A defunct superhero turns in his wings and manages to get elected Mayor of New York after he stops one of the planes from plowing into the World Trade Center.  Not your classic super hero stuff – much more interesting.

And then there’s ‘The Last Man’.

A mysterious plague wipes out all of the men bar one.  Interesting alternate future stuff.  Not mind-blowing, but damned entertaining.

If you’re into ‘comics for the thinker’ then Brian K Vaughan’s your man.

And how was it?  Artistically, very cool indeed.  Beautiful images all around – can’t fault it.  Conceptually?  Groovy.  Spidey’s plunged into Red Sonja’s D&D universe, as is a decent chunk of New York, by an evil sorcerer from Sonja’s world.  The story?  Not too shabby.  Nothing surprising, but nothing too clunky either.  The writing?  Oeming’s usual style.  State the obvious whenever you can because of course the images can’t do a lot of that work for you.  Of course.  And lets have oaths galore.  I think Red Sonja makes an oath to disembowel some man every three or four frames.  She never does.

Still, aside from the dialogue, it’s an entertaining read.  Worth a quick look.

Edwin

www.edwinmcrae.com

I’ve been so excited about this service. It is beyond easy to use. The great thing is that if you have old books and DVDs to give away, you don’t have to pay to ship them out. You go to the website, print out a label with postage, and the receiver pays the shipping.

I’m on a mission to promote them a little bit more because I’d just like more people taking my books and DVDs. (OK, I do get some free “points” through referrals, but no cash.) If there’s one downside to this service, I find that some of my books can sit there for a long time without getting taken. So sign up using my link here and then when I have something available and post it here, you can be the one to get it.

What Dreams May Come, in case you missed it, is a film about the afterlife. Specifically, it’s about an afterlife where your thoughts create your reality. Thus, if you are a good person and in a good mental space, you may see an afterlife that is filled with beauty and lush scenery. If not, it’s off to your personal hell you go.

Robin Williams starred in the film as a man who dies and goes to heaven. Soon his wife commits suicide and is sent to hell. (She’s the one who has sent herself to hell.) Throughout all this, we get to see sappy flashbacks of their affluent life, before their kids died in a car crash and everything turned sour.

If the film cut out the emotional melodrama and flashbacks, it would be a much better film. The scenes of heaven and hell are just fun to watch, and you have to keep your eyes glued to the screen to not miss anything. Cuba Gooding Jr., still riding high from his 90s Jerry McGuire breakthrough role, does a decent job here being the guide to the afterlife.

But mostly, the film gets bogged down in the overwrought love story. From what the film is saying, if you happen to have a soul mate, you’re bound to become a depressive, suicidal wreck who is incapable of being happy or surviving on your own. You become obsessed with your other half to the point that you neglect yourself and your kids. Not a good message.

The book, from my recollection, is actually more interesting in many respects in that it tries to show what the afterlife might really be like. It differs from the the movie in many key plot points and as such avoids the depressive, schmaltzy tone of the film. The book is not high art but interesting, if you are into that sort of new agey stuff.

Despite the flaws, both are worth a review if you have an interest in the subject of the afterlife.

Unlike most of the kiddie-fantasy being published today,  this is more adult and has adult protagonists varying in age from 18-26; one who is married and has a child and has been to war. Set during the time of World War I, the novel is a page-turner deluxe that has you gasping right up until the final page. I won’t spoil the ending and please I beg you do not read up on the book at Amazon, for they give away one of the best parts of the novel.

Three Oxford scholars come together because of a book called The Imaginarium Geographica, which is essentially an atlas to the lands of magick and high fantasy. Being a caretaker of this tome is no easy task and right away, the three friends have to deal with a murder in London (of the last caretaker) and then being whisked off to the Archipelago of Dreams, which is the land where all fantasy lives (basically another dimension).

Each scholar has his story. Charles is very level-headed but a bit retiring. Jack is young and trying to prove himself plus he has a dark-side. Lastly John, who is the new caretaker, is a man shattered by his experiences as a soldier in World War I and very unsure of his abilities to handle such an extreme situation. The reader will grow side by side through the story as their guide Bert and his daughter lead them through the Archipelago of Dreams on a dragon-ship.

There are a thousand possiblities already in just the creation of the Imaginarium Geographica. It’s quite brilliant really and I cannot wait for the actual tome to be published. Author James A. Owen is also a talented artist and his illustrations that begin each chapter are stunning.

This first story in the “Chronicles” as it is being called is filled with high-level excitement and much familiarity that will be revealed at the end of the book. It is worth every page to get there and just have that final moment of OH. MY. GOD. Just go with it, don’t try to think too hard because you will probably figure it out, which I would have if I had not been so tired while reading it. Ultimately I was glad because rarely do I get a great surprise like this!

Orson Scott Card had the following to say about the book – “Is there anyone who wouldn’t enjoy reading Here, There Be Dragons? If there is such a person, I haven’t met him, and I doubt that I would like him if I did. I am only disappointed that, because this book is so new, I’ll have to wait too long to read the sequels.”

I agree completely. I hope the author can write fast!

 

I actually enjoyed the book though I admit I was much more ramped up to a spectacular ending than the book offered. As a bibliophile myself I was quite entranced by the plot which consisted of a 12 year old (or around that) boy finding a blank book in the Oxford library that is the key to a much larger mystery that includes Johann Gutenberg and Faust. Some pretty weight material for fifth graders! 

The book is well-written no matter what age is reading and that is always a pleasure. I can see clearly by the open ending that Mr. Skelton plans an entire series and why not? Those Harry-Snicket-Fowl-Materials books have made their authors millions (and even in JK Rowling’s case billions!), so who wouldn’t be interested in diving in? 

On some levels that bothers me as they are all so commercial. In fact I just read a fantasy book (part of my Wal-mart buy) that actually included ADVERTISEMENTS for CoverGirl make-up and tampons in the book itself. I am serious. CoverGirl was listed in the credits and certain shades of lipstick and nail-polish were mentioned in the fairly vacuous book and the Tampax website was also listed in the credits. For me, that is going to far. 

Fortunately Endymion Spring had no in your face advertisements though it would (like Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series) make a compelling tourist enticement to visit Oxford. Oxford being the real-world equivalent of the fantasy Hogwart’s. 

This is a fairly smart story with very little character development. It is an excellent debut novel however and I am sure as the story continues it will grow in its depth. 

 

Ayla – who will always be played by the great (NOT) actress Darryl Hannah, in my mind, is not actually just a Caucasian ancestor but Albert freaking Einstein, Super woman and a mythical god-dess of all that is holy and beautiful. I have never loathed a character so much. She is beautiful, has enormous breasts, is the greatest lay ever but is also the single most brilliant person of the era. Everyone is awed by her. She never makes a single mistake. She invents everything, tames animals, makes tea, heals, performs surgery, educates everyone, hunts like a man, is a perfect warrior and can make a hell of a meal out of SPAM. All while pregnant. Everyone else in the book is pathetically stupid and her boyfriend is a complete himbo – he might as well be in an ad for Calvin Klein underwear. All he does is grin knowingly.

There are endless descriptions of the geology and plant-life of the era (like reading an Earth Science book) and this supposed genius research that Ms. Auel accomplished is stuff anyone with half a brain could figure out with no research at all. Plus she basically tells everyone at the beginning of the book that some of it is accurate but MOST is made up – so there! Like it’s my book and I’ll make pre-history anything I want it to be.

Yeah ok. The Earth’s Children geniuses have so much more going for them than people did in as recently as the 19th century. So what happened? Everyone was all new-agey and women were equal to men in complete positions of power and then what – 25,000 years later women didn’t even have the freaking vote. Ok, sure, makes sense to me.

Anyway the rate at which these folks were creating art and items would have had them in computers and Lear jets in record time. So what the hell happened? Everyone got really stupid?

The characters are shallow, there is no plot, the book is filled with repetitive introductions, snippets from the other books and feats of amazing wonder that make Ayla out to be the freaking messiah and all of it is written like a guidebook for writers on HOW NOT TO WRITE.

You could lose your sanity stumbling over paragraphs with sentences like:

That sounded familiar to Ayla. She wasn’t sure why. She decided to make some tea. She dug around in her travel pack for some mint. She liked to bring tea to Jondalar in the morning.

As well as conversations like the following that go on for entire CHAPTERS:

“I know what you are thinking.” she teased Jondalar.

“What I am thinking is that with this new spear-thrower that I invented, only after you inspired me, we will be able to hunt much more efficiently and therefore be in less danger from charging bison.” Jondalar grinned.

“That is right. Charging bison can be very frightening. Remember what the Mog-ur said?” Ayla reminded Jondalar.

“Yes I remember, but tell me again.”

“The Mog-ur said that we should invent a weapon to not be trampled by bison because of his great fear of bison. He was a smart holy man, though I am not sure I know what that word smart or holy actually means,” Ayla decided to make some tea while they continued to talk.

“Then we shall have to invent words for holy and smart Ayla, words like kamakakapoopoo and blerdge.”

“I don’t like those words Jondalar,” though she winked at him knowingly, “Let’s just use smart and holy instead, you himbo.”

If anyone actually does read this kind of drivel and enjoy it please email me so I can say that I have at least been emailed by the most boring person alive.

The fact that this woman has sold millions of books is a sad commentary on how uneducated most people are. I had never read any of the middle books after Clan of the Cave Bear (which I thought was at least mildly entertaining) and I picked this one up because I wanted a good thick beach read.

Apparently the woman (Ms. Auel) is utterly senile (thus the repetitions) and can’t even remember why she wrote this in the first place. Of course her agent and publisher I am sure gently reminded her – FOR THE FREAKING MONEY.

Read this book ONLY if you want to have fantasies of throttling an old senile woman (the author) or if you have no wish to contribute anything useful to the universe on any level.

This series should have never happened – it was as if – the big monumental saving of the world in the first series didn’t “count,” like – oh, that – we weren’t serious – NOW you really get to save the world.

With a cast of thousands across a landscape with an ever growing map and mass of continents and cities with similar names (the better to confuse you to keep you from noticing the lack of plot, character development or anything really but beleaguered blather and expositional dialogue for 2000 freaking pages) the highest compliment I can give this series is – that the books seemed to bounce nicely off of my bedroom wall after I had hurled them at it.

Big Dave has issues with women too – I find it frightening that his wife had anything at all to do with these books. She must be freaking Donna Reed or something because the fifties ideals here are so outdated I was aching to read Camille Paglia. All of the women are sniveling idiots, crying, giving birth, cooking and cleaning – and not a whole hell of a lot of anything else. An all powerful Sorceress can only be fulfilled by giving birth? Oh yeah – right! What is this – the Hill Country or something? How backwoods can you be?

Stay away – read something else – anything else – the back of a box of crackers – the label on a can of cheese whiz – trust me. You will be better off.

This is a moving story, the flashbacks (another device that I never think is used well, though her weaving of it into the present made me look for the past with equal anticipation) lend so much weight to the story and it is heavy despairing stuff, the kind that makes your fist clench in agony as you are reading it. I kept thinking, dear God, no, no, no, for it was too devastating to consider because from the moment you meet the heroine, Seriana, she has you at her side, understanding her, feeling her loneliness and deep sadness. Yet her strength is amazing; amazing, but real. It is the kind of strength of the human variety not super hero.

There is a love story here too, a beautiful love story that too is very real. One of the other reviewers said her words jump off the page – and they do – it is a very active story and the writing is filled with electric energy. It is spare; Hemingway-esque actually at points, without anything overblown. Utterly readable it is a page turner – you will fight to break away from it and probably will not be able to. Make sure you have time set aside and just read it straight through.

I am thrilled to have had the pleasure to read this book and hope against hope that in the series they only continue to get better. I do have what I call Matrix-anxiety about sequels but I have faith that Carol Berg is up to the task. If she sticks to a similar format where each book is inclusive to itself I believe she will have a sure-fire hit on her hands.

And finally thank you Carol Berg for FINALLY creating some characters who are not fourteen year old virgins! Seriana is thirty-five years old, a grown woman and I identified wit her much more than some unrealistic portrayal of a teenage princess or a twenty-something who has never been let out of a castle. Seri is all woman, her own woman, educated, bright, resourceful, but makes mistakes in judgment and often can’t see the bigger picture. Just like a real woman.

Carol Berg had my interest with her other books but now she has a fan!

I often randomly choose fantasy series to read because I like to discover a good yarn. But these books don’t develop anything close to it.

The Lord of the Isles is over 600 pages that projects into so many confusing directions that half the time I was reading it I wondered what the hell was going on. It starts simply; a young shepherd named Garric discovers that he is the descendant of the once future king or some such, then he and his adopted sister, best friend and best friend’s sister start off on an adventure with the aid of a middle-aged warriorsort and an ancient female wizard.

They leave their island home in some gentle “hamlet” (it really is named Barca’s Hamlet) and all sorts of wondrous and terrible things occur to each one, including dealing with demons, the undead, cannibals and a tree that takes over the soul of one of them. I think. Honestly, I don’t even know. How is it possible that I could have read this tome and come away so utterly clueless?

The writing itself is basically dull. But an even-handed kind of dull. David Drake isn’t an especially gifted raconteur and he repeats himself frequently though his writing is much better than books in the Forgotten Realms library (except for anything by R.A. Salvatore) or other pulp-fiction fantasy series.

Still the epic is so slow to get off the ground that it seems a ponderous undertaking. I wonder where his ideas come from. At one point (for half the book) he has half of the major characters adrift at sea in various occasions, which is extremely plodding, and he seems to make up things to happen to them as padding, as if he can’t have them getting to a location too soon.

This stuff is hardly page-turning material. I found myself falling asleep more than once during the three days it took to force myself to finish it. Nothing compelled me to move on in the story except that I wanted it to end.

I have the next four books (I don’t even know if there is more than that) in the series and I don’t know if I am going to read them or return them.

I don’t like any of the characters. None of them have stand-out development. They are all so much like characters from other books that are frankly done much better. Even the characters in Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series are more compelling and I never despised any characters in a book as much. In Lord of the Isles I would have gladly despised a character rather than feel completely and totally nothing about any of them.

I understand that Drake has a military background and he writes like it. Nothing original, nothing emotional or particularly moving and he hasn’t the vaguest idea how to craft a female character except to make them all somewhat masculine interspersed with fits of jealousy and crying. Great. Women I want to be just like.

The men aren’t any better, just cardboard cut-outs of the epic hero and his friend and the dedicated gentle but tough warrior guy and various evil baddies who all seem to meet with hasty deaths when Drake has no idea what to do with them.

Also the names of the characters really bugged me. I don’t mind fantasy names too much, I prefer them not to be overly long and difficult to pronounce but some of these names just seemed so fake. Much like his own name; David Drake. Feh. I hate pen names. I also don’t think anyone should be named Nonnus, especially not the wise elder guide of the entire story. What a wretched name. How could he possibly think this was a good name for a wise warrior? Seriously it sounds like “No Nuts”. Ewwww.

No wonder I had never heard of this lengthy series before; it’s just bogged down rehashing fantasy detritus.