interesting people like Bold Berthold, a noble peasant who calls Able his brother.  Able also acquires some allies like a dog that is more than a dog, a sailor turned faithful servant, and many others.  You never know who he's gonna meet or what kind of situations he's gonna get into because his wanderings could lead him anywhere.  This free spirit-like approach to adventuring helps flesh out the world, and brings in some interesting characters that help add some life to the novel.

Despite tipping the scales at over 500 pages, I sorta feel like nothing really happened in this novel.  There's not really any plot to speak of the and the narrative is the definition of willy-nilly.  However, I still kinda liked it.  This book is such an enigma though; It's an enigma in the sense that Able's narration and recollection of events is sometimes accurate, sometimes misleading and sometimes veiled, but also in the sense that I'm not totally sure whether I liked it or not. I'm definitely torn as to whether or not I'll read the second novel in the duology, The Wizard.  Part of me thinks I should because it'll clear up all the confusion, and another part of me thinks I'll only be more frustrated.  The jury is deliberating in my brain.

For now I'll just say that my first Gene Wolfe reading experience was met with mixed emotions.  His writing chops are definitely quite good, but I'm not totally sure I'm all that into his style of story telling.  I'm gonna stew on it some more.  If there's other Gene Wolfe readers out there, feel free to try and sway me one way or another...

Grade: B-

Graphic Novel Review: Shaky Kane's Monster Truck

Have I mentioned before that I love me some Shaky Kane art?  Well, I do.  It is weird, awkward, disturbing and beautiful all at the same time.  Shaky Kane's art has probably never been more weird, awkward, disturbing and beautiful than in Monster Truck.

Monster Truck is a graphic novel with heavy emphasis on the graphics.  This artistic wonder takes the reader on a widescreen cruise through a tripped out psychedelic landscape in the cab of a yellow monster truck.  If you want to see some incredibly strange (yet strikingly beautiful) pages of art, and some sweet looking classic cars, colored in ultra bright hues, this is your fix right here.

Aside from incredibly unique visuals, this graphic novel takes a unique approach to design.  Each and every page of art is really just one piece of an epically long, continuous 50 page piece of art.  What I mean by that is that if you cut out each individual page, and laid them out next to each other in one long line, they'd all connect into one massive art piece without any gaps or breaks in the illustration.  I was sorely temped to buy two copies and do just that, and put it up as a border in my room. In the end, I decided the money would be better spend on other comics instead.

The cover of Monster Truck promises "automobiles monsters and mayhem", and boy, it sure does deliver. There is lots of weirdness to be had here, which may or may not be for everyone, but it sure did tickle my fancy.  I find myself picking this up from time to time and just flipping to a random page, just see what kind of random thrills or chills it will provide.  

One thing is certain, Monster Truck rockets my imagination off to new places.  This is one of those rare artistic works where the artist managed to cut free of any creative restraints and deliver a work of unbridled imagination.  I appreciate seeing and experiencing such border-less works of art.  

I think the reason I enjoy Kane's art so much is that he seems to break from reality into his wild imagination with such ease.  It is a refreshing and inspiring thing to see an adult create art that is so unabashedly weird and unique.  Oh, and a lot of fun too!

Grade: A

Happy Anniversary Black Sabbath!

Forty-two years ago today, Black Sabbath released their self-titled debut album, Black Sabbath.  Not only is today the anniversary of an incredible album, and one of my favorites, but many would argue that today is also the 42nd birthday of Metal.  A lot of folks say Black Sabbath was the first ever metal album, who am I to argue? So...Happy Anniversary Black Sabbath, and Happy Birthday Metal!

Book Review: Where I'm Calling From

It's no mystery that every now and then I like to shake things up and read something that doesn't fall under the fantasy/sf/comic umbrella.  Well, I had one of those times recently, and in order to slake my thirst, I prescribed a healthy dose of short fiction by Raymond Carver, from the Where I'm Calling From collection.

This reading experience had a bit of a supernova-like feel to it.  It started out hot, tapered off quickly, and left me feeling cold by the end.  The reason is that Carver seems to like to work in one or more of a few particular themes into nearly every single short story.  Those themes are: drug/alcohol abuse, spouse abuse, failed love, and fractured/failed humans.  

These themes can be incredibly interesting and powerful when written well, and Carver does write very well.  The problem is that it was too much of the same stuff over and over for thirty seven stories, and it eventually began to wear away at my soul.  Though I enjoyed many of the stories in the early going, by the end I felt like I was just plowing through the rest of the collection, just for the sake of completion.

This reading experience was by no means a total bust though, because Carver is one hell of a writer, and it was nice to experience such a high level of skill.  Carver has a minimalist writing style, and he has pretty much mastered the short form. His passages are short and terse, with very few descriptors, but somehow he manages to write incredibly vivid stories.  Though I got sick of him covering the same themes over and over again, I don't think I'd ever get tired of reading his stories about fishing.

I think that if I read Carver in smaller doses, I'd have an easier time digesting his intense themes.  He truly is a fantastic writer, and his stories can be incredibly captivating.  I'm definitely glad I gave this a go.

Grade: B-