Book Review: Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

I’m not in a good mood. My personal life is full of PO'ed people, I’m PO'ed by work, I’m stressed out, and I’m too distracted to read or sleep. I want something to tear apart, to grind to pieces, to throw into the inferno and cause great weeping and gnashing of teeth. I want to shatter a DVD, to burn a cartridge, to tear a book from its binding and tell its creators and publishers to go screw themselves.

So it is to my great chagrin that I do none of these things, because the book I am reviewing today is Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. I might be able to burn down one or two trees, but the forest is so damned solid I’m liable to take an arrow to my neck before I get the chance to set it ablaze with a torch made of bone and tar. A reference to something, I’m sure, but why anybody else would use such a poor choice of torch is beyond me.

Prince of Thorns is about the teenaged leader of a group of bandits of the worst sort. He also happens to be heir to the throne of a small kingdom- one that happens to be one of a hundred fighting over the scraps of what used to be a great empire. If you haven’t quite pieced it together, this is a piece of Medieval Fantasy. Prince of Thorns makes use of the Fantasy aspect of its setting to set aside a new era of history, new kingdoms and fiefdoms to fight over. It’s historical fiction without any of the boring details, not the least of these “sacrifices” being the distinguishing between English, French and Spanish. We’re very clearly somewhere in Europe, somewhere between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance… or are we?

When Jorg- the titular Prince- sets off an atomic bomb with the expectation of releasing a poison among the inhabitants of a great castle- we find ourselves in that odd category that’s not quite post-apocalyptic, but only because after the great, thriving civilization was wiped out, enough time passed for an entirely new and somewhat familiar one to take its place. Give up trying to place this on our own timeline yet? Good, because that’s precisely the sort of attempt this book denies you.

The existence of empowered shamans, necromancers and monsters (later proved to be the result of radiation-poisoned water), provide the Fantasy setting, one that plays little role in the beginning of the novel (other than that I’ve mentioned earlier) but one which it becomes very clear is going to play a much greater part when Jorg discovers its true extent himself. It’s sort of like a story where Boba Fett spends his life looting and pillaging and killing those such as Jabba the Hutt, until he realizes Darth Vader and the Emperor are really out there pulling strings.

As for the characters, well, Prince Jorg isn’t quite as noble as the aforementioned bounty hunter, and he’s had an even more tragic past. I mentioned he led a group of bandits- by the tender age of thirteen, he turned himself from his quest of vengeance for the rape and murder of his mother and brother to become the most vicious and deadly of a group of bandits that includes a man that could take Hagrid in a no-holds-barred hand to hand fight- and was previously led by his bigger, smarter brother.

The novel opens off with a shock-value sequence designed to tell you exactly what you’re looking at. If you can’t stand to see Jorg glory in the murder of innocents, the pillaging and burning of their village, and the raping of their daughters, this novel isn’t one for you. And it’s not one for your kids. No, seriously… your fifteen year old isn’t ready for this, no matter what he or she just told you.

I partially say this because of the glorification of violence. It’s very clear that nobody thinks Jorg is a good person- not the author, not Jorg himself, not even his love interest, who wishes to see him publicly disemboweled. Nevertheless, Jorg is a tragic figure, and his tenacity is of the sort that you empathize with him and want to see him succeed. The problem here lies with any reader who starts to emulate characters who have admirable traits such as Jorg’s unlimited tenacity. To put it frankly, this novel in the wrong hands could turn a small town into a blood bath. If you found yourself buying a red lightsaber because Darth Vader was an inspiration to your aspirations of badassery, you’re liable to be taken in by this character more than is healthy. This is a testament to the author’s skill, and I don’t hold that against him- I just advise actual restraint from the consumer, a commodity that is rarely found in modern days.

Descriptions are vivid, and characters are, if not fleshed out at the very high level that I prefer, very distinct. More often than not, you’re very vividly aware who it is that Jorg is killing. Because more often than not, characters die, and more often than not, Jorg is what kills them. Some characters survive, after a fashion, and some characters are killed by other people, but by and large, you’re reading this book to see Jorg killing people. It’s a cathartic novel, that just happens to have some quiet messages about free will, determination, enough morals to make you ask a question, and so forth. Our anti-hero is a learned man, but he doesn’t have the patience to deal with most of this; like most protagonists used to action, his response to the possibility of somebody manipulating him is to kill. Since the story is told from his point of view (first person, in fact), it’s no surprise that the narration is much along this same path. The only downside to this approach is that one or two issues are touched upon in only the most shallow manner: mainly the fact that Jorg doesn’t bother to make a connection between the rape of his mother and the ones he commits and permits (thankfully off-screen), and the fact that racial relations are touched on, but Jorg doesn’t really have any thoughts on them.

Prince of Thorns is a fast read, and if you grew up listening to Slim Shady and other forms of likable horrible people, it’s your kind of book. There’s nothing redeeming about it, but that’s where the fun lies. Obviously, the appeal of this book lies only for a very specific subset, mainly adult males who can overlook horrendous actions on the part of their protagonist, but for this specific subset, I think you’re going to be looking forward to the rest of the trilogy when you finish this.

The Man in Black is a regular reviewer at Fantasy & SciFi Lovin' News & Reviews. More of his content can be found at Man in Black Reviews.

Brightest Day: Volume 1

The DC Blackest Night event and its prologues were filled with interesting characters and events, setting the stage for massive changes in the DC Universe that almost demanded an epic follow-up. How does the beginning of the sequel event, Brightest Day fare?

If the first two issues of Blackest Night had a lot of setup, then the first 8-issue volume of Brightest Day is the very definition. Every event that takes place in Brightest Day Volume 1 is setup; even when things happen, it’s only to set the characters into position for setup to take place. Not sure how this can be?

Brightest Day follows the story of Deadman, the formerly dead hero now forced to wander at the mercy of the Entity, the embodiment of life in the universe awakened by beings with similar intent and now carrying out its own agenda, to ends as yet unknown to the world’s heroes. Following the events of Blackest Night, Deadman found himself unwillingly among the living and being warped from place to place, witnessing the lives of his fellow resurrected.

Notice something missing? For those who didn’t much appreciate the emphasis that Blackest Night placed on Geoff Johns’s star heroes, the Silver Age Green Lantern and Flash, rejoice! For the rest of us… not so much. Hal and Barry barely play a role here, mostly to exposit information as they did in the beginning of Blackest Night, in this case by visiting the resurrected with Deadman playing the role of an invisible witness. They visit just a handful of the twelve main characters of this series before stepping off the screen.

Other than Deadman, the only one to retain his white ring, the White Lantern draftees go on with their lives in varyious ways. Several of the resurrected are immediately incarcerated by the Justice League, while others register with the Justice League only to take some alone time. The Martian Manhunter takes to life as a botanist on his homeworld, while Hawkman and Hawkgirl set out to permanently end the source of the curse that it seems the white light has freed them from, at least temporarily. Ronnie Raymond, the former Firestorm, faces the fallout from his actions as a Black Lantern- actions that he doesn’t even remember, let alone have control over- and finds himself part of Firestorm once more, this time, with three minds instead of two. And remember, three’s a crowd.

But I can’t focus on that too much, now. Remember, there are twelve potential plots (eleven, if you consider Hawkman and Hawkgirl as a single plot and ten if you consider Deadman as just storytelling adhesive, although he does face his own challenges brought on by the Entity demanding that he embrace life) and each one must be touched upon in almost every issue.

I’ve got to admit, as somebody who’s barely familiar with most of these characters (Atom, the Hawks) and not familiar at all in some cases (Osiris, who appears to be Black Adam-lite and even uses Black Adam’s name in place of “Shazam!”), this just drags. And drags. I can’t say Blackest Night had the same problem. Yes, I had some base familiarity with Aquaman, but he was already dead, and I knew absolutely nothing about Mera. Jason of the new Firestorm has transformed from a college student who just doesn’t want to think too hard about the future into an angry kid who blames his fellow victims for his misfortunes, something that Black Lantern Firestorm is particularly keen on assisting him with.

Why the sudden changes in the characters? Why is the plot so much harder to focus on all of a sudden, and the characters so much more difficult to follow? I assume part of the reason to be the noble cause of trying to connect readers with more obscure heroes, once with less ties to what we know and with less standard story arcs. The other reason? This one’s not hard to see. In fact, if you walk into the bookstore and look on the shelf, you can see it.

On Blackest Night, the name takes up less than half of the binding, leaving space for the name of the writer and one of the artists on its binding. Why? DC was obviously promoting the best of the best, expecting names such as that of popular writer Geoff Johns to sell the book to those that Blackest Night didn’t already hook.

Brightest Day by contrast, leaves room for nothing but the title on the binding. Is it a lack of talent involved? I look in the book and no, Geoff Johns’s name still appears in the credits, as does a number of the artistic skill involved in Blackest Night. The colors don’t seem any worse for wear. But as I browse the rest of the credits, I realize that while more than half of the creative team behind Blackest Night returned for Brightest Day, the familiar names are still a minority. Geoff Johns is no longer the solo (nor, I assume, primary) writer, and several artists have been added. What results is a book pulled in too many directions, the art dumbed down so that many characters that appeared particularly striking in Blackest Night are much less distinct or compelling visually here.

For an example of how simplified these characters were, in her first scene I wouldn’t have recognized Mera had she not been sleeping with Aquaman. The Martian Manhunter faces a similar makeover, as do many of the humans. As somebody who grew up drawing on a daily basis, I can tell you how hard it is to make human faces of similar complexion, gender, build and emotion distinct. The artistic team behind Blackest Night had the knack. The artistic team behind Brightest Day, more often than not, do not.

Now that I’ve compared this book to one of the best comic events I’ve read in recent years, how does it stand on its own? Well, several of the stories have potential. I’m genuinely interested in this serial killing Martian that J’on J’onzz is investigating, just as I’m somewhat interested in this world that Hawkman and Hawkgirl find themselves on- given the assumption that portals to other worlds created of rituals involving doorways of bones are something that needs little explanation in their world, which is a huge assumption if I’ve ever made one. I’m not entirely apathetic to the whole point behind the Brightest Day plot either, even if some aspects seem entirely contrived (why is the Entity telling one man their purpose is to attempt to kill someone, and somebody else that their purpose is to prevent it when that happens?).

The thing is, each of these plots are just barely starting- save those that are only given a cursory glance and then ignored till near the end of the volume, when The Entity explains their purpose for being resurrected- meaning that, after potentially having spent thirty dollars on this book, I’m barely invested in any of the characters or plots. In fact, if I were to find out that the plot threads featured in such spin-offs as Brightest Day: Green Lantern were not to feature at all in the remaining volumes of Brightest Day (as I believe they don’t), I probably would not be anywhere near as willing to spend money on them as I was this one. In fact, I’ll need to hear pretty good things to buy the next one, even with all I’ve put into this series myself.

And that’s where it really comes down to it: recommendation. Was there a compelling story? Yes… and no. There were literally a dozen stories, and each has the potential to be compelling. Is the art good? The art is okay… but it’s nothing to recommend the book for on its own, unlike Blackest Night. Are the characters interesting? Well, the character dynamics are sometimes worth watching, and J’onn J’onzz has been known to feature in some interesting stories, but so far we haven’t seen enough of any one character to recommend it for them. Do the events pertain to readers of DC? I don’t even think the events in this novel are entirely necessary for readers of Brightest Day. This entire volume is setup, with many plots in the same place they were in the beginning at the end, with a small amount of character development covered. The Martian Manhunter’s plot and the Hawks’ plots are by far the ones with the most development, and each of these features in few enough pages that they’d be hard pressed to collect them all and call them a single issue. It’s not out yet, but I have a feeling most readers could pick up Brightest Day Volume 2, ignore a few small questions (or even better, have editor’s explanation boxes like they used to) and jump right into the story without having to sit through 256 pages of setup. Unless you’re a huge fan of Deadman, Dove and Hawk, Martian Hunter or Hawkman and Hawkgirl, that’s my recommendation.









The Man in Black is a weekly review at Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin' News & Reviews. For more of his reviews, you can visit his home page at www.MiBreviews.com

Graphic Novel Review: Blackest Night

Since 2004, when Geoff Johns ostensibly finished work on The Flash and became the writer for Green Lantern, DC comics have been building toward one point: Blackest Night, 2009 and 2010′s event that became the next DC Crisis, mainly because you can’t call a Crisis two years after Final Crisis a Crisis.

With all of the Crises DC has had, it makes sense that much of the first part of this omnibus details exposition about Final Crisis. For many comic readers like me, characters like the Justice League of America seem to live in a constant limbo, their lives unchanging with events due to rarely reading about a single character in a linear manner and television shows that seem to be focused on the early 90s (as well they should be). Not knowing the precise nature of how modern comic events worked, the first time I read Blackest Night #0, I was operating under the impression that the mountains of dead were killed just for the opening of Blackest Night the way they might be in an Infinities one-shot (and I don’t mean just because Final Crisis knew Blackest Night was going to follow up). Over time, I realized this was not the case.

If you look at these pages, though, you might understand why. Blackest Nights #0 and #1 are like a DC obituary. Most of this is exposition, and if this weren’t a nine-issue omnibus, it would get pretty tedious. And it’s all relevant for this volume (and would have been awkward anywhere else). If you really want to see how much exposition is just skipped over, take a look at this image:

The setup issues aren’t all backstory, however, as they bring us into the current plots as well. Mera, one of the main characters of the saga, discusses the fallen Aquaman with Garth, while the new Firestorm attends a memorial for the old (one of my favorite DC heroes). Green Lantern Hal Jordan and original Flash Barry Allen share much of the page time as the stars of the book, and the Atom narrowly misses being part of the deaths of Hawkman and Hawkgirl. More characters are involved, more setup takes place; this issue is the foundation for both Blackest Night and Brightest Day.

Without spending too much time on each issue’s plot, I do want to address how the tone for the series is set here. We see the undead Black Hand licking a skull, acid rain at a funeral, memorials and crypts, defiled graves, cursed lovers being slain by their dead friends, a multi-species horde of zombies the likes of which Star Wars: Death Troopers and Red Harvest should have sported, and bloody hearts being pulled out of still-screaming bodies for a feast of the dead. Pretty much the only thing that’s not black in this issue is the light of green rings, which sets the tone in a different way.

If you haven’t guessed it by now, as far as DC-wide events go, this is pretty much a Green Lantern/Flash event. The Atom and Mera feature prominently, and there are other, smaller plots with other heroes, but the alpha and omega of this miniseries are Hal and Barry. I don’t mind this- Hal Jordan has long been one of my favorite heroes, and when I’ve read about Wally West emulating Barry the Flash seems like a hero worth learning about. Those more focused on the Supermans and the Batmans, you might be a little out of luck here.

Blackest Night continues by following through with its premise: super-powered zombies that feed on the emotional spectrum. And you know what? This is definitely a worthwhile take on zombies. The undead have a single personality, all designed toward drawing out an emotional response in their victims so that they can eat their hearts and use it to power their central power battery. By the way, the battery is at zero power when these super-powered monstrosities start killing their friends. Imagine what it could do at full power.

As the general story unfolds, you get the impression that scenes are being skipped. Why is this? Well, as a main DC event, Blackest Night had several spin-off series, in addition to touching close to every main title that DC carries. So while the most relevant things are explained as part of this series, sometimes you get things like groups of Lanterns leaving or returning to Earth for unexplained reasons.

Another focus of this book is on splash pages and two-page spreads. Every issue has at least one of these. Many of these exist to focus on the drama of the unfolding zombie apocalypse (in a very real sense- Black Hand and his Corps seek nothing less than the end of all life), with the rest giving Alex Sinclair space to show off his coloring for the other seven Corps. Thankfully, all of the visuals in this volume are phenomenal, from the pencils and inking to the colors and lettering. If you buy comics for eye candy, these splash pages will sell the whole book to you.

The heroes of Earth can’t do much, as Hal Jordan leaves to collect the people that actually have a chance against the black rings, and they fight a war of attrition with the unkillable until the black Central Power Battery, which has been brought to Earth, reaches 100% power.

More new characters are introduced to the Saga. We get Nekron (insert “because poor literacy is cool” joke here), the disembodied voice that’s been guiding Black Hand throughout the miniseries. Despite the patronage of former Guardian Scar, Nekron is the Black Lantern Corps’ true Guardian- or if not, he’s potentially their version of Parallax (which makes him death incarnate and the avatar of the black lanterns). He closes off an issue with a semi-dramatic appearance, ordering the non super-powered dead of Coast City to rise.

As the next issue begins, Blackest Night is introduced to Saint Walker of the Blue Lanterns, Sinestro of the Sinestro Corps, Carol Ferris of the Star Sapphires, and Larfleeze, aka Agent Orange along with the returned Hal Jordan and Indigo-1 (who appeared earlier to bid Hal join her in finding these… characters) of the Indigo Tribe. Together, they represent the seven Corps of the emotional spectrum, often with cartoony caricatures to distinguish their emotion of choice. We have only a few pages’ montage to introduce these characters to those who have not been following the past few years, making them behave more cartoonishly than normal.

The Lanterns are on Ryut in Sector 666 (where all the bad things in Green Lantern come from), where the Black Lantern had spent its time charging ever since the Sinestro Corps War, but is not now. We therefore cut back to dramatic goings-on on Earth which are obviously waiting for the main characters to show up before explaining Nekron’s deal, and the cavalry arrives. Scar mentions that she considers Nekron her Lord, which potentially makes her just another Black Lantern, despite the role she’s played in events, and the Lanterns show off their combined powers by destroying her.

Carol Ferris, the Star Sapphire, makes a Captain Planet joke when they combine their beams to attempt to destroy the Black Power Battery; neither of these have much impact. Bruce Wayne is raised from the dead, causing an emotional link to the members of the Justice League that allows Nekron to send black rings after those who have been resurrected in the past and kill them while Nekron narrates that all they’ve accomplished in the past (at least as far as beating death) has been according to his will. Sort of like when you’ve been beaten time and again in a video game and when you get your rematch claiming that it’s because you’ve let them win a dozen times in the past, despite not having any good reason to have ever let them win.

“Bruce Wayne” (quotes being Nekron’s, not mine, and you can guess what that means) is dismissed as The Flash helps Hal Jordan escape their two rings by running several seconds into the future. Nekron summons his reinforcements from across the universe, which prompts the other six Corps (not counting Larfleeze, whose entire corps lives in his ring) to call for reinforcements. Before they can arrive, however, Ganthet, fallen Guardian-turned-Blue Lantern leader, commands each of the seven rings to duplicate for the sole purpose of giving fans a chance to see such things as a Star Sapphire Wonder Woman, Blue Lantern Flash, Orange Lantern Lex Luthor, and so on.

Unfortunate angle for any member of the Indigo Tribe

Other than the unique looks and comments on each hero and villain’s personality, there are two comments I have to make on this. The first is that the Star Sapphire ring would not pick anyone other than Wonder Woman because “nobody loves this planet more than her”, which is as close as they’ve come so far to saying that only women can be Star Sapphires (Superman’s name wasn’t even brought up). The second is that we don’t really get to see the benefit of this. Scarecrow turns into a powerful Yellow Lantern, sure, but otherwise the only real outcome is demonstrating the downsides of each ring, such as stopping Mera’s heart and overwhelming Luthor with power lust. I understand that each ring requires training and experience, but the whole point was that they would be of more use in the fight, not to make them useless.

As part of Nekron’s final solution, Black Hand uses the heart of a Guardian that Nekron killed to summon The Entity (known to Nekron as The Intruder), the embodiment of white light and life itself. The idea is to kill it, but it’s sort of like when a mage summons a demon in order to take its power and is slaughtered by the emerging demon. While the “Blackest Night” prophecy is almost proven to be true by the existence of this series, what happens next proves it impossible: it’s impossible to kill Life itself, even for Nekron.

Sinestro takes the Entity into itself, much as he had forced Parallax, the embodiment of fear, into Hal Jordan, and kills Nekron. For a moment. Just like a few other baddies Star Wars fans might know (and others, I’m sure), Nekron takes the body of one of his servants to return himself to life, pulling the Entity out of Sinestro. Hal gives a Patrick Stewart speech about life and resurrection before taking the Entity into himself and using it to turn all of the heroes turned into Black Lanterns two issues ago into White Lanterns, who target Nekron.

While all this was going on, it was decided that Black Hand was Nekron’s link to the world of the living, and returning him to life would end Nekron’s cycle of reanimation. The Entity knows this too, apparently, and leaves Hal so that it can lean over Hand dramatically and resurrect him. At the same time, it resurrects the freaking Anti-Monitor, trapped within and powering Nekron’s Central Power Battery.

This is one of the weakest moments of the series. I understand this is halfway through the finale and time is short, but you don’t resurrect the most deadly villain in the history of DC Comics and then have Nekron dismiss him with a hand wave. Sorry, it just doesn’t work that way. No epic battle? None of the heroes even react to this? It’s a cool looking two pages, sure, but ultimately, it was forgotten.

The Entity destroys Nekron with a badass “LET THERE BE LIGHT”, and then resurrects twelve heroes and villains to set up for Brightest Day. Among these is Deadman, who was seen earlier begging to stay dead before Nekron made his corpse into a Black Lantern, causing there to be two Deadmans for the duration of the miniseries. From here, we go into closure. Everybody is returned to their normal state, except for the resurrected, who are either alive where they were dead before or, in the case of the Hawks- are un-cursed where they were cursed before.

We get a hint of the drama to come in Brightest Day, such as Gen, the second half of the new Firestorm, still being dead, and several deadly supervillains having been returned to life. Deadman laments over being forced back to life, the fact that the real Bruce Wayne was apparently not dead to be reanimated is discussed, and a white lantern appears in a crater. But as they say, it is now tomorrow, which means the Blackest Night is over.

It is time for Brightest Day. And if it’s anything near as good as Blackest Night, we’re in for a good ride.

The Man in Black is a weekly review at Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin' News & Reviews. For more of his reviews, you can visit his home page at www.MiBreviews.com

Graphic Novel Review: Green Lantern: Rebirth

When the Man Without Fear becomes the darkest villain his allies have faced- and been defeated by- in centuries, what does it take to redeem him and save them all?

For somebody who never owned more than three issues of Green Lantern before 2011, I'm about as big a fan as you're likely to find. This winter, I spent a lot of time reading comics at the Borders Cafe, and what kind of comic nerd would I be if I spent all my time reading Dark Horse? One of the first DC novels I had to get my hands on was Green Lantern: Rebirth.

The only issue of Green Lantern I own featuring Hal Jordan is from 1983. At least, I thought it was. I also thought that was the issue in which Hal Jordan destroys the Green Lantern Corps. So either that happened twice, the comic had a startling moment of prescience, I had an incredibly realistic dream, or a very strange mismemory. I can’t find that comic, though, so I can’t check.

Anyway.

Green Lantern: Rebirth by Geoff Johns is the story of Hal Jordan’s return to the Green Lantern Corps, and as such the return of the relevance of Green Lantern. Not to be cynical, it’s just that the GLC being relevant to DC without Hal would be like a friend of Peter Parker’s putting on the Spiderman suit and maintaining his pre-eminence. Never mind that I hear that’s what they’re doing with Captain America? According to Gutters. Anyway, I would hope that with a title like Rebirth, what I just said wasn’t a spoiler.

Rebirth is, on top of all that, one of the greatest examples of retcons that fans like. Without having read the past decade of Green Lantern, from my understanding none of the revelations in Rebirth existed before this volume was written. Everything in it comes completely out of left field- however, when fans demand it, is it really out of left field?*

I’m aiming for a brief review, but sometimes, you’ve just gotta talk. If you know the deal with Parallax, you can skip most of this. Anyway, in 1993, during the events leading to the return of Superman, Coast City, the hometown of Green Lantern Hal Jordan, was destroyed. The story, as the grapevine describes it, is that he lost it, went crazy, effectively destroyed the GLC, the Guardians, and the central power battery himself. He snapped his long-time foe Sinestro’s neck in a fit of rage, and became the villain Parallax. As Parallax, Jordan went on a reign of terror before finally sacrificing his life to save the sun.

But Hal Jordan isn’t dead- he lives on in the ghastly Specter, who took him on in the hopes of destroying… Parallax. Parallax is revealed to be an independent sentient, and one of incredible power. Sort of like if Return of the Jedi ended with a battle between Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. Yet, with how Rebirth explains it all, Hal Jordan’s fall and redemption comes across as more realistic than the falls of Anakin Skywalker and Arthas Menethil’s best points put together.

This is one of the best written comics I’ve ever seen. While characters can be disagreeable, there are no moments that I would consider poorly characterized- the biggest “what the hell?” moments that I encountered were the sudden appearances of characters such as Kilowog where they hadn’t been before. It’s sort of sequential, but sometimes the use of first-person narration in Kyle Raynar’s scenes caused me to question whether certain things were flashbacks or not. It’s possible to read this scene and not be confused- that’s not the way it happened for me, though.

Ethan Vans Sciver’s art (not to mention the work of the rest of the art team) is phenomenal. I’ve seen well done comics, although the truly impressive ones are relatively limited. Many are either cheesy or simply sufficient; only Star Wars: Legacy really stands out in my mind as a comic that I’ve read in the past few years and the art really impressed me, as sequential art goes. Rebirth surpassed that. I think the defining moment of the art in this comic is where Kilowog appears, steaming with rage and under the influence of fear.

I’ve always loved ‘Wog’s appearances, mostly as an example of ridiculous character design combined with a serious character in serious situations. He just combines cheesyness and awesomeness in every panel he’s in. Not here. There is nothing cheesy about this Kilowog. At least, if you don’t automatically see the humanoid equivalent of an angry pink hippo or rhino as amusing. The detail on this guy leaves me awestruck. For the first time, I could envision Kilowog as a live action character.

Oh, and let me not forget Parallax. I’ll let the character design speak for itself here.

What to say about the story itself? Well, it’s about as poignant and emotional as a story that declares itself a retcon over and over again can be. And apparently, that’s pretty damn emotional.

Coming into this as I did, after reading Blackest Night, there’s a ton of foreshadowing here. (That’s not to mention the unintentional parody of naming individual issues “Blackest Night” and “Brightest Day”, just going to show how overused those terms are in Jordan’s saga, and with good reason.) Black Hand’s appearance, for instance… I imagine maybe people saw it as nothing more than a cameo, and presumed that the character would vanish from continuity for a few years. Yeah.

But as for this story… well, we have Batman, Green Arrow, Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, Hal Jordan and Sinestro. In classic dramatized comic style, every character’s strengths are up-played and there are a ton of hardcore finishing moves (and lots of cameos). Sinestro is brought into play as badass as he possibly can be, in league with the embodiment of fear itself, facing off against the old and new Green Lanterns.

Green Lantern: Rebirth is a must for any fan of Green Lantern or comics in general. It might be a little confusing for anybody not familiar with the backstory, but a token effort is made to explain Hal’s fall and return, which I think was handled fairly well for its position as a minor detail to the story. If you’re the type of reader who enjoys seeing iconic characters return to their glory (not just Jordan!) or seeing things like a Guardian of the Universe laying a smackdown or even younger heroes officially accepted by the great legends of their time, this is a story you might want to check out.

*If it’s not, it’s certainly written as it is. I did include all necessary disclaimers.

The Man in Black is a weekly review at Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin' News & Reviews. For more of his reviews, you can visit his home page at www.MiBreviews.com

Book Review: Deadline by Mira Grant

In May of 2010, a pen name named Mira Grant published a novel named Feed. In my NSFW Halloween video review of that novel, I commented that the Newsflesh trilogy opening was one of the better novels I have read in several years, that it had nowhere up left to go, and that the second novel, Deadline, would have no choice but to go down. I come here today to eat those words, because Deadline goes anywhere but downhill.
The world of Feed and Deadline is that of the zombie apocalypse after it has ended. You know how the entire way that we interacted with one another and traveled changed after the terrorist attacks of September 11^th, 2001? The way that real world 2005 might have been an interesting setting for a thriller written in the 1990s, predicting the attacks as a work of fiction? Take those changes, and amplify them. Amplify, yes, like Feed‘s Kellis-Amberlee virus- that is to say, make them into a zombie. Change the way we travel, change the way news works, change the way we conduct ourselves and interact with one another.
In Feed, the protagonists, including Georgia Mason (named for George Romero) and her brother Shaun, find their careers catapulted forward as they follow presidential candidate Peter Ryman- and subsequently find their lives in shambles as Georgia is among those killed by terrorist acts perpetrated by a sinister conspiracy that seems to lead straight to the Center for Disease Control, the most powerful organization in America.
Deadline picks up that story a year later. Shaun Mason, now sole owner and leader of “After the End Times”, has found no more leads, but he hasn’t forgotten what cost his adopted sister- companion, best friend, and possibly lover- her life. After a start in the field that hearkens back to the first volume, the new team- both similar and different from the old team in just the way a sequel’s cast should be- finds themselves thrown head first into the plot. The opening Act ends with Oakland, California going up in a column of fire, for no reason other than to kill Shaun and his team- or so it seems, as the real reason is just that much more cold-blooded.
Perhaps because, like Feed, it is told in the first person, Deadline is a very character driven story. The story is told from the perspective of a changed Shaun Mason- one who is less interested in chasing zombies down on the field than he is having conversations with his dead sister. This doesn’t come across as weird as you think- Mira Grant’s ability to break down and truly express the Masons is ultimate, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find a psychotic break that comes across as more sane than this one.
Without Georgia’s presence in person, however, Shaun has to interact with a wider cast of relevant characters than were ever really necessary in Feed. Becks, his replacement as resident Irwin, who also manages to wear makeup and all that stuff, Alaric, resident not-yet-certified Newsie and Maggie, the Fictional who was a friend of Buffy’s and really, doesn’t that tell you all you need to know about her? Mahir from Feed returns, as do a handful of others and several more new faces.
All of these characters are fleshed out with the fullest. That’s not to say every character is the main character, but even characters who were created just to die in this novel continue to be felt. They all have a presence; not in the way Georgia does, mind (not all of us can be Obi-Wan Kenobi) but they continue to be relevant and they’re more than red shirts.
This team of bloggers- not to mention a former lab rat who was sent to her death, and a number of sources that help them as any news team attempting to attack the top levels of a government agency is bound to have, spend the novel being chased, having zombies sicked on them, having guns pointed at them (but not actually being shot at, this time), having sex (in a non-explicit way), ordering takeout, and surviving the second zombie apocalypse. You know, all in a day’s work. The takeout does sound really weird in that list, but then again, this is the 2000s, and I think most conspiracies, plots and insurgencies happen with takeout involved. This adds a touch of realism to the novel and gives us much-needed breaks in the action. It also gives me a place to put the book down and go to sleep after I accidentally stay up until 4 in the morning reading about the aforementioned zombie chases and what happens afterward. Besides, as a blogger of sorts myself, I can honestly say that if I was involved in a world-changing investigation and kept narrowly escaping death and zombification, there would be a lot of takeout involved.
The writing is, once again, phenomenal. Even though the protagonist is a man, there’s something about the way the characters act and think, and their descriptions, that really stands out as this novel being written by a woman. I love me some Stephen King and Thomas Harris, but there’s something about the description of “the-sweet-salt-sex smell of her” that really stands out against my usual stable of horror authors. You don’t get, say, the cognitive analysis of survivor’s lust that Michael Stackpole gives in Star Wars: Wedge’s Gamble, but you still get the emotional results that come from such a scenario. I could nit-pick this style to death, but taking a wider view, I did like the minority take on things, and the book was still extremely detailed.
Those of you who’ve read Feed will be happy to hear that the chapter-by-chapter blog posts return. For those of you who haven’t, think of it as similar to the mood-setters that Stephen King likes to use between chapters, except featuring the writing of the characters rather than a blend of that and samples purchased from the real world. They exist to set the mood, as well as providing some of the blog updates that most male authors I can think of would have included as part of the chapter. In fact, this approach to the chapters makes them flow so fluidly that it’s rather abrupt when things such as a page-long email are thrown into the story. Normally, that would seem like a rather standard thing, but here, it’s relatively choppy. I can’t tell whether to call that a minor complaint or the exception to a compliment- it’s like an incredibly realistic looking movie with dragons in it- the dragons don’t look as good as the rest of the movie, but it probably wouldn’t help the movie to make it look more like the dragons or to take the dragons out. There’s a bit of imperfection required in any art, just like there’s imperfections in any gem that allow it to be broken down and distributed.
I’ve largely avoided plot details and spoilers in this review, which has prevented me from mentioning things like the foreshadowing, which was seamlessly woven into the story in a manner that makes an experienced reviewer like myself curse my inability to expect certain developments and see them coming, while a more casual reviewer might simply say, “Well, that wasn’t completely out of the blue. I had some information with which to accept it”. For a somewhat more in-depth look at this book, possibly with some spoilers, wait on for my video review. I can guarantee I’ll enjoy it, and I think you will, too.
As for this review, though, pick up this book if you’re old enough to handle characters swearing and acting like adults in your novels, whether you like zombies or not. If you ever read the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, but want something a little more adult and with a little bit more on the line, pick up Deadline. I recommend you pick up Feed first, though- it’s not a requirement, but why watch The Empire Strikes Back without having watched Star Wars when you can watch both?


The Man in Black is a weekly review at Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin' News & Reviews. For more of his reviews, you can visit his home page at www.MiBreviews.com

Book Review: "Blackout" by Rob Thurman

There really hasn't been a paranormal series that I have enjoyed as much Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros series. I can be a harsh critic of urban fantasy because the genre has already defined itself with a series of clichés including snarky protagonists and monsters that induce romantic fantasies rather than nightmares. But Thurman's series about half-Auphe Cal and his human brother Niko worked for me because Cal had good reason to snark and the inventiveness of the series brought a freshness to a genre that seemed to quickly be collapsing under the weight of a glut of copycats trying to capitalize on the new hot thing. But, and I really hate to say this, after six books the series seems to be losing some steam as it succumbs to clunky writing and a seeming lack of ideas.



When Cal Landros wakes up on the beach in beginning of the aptly named Blackout he doesn't know he's a monster, but he does quickly realize that he is a monster-killer when he sees the bodies of several giant spiders lying in the sand and the knowledge that he's the reason for the carnage. And Cal's okay with that even though he can't remember anything else about who he is or where he comes from.



Fortunately Cal wakes up in the fairly idyllic town of Nevah's Landing where amnesiacs are taken in like strays in given work at the local restaurant without too many questions. But before Cal can settle in, his brother Niko shows up and Cal begins to realize he didn't know that much about monsters after all.



"Blackout" is a book that spends a lot of time inside the head of the amnesiac version of Cal Leandros and I haven't decided if that's a good place to be. I've always liked Cal but I'm not sure how much interaction I want with the innermost thoughts of a twenty-something guy and his thoughts about this size of his family jewels-- and Rob Thurman isn't so polite when it comes to how she refers to said jewels; which is kind of jarring when that happens more than once.



All kidding aside, "Blackout" is a big departure from what I've come to expect from this series  and different isn't always a good thing. Cal is a dark character. He has a rough history that shapes his character and it is interesting to see what kind of guy he would be without carrying all that baggage. But it becomes apparent after the first one-hundred pages or so that a reader can only handle so much introspection before you get a little bored. When I pick up a book by Rob Thurman I expect rapid-fire dialog, action and a wide variety of myth-based bad guys and "Blackout" kind of falls short on every level.



But if I had to point to one thing that I have to critique, it's the clumsiness of the writing. I did notice that the last book of the series, "Roadkill," didn't always have a flow that was easy for me to follow, but I didn't want to mention that in my last review because I was reading a review copy and I was sure that sort of thing would be ironed out before the final copy hit the shelves. Now I wonder. As I read "Blackout" I had a few moments where I would have to stop and fight my way through a paragraph to make sure I understood what we being said. At first I put this down to the stream-of-consciousness thing that goes on when you're reading a narrative based on someone's thoughts. But, as time went on, it became more distracting and that's when I started marking the pages so I could go back and quote passages like the one that follows-- with particular emphasis on the italicized portion.

      I was still tasting blood from the Wolf's kiss when we made it home. The tang didn't mix that badly with the wasabi mayonnaise, but it was still blood and we found more of the same waiting for us. The window hadn't been fixed yet...It was so high that getting anyone out there was going to be a pain in the ass. I saw learning glass replacement and where to find tall-ass ladders in NYC in my future.

     The blood would've been carried through that break in the glass...and rested in the eight hearts that had once contained them. I'd smelled it a block away--as little as it was, which was why Nik unlocked the door and then went through ahead of me with a sword drawn and an elbow in my gut to keep me back.

That's how the passage is written- exactly. I can't make heads or tails of it. When the writer speaks of the eight hearts that once contained "them" are we taking about blood being a "them?" I'm so confused. I read and re-read this over and over...and still don't get it. Is it me? If it seems as if I'm being nit-picky, let me just say that this wasn't the only sentence of dubious structure to show up. It was just the one that I chose to mention.



And that for me sums up my frustration with "Blackout." It just didn't feel like the earlier books. I like that Thurman chose to explore Cal's character, but a lot of what made the series great just isn't present here. I loved that little creatures like the bodach would find their way into the story in past books and scare the bejesus out of me. There is the requisite villain, but the character doesn't have much oomph. She's described very prettily, but has little depth. The loyalty between Cal and Niko is also still there, but I missed the shared knowledge between the two that forms the glue of so much of their story. In the end this books feels a little rushed between the choppiness of the writing and the predictability of the ending.



When you look at my review and compare it to what you seen on Amazon (mostly 5 star reviews so far) it's going to seem that I'm being unduly hard on "Blackout," but I don't think I am. From my view that simply means that readers have lower expectations when it comes to paranormal fiction and review accordingly. And maybe that's fair most of the time. But I personally think Thurman is a better author than this. She's proven that paranormal fiction doesn't have to be sweaty werewolves or preening vampires and for that reason I have set an uncommonly high standard for her. I'm sad that "Blackout" didn't work for me. I will give this series a chance to pick up the slack, but I fear that Thurman is trying to write too many books too quickly nowadays (three series'?) and the overall quality of the work is suffering. I'd still give the book 3 out of 5 stars for being better than most paranormal fiction, but still... I was hoping for more.

Guest Review: "Falling Under" by Gwen Hayes

Woo Hoo-- A guest review! Check out this review of Falling Under by Gwen Hayes, courtesy of Sara of Sara's Urban Fantasy Blog. When you're done with the review, be sure to check out Sara's blog for some more great reviews and giveaways.

Title: Falling Under ARC

Author: Gwen Hayes

Genre: Young Adult

Release Date: 03/01/11

Summary:

Theia Alderson has always led a sheltered life in the small California town of Serendipity Falls. But when a devastatingly handsome boy appears in the halls of her school, Theia knows she's seen Haden before -- not around town, but in her dreams.



As the Haden of both the night and the day beckons her closer one moment and pushes her away the next, the only thing Theia knows for sure is that the incredible pull she feels towards him is stronger than her fear.



And when she discovers what Haden truly is, Theia's not sure if she wants to resist him, even if the cost is her soul.

Plot: 3.5 Stars

Dreams and visions are not a very unique trope in Paranormal Young Adult novels, but the complexity and terrifying details to the dreams really set this novel apart. Although Haden was the focus of the dreams, there were many other creatures that were both intriguing and revolting at the same time. Even with these dreams, Theia accepted the fact that Haden was a demon much quicker than expected. And it didn’t turn her away; instead it seemed to make her attraction to him stronger. Even when he explains the demon dimension where he was born to her, she still continues to hang onto his every word. The biggest problem with this novel is that the demon dimension was ten times more interesting than the human world, but only a couple chapters take place in the demon dimension. There are even more horrifying creatures to contend with, and there was a lot of lost potential. The majority of the twists and turns of this novel took place in this dimension, but seemed rushed due to the lack of time spent exploring this other world.



Pace: 3 Stars

The beginning of this novel jumps right in. The main character and her friends are introduced, and the reader is easily swept up into Theia’s life. Then Theia’s odd dreams begin and the plot starts to unfold. Haden is introduced and Theia is immediately drawn to him, and he seems to be drawn to her. But then he starts to push her away. This plot line would’ve been fine, if it didn’t repeat itself throughout the middle of the book. Every other chapter Haden was either drawing Theia back in, or pushing her away again. This tug of war happened for at least one hundred pages, and caused the plot to stall to the point where it seemed to be moving about as slow as molasses. As the end of the novel drew near, the whirlwind plot drew the reader back in. The twists and turns were back to turn the reader upside-down. And then it ended. Just like that. There were a number of plot elements left wide open without explanation, and the conclusion of the novel seemed a touch lacking.



Characters: 3 Stars

Theia was an interesting character. She stood out from the other kids at school, but it didn’t bother her like it would most characters. Although she was swept up by Haden, it was refreshing to read about a young adult main character who wasn’t instantaneously obsessed by the bad boy. Theia was a bit sheltered by her father, which was never explained in its entirety. He was a bit absent and distant, and it all stemmed from her mother’s death years earlier. Although he tried to explain, there seemed to be a bit missing from the recollection. Theia’s best friends, Donny and Ame, were a great contrast which made the threesome a very enjoyable group of friends to read about. The touch of New Age and psychic ideas that Ame brought to the table not only came in handy, but helped with the world-building. It allowed the world to branch out beyond just demons, without having to include vampires, werewolves, and everything else in the paranormal bag. Haden failed as the love interest of this story. Whether he was pulling Theia to him, or pushing her away, he never seemed genuine. Something about the way the character was written made him come off as a bit robotic.



Cover: 3 Stars

This is an average cover. In the world of Paranormal Young Adult, this cover blends in with the crowd. The colors are a bit muted; even the red isn’t as bright as it could be. It also doesn’t tell the person browsing the shelves much about the novel. In order to know it’s a paranormal novel based around demons, the novel must be picked up off the shelf and turned over to read the back cover. But the cover model is an accurate depiction of Theia, especially the abundance of blonde curls. The red dress and the black roses in the background are both relevant to the plot as well, which is a nice touch. It just seems as if something is missing (possibly a little detailing around the otherwise simplistic title) that could really make this cover pop.



Overall: 3 Stars

Book Review: The Reapers Are the Angels by Alden Bell-- by S.M.D.

Zombies.  They're the in thing right now next to glittering non-vampires.  They're what really goes bump in the night, because they don't have the motor function or brain activity to avoid objects.  They're hungry for your flesh, and filling up our bookshelves and movie screens.  And they're scary as hell.



Alden Bell's (a.k.a. Joshua Gaylord) debut genre novel does for zombie fiction what Cormac McCarthy's The Road did for dystopian fiction, or John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let the Right One In did for vampires:  use the clichés of the form to tell a deeply psychological, literary story.  The Reapers Are the Angels follows Temple, a teenager born into a world overrun by a zombie plague.  She doesn't remember the "good old days," because they ended years before she came into the world; but she remembers an old man who helped her and a younger brother she had tried to protect.  Now she wanders the landscape, avoiding the undead and trying to survive in a world reduced to "survival of the fittest" at its most radical.  And she's a product of her time:  untrusting, ruthless, methodical, and smart-witted.  As Temple wanders from place to place, trying to avoid her demons and understand who she is, she encounters a cast of characters that change everything, from Moses, who wants her dead, to Maury, a mentally handicapped man who doesn't understand the world around him.  And her journey will show her that there darker things in the world than zombies...



The Reapers Are the Angels is not your typical novel.  Its plot is simple and its overall feel is disconnected.  But it is also brilliant.  People who read this novel for the plot are reading it for the wrong reason.  It is about a character (Temple) and her development, about her journey to understand who and what she is, where she belongs, and how to deal with the mistakes of her past in a unforgiving world that is stuck in the dumpster and disinclined towards grieving.  A number of reviews of this novel have seemingly ignored this key element, and I suspect it is because many expect a zombie novel to be plot-oriented--never mind that many zombie stories are, in fact, character studies in a zombie-run world.  After all, The Reapers Are the Angels is set in a world framed in a way that is likely familiar to the zombie fan, and some of the events that occur throughout the book have happened before.



But the novel is about Temple, not the world, and ignoring how she views the world around her, how she forms her own form of morality without the security we are afforded every day, and how she conceives of her own kind (humanity) are indelible marks of a story that thinks beyond the mundane events of life in a zombie world.  The disconnection one feels while reading this novel is brought on by the disconnection Temple feels to the communities and places she visits.  She, as indicated earlier, was born into a post-human world.  Zombies have always been there for her, and her journey into cities, towns, farms, and so forth are journeys into the unknown.  She understands them in the same way we might understand a radically different culture (East vs. West, for example).  Even religion plays into this disconnected feeling, because while Temple was raised briefly with a concept of God, she is forced to reconcile her beliefs with the reality surrounding her, without the "support" of scripture, creating a religious framework that seems slightly alien when compared to the religious world we live in now.  All of these elements are relayed through Temple's point of view, one of the other strengths of the novel.



Bell's narrative is told in third person present through Temple's eyes.  This creates both an intimate connection to the character and to the world, since everything is happening "now" rather than in the past (again, this brings up the problem of the past; namely, that Temple does not want to relive hers and that the world is slowly developing a concept of the past that is progressively present, rather than focused on what once was).  One could even read into the use of third person, rather than first person--if disconnection from place and self is a principle element of the novel, then isolating Temple slightly from the reader by avoiding an entirely internal view maintains the disconnection for the reader as well.  There is a kind of brilliance at work here, both in the narrative that Bell attempts to create and in the language and style.  The language is reflective of Temple's limited experience and the style itself is urgent and fluid, while also being fragmented and to the point.  One gets the sense while reading The Reapers Are the Angels that the future is indeterminate and yet always present (always progressing, but going nowhere at the same time), an urgency brought out in Temple's interjections and in the stochastic "plot."



Despite its effective narrative style and display of characters, The Reapers Are the Angels did have one flaw:  its ending.  On the one hand, the book ends how you might expect (which I will not mention here); on the other, however, there is an enormous shift that pulls the reader too far into disconnection.  I found myself wishing the novel had ended at the height of the climax, because then the implied tension in the novel (and the world) would have been maintained at its worst point.  But the novel continues beyond the climax, dragging us into a new space that had never been ventured to before.  I am intentionally being vague about the specifics, though, because as much as I have issues with the way the novel ends, I still think The Reapers Are the Angels is worth reading.  The ending simply reminds one that there are no perfect books.



In the end, The Reapers Are the Angels is simply an extraordinary book.  True, it lacks the flare of originality in much the same way as Cormac McCarthy's The Road (a text that contains very little originality in terms of its world content, but makes up for it in its story of an understandably overly cautious father and a naive son), but The Reapers Are the Angels presents a well-written, deeply psychological story that we're not familiar with in a world that we are.  It is a kind of cognitive estrangement in that sense (to use Suvin's term).  It's the kind of book that zombie fiction fans should love, and a book that readers who are not familiar with the form will find engrossing (as I did).  The zombies keep coming, Temple's mind keeps bleeding, and the pages keep turning.  What else could you ask for?



If you'd like to learn more about The Reapers Are the Angels, check out the publisher's website (or wherever you buy your books).  Alden Bell can be found on his website.