reviews

Guy Gavriel Kay, A Song for Arbonne (1992)

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Guy Gavriel Kay… a guy who helped Christopher Tolkien prepare Silmarillon for publication, and then started his own career as fantasy writer. He has his distinct style, he has his fans. I’m one of them, Ola isn’t. Just compare these two quotes from our reviews of Tigana:

A successful lawyer, a philosophy student who helped Christopher Tolkien in The Silmarillion edits, a reasonably well-known author of award-winning fantasy novels, Kay is a veritable jack of all trades. He prefers to set his novels in historical periods, but in imaginary settings, which allows him to create interesting parallels without the burden of fact-checking

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Guy Gavriel Kay got his genre credentials early, when as a 20-year-old student he was chosen to help Christopher Tolkien edit Silmarillion. From my point of view – and I love Silmarillion – it’s like a rookie demi-god was asked to edit Bible. How to start your own religion after that? Kay paid homage to his tolkienian roots with excellent Fionavar Tapestry (1984-1986) and moved on to create his own blend of semi-historical fantasy epics. Starting with Tigana (1990). And since I started with religious vocabulary, let me say that I consider this blog’s May 3 review of Tigana a blasphemy

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Ed McDonald, Blackwing (2017)

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Blackwing

Author: Ed McDonald

Title: Blackwing

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 378

First, an admission. I read a lot of books when my mental plate’s full, as they provide a bit of comfort and take off some strain from my overworked brain – when they’re good, of course, because bad books don’t help at all 🙂 However, by the same logic, I write no reviews when I’m stressed out, because writing demands a lot more from my already  overworked brain 😛 No surprise, then, that lately there are less reviews on our blog, even though the amount of books I’ve recently read has noticeably grown.

I’ve spent the last couple of months checking out some of the books our fellow bloggers recommended, and Ed MacDonald’s Blackwing had been favorably reviewed by many. A special shout out to Aaron at Swords & Spectres for persuading me to finally try it out, because it was definitely worth it :).

Blackwing follows the story of Ryhalt Galharrow (it’s a mouthful, I know – try to say it out loud a few times!), a former pampered noble and an ex-Army officer who now serves as a Captain of Blackwing: a private military unit in employ of a Nameless sorcerer called Crowfoot. Galharrow as we meet him is a down-on-his-luck cutthroat – a glorified spy/bounty hunter/enforcer to a ruthless, ancient being, who had not been seen in the world for a long, long time. Yet, as the war between the Nameless sorcerers of the republic with powerful Deep Kings of the Eastern Empire still brews on, centuries in the making, Galharrow soon finds himself in the thick of the bloody action.

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Mark Millar, Leinil Yu, Superior (2013)

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Superior

Author: Mark Millar (writer), Leinil Yu (penciler)

Title: Superior

Format: Paperback

Pages: 200

What’s happening, another comic book review in a row? And what is that exactly, a love child of Superman and Shazam???

Well, to an extent ;). Though the fruit of Millar and Yu’s collaboration reads like an unabashed love letter to Superman, it had actually been published by Marvel. This comic is one of the more vivid examples of the blurred lines between what exactly in the superhero world is a property of one or the other powerhouses – and a solid reminder that ideas cannot be owned :).

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Nick Drnaso, Sabrina (2018)

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When I got a notification on my WordPress app that Paul from Paul’s Picks reviewed Sabrina, critically acclaimed graphic novel published last year, I thought – what a coincidence 🙂 I was just finishing the book myself, and I postponed reading of the review until I finished. It’s short and to the point, but let me present my take on Sabrina.

Author: Nick Drnaso

Title: Sabrina

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 204

Sabrina goes missing and her boyfriend Teddy, depressed and aimless, moves in with his high school friend Calvin, US Air Force soldier (the kind of warrior that specializes in IT) a few states away. Sabrina’s family suffers, things get bad and worse. Apart from that, Calvin’s ex-wife does not want him around their little daughter and he’s torn between his plan to move closer to them and try to get them back and career opportunities in the military.

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Glen Weldon, Superman: The Unauthorized Biography (2013)

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superman the unauthorized biography

Author: Glen Weldon

Title: Superman. The Unauthorized Biography

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 352

There’s one main reason for my recent incommunicado, and it’s life. Unpredictability of life has been discussed extensively elsewhere, so I’ll refrain from wallowing in self-pity and/or bragging and instead take care of the topic of this post :).

Superman. The Unauthorised Biography by Glen Weldon is a hefty book, worthy of the enviable long life of one of the most famous comic book characters (he’ll be 81 this year!). I freely admit, I have never been a rabid fan of Superman, nor even a dedicated one. Superman just seemed too super, too powerful and too idealized to engender any warmer feelings in me – especially in comparison to the morally ambiguous, brooding character of Batman.

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But Weldon’s book, impressive in its thoroughness, fanboyish love and respect for the source material, actually got me to appreciate Supe’s character and – especially – his cultural significance, predominantly for the American society.

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Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People (1971/1992)

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Just a few quick words in-between longer posts. As I’ve mentioned here and there, I’ve decided to do a big, complete Discworld re-read a couple of years ago. I’ve sped it up last year, went from Mort to The Amazing Maurice… and this year I’ve already listened to the Night Watch  and The Wee Free Men to start The Monstrous Regiment only yesterday.

I love it! Even more, then the first time. And some books I read for the first time. I will sum it all up after I finish. But, it was not enough Pratchett. I’ve read his nonfics, and now I’ve also read his first novel (although in its re-written, later version), The Carpet People.

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What a funny little book! I don’t know how much it’s changed from the original version – anybody here read that? – but it’s a great debut and clearly a work of a beautiful, brilliant mind.

The humour is already there, Pratchett’s satirical sense, his ability to show us an absurd fantasy world – and through this, the absurd of the one we created here on Earth. Sure, it was refined later on, but this book is nothing to be ashamed of.

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Tom King, Mikel Janín, The War of Jokes and Riddles (2017)

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The War of Jokes and Riddles

Author: Tom King (writer), Mikel Janín (illustrations)

Series: Batman

Format: Paperback

Pages: 200

Where do I start? Maybe with the hype concerning Tom King as the new Wunderkid of DC Comics, one of the few authors who allegedly could take the post-Rebirth Batman and put some life into the character nearing its permanent retirement age (80 years next May!). Tom King’s approach was supposed to be ‘cerebral’, his stories realistic and full of suspense. Maybe some of them are – I am not to judge, since I’ve read only the one and I don’t intend reading any other. Because, in short, The War of Jokes and Riddles was a smelly pile of horseshit.

Let’s start with the art, because later on it will be one long rant. Art is mediocre at best, with Riddler inexplicably beefed up and Joker looking like a drawing of himself from some really bad old comics. Batman and Selina look correct if quite generic, and that’s probably the best I can say about them. The main problem I have with Janín‘s art is that it lacks dynamics, and the eyes of the characters seem dead. They make faces, all right, but nothing reaches their eyes. The panels depicting the war don’t really make much impact – they are there, and they show what happened. Maybe I’m spoiled by other artists, I tend to choose my comics carefully knowing there’s a lot of fluff and a lot of trash out there.

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