Sunday, September 28, 2008

Marvels

by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross

Like I've mentioned before on this blog, I tend to ignore fads. I've gotten pretty good at resisting the hype to read this book or see that movie that everybody's talking about. Most of the time the hype passes and I find that I haven't missed a thing. But every now and then, I discover that the hype was justified and that I've taken too long to partake in something really enjoyable. Such is the case with Marvels. I saw the covers of the mini-series back in 1994, of course. It looked really impressive. But I'd seen pretty covers on comics whose interior art didn't quite deliver before. And besides, money was tight and I was pretty much off Marvel Comics. Fast forward 14 years. It's time for the Friends of the Library sale and I discovered that if you pay for a Friends membership and attend the preview, you get a lot better selection of graphic novels. Since they're only a dollar apiece, I shove a number into my shopping bag. Including this, the trade paperback collection of the Marvels mini-series.

Marvels is a look at the early years of the Marvel Universe from the viewpoint of normal folks. Our everyman is Phil Sheldon, a news photographer. As the events of various Marvel comics occur in the background, Phil observes and reacts to them. The original series had four issues. The first deals with the rise of super-powered beings, referred to as "marvels" by Phil. The second shifts to the second age of Marvel comics in the early sixties, contrasting the celebrity of the Fantastic Four with the fearful reactions to the X-Men. Issue three shows the reaction on the street to the first coming of Galactus. And, finally, issue four tells how Phil hooked up with Gwen Stacy in his attempt to write a book on what the "marvels" should mean to the common people of humanity. It's a collection that really struck a chord with this fan-boy, or ex-fan-boy, or whatever I am these days. I loved getting a different perspective on the stories--the mythology--I read all those years ago. And of course Alex Ross' art is magnificent, bringing a unique sense of reality without sacrificing the necessary unreality that the superhero genre requires. Part of me is tempted to go out and get a brand new copy rather than this worn hand-me-down paperback. Either way, I want to keep Marvels on my shelf.

LibraryThing link

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Saturday, September 27, 2008

Liberty for All?

by Joy Hakim

Book Five of A History of US is both the same old, same old and something different. Ms. Hakim actually backs up a bit and looks again at some of the years covered in Volume 4. But whereas in The New Nation she focused more on the political events of the era, in this volume she takes a more cultural path. Liberty for All? follows the mountain men, the forty-niners, the Mormons, the whalers, the suffragettes, the authors, poets and painters who all added to the tapestry of America. Of course, running throughout the book is the issue of slavery, which built up over the years. The book ends in 1860 with the fuse burning and the powder keg ready to explode.

Check it out.
LibraryThing link

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Friday, September 26, 2008

Tunnel Through Time

by Lester del Rey

I literally picked this one up off the sidewalk. One evening whilst out strolling, we came a cross a neighbor's house with boxes of books for the taking sitting out along the sidewalk. It looks like the St. Alphonsus School Library was cleaning house and didn't feel like sending someone all the way down to the Goodwill. Anyway, I tell you this to explain why I bothered to read this particular book. Tunnel Through Time is a science fiction tale written for kids. Bob Miller is the seventeen-year-old son of a physicist who's invented a method of time travel. His dad has convinced a paleontologist, Doc Tom, to make the first trip into the past. Doc Tom insists on pushing the machine to the limits, going back in time 80 million years. When he doesn't return, Bob and Doc's son, Pete, convince Dr. Miller to send them back as a rescue party. So begins a teen-age adventure in time. As time travel tales go, I found this one to be pretty lame. 'Tis a thinly veneered science lesson, imparting the latest paleontology information from the mid-1960s. The whole plot was also pretty hard to swallow. Maybe when I was a kid I would have found the tale believable, but nowadays I know that in the real world, Doc Tom wouldn't have even gotten near the time machine until it had been properly debugged. If then. Ah, well. It was a historical curiosity, if nothing else.

'Tis just waiting room material.
LibraryThing link

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Saturday, September 20, 2008

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

Hmmm. I'm a bit intimidated in trying to write a review of this one. It's a classic after all. A wonderfully textured and layered tale of prejudice in 1930s Alabama. How can I hope to do justice with a little review? I mean, without actually making a serious effort? Perhaps I can't. Ah, well. Suffice it to say that this is the account of a rape trial as seen through the eyes of 8-year-old "Scout" Finch, the daughter of Atticus Finch, the defense attorney. A black man has been accused of raping a young white woman and the resulting trial pushes all sorts of feelings and beliefs into the daylight. Actually, when I say that this is an account of the trial, it's like saying a tree is its trunk. The trial is the main plotline around which all the other plotlines and characters and setting intertwine. It's a fascinating read.

Ah, I think I'll keep it on my shelf.
LibraryThing link

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Friday, September 19, 2008

All Things Wise and Wonderful

by James Herriot

This was a good book, but I can't wholeheartedly recommend it. My wife did. She's enjoyed the whole series and thought that I would like it too. She suggested many months ago that I grab one of the two James Herriot books off the shelf and have a read. So after a proper amount of delay--one mustn't respond too quickly to one's wife's suggestions, after all--I grabbed this one and stuffed it into my lunch bag so that I could leisurely peruse the volume over my lunch hours. This is where I erred. Oh, the stories were fine--well written, full of warmth and humor. I did think it a bit odd that a book set during Mr. Herriot's RAF service was predominantly full of flashbacks, but that didn't really spoil the book for me. No, the problem is that All Things Wise and Wonderful, like the other books in the series, are anecdotes culled from Mr. Herriot's veterinarian practice. So while I'm trying to enjoy my bologna sandwich and nibble my Doritos, Mr. Herriot is sticking his arms into various barnyard orifices and describing all sorts of messy physical ailments. Fortunately I was hungry enough to carry through and finish both book and lunches. So if you are like me and enjoy some literature with your afternoon sustenance, be warned: This may be a book to save for after dessert.

Check it out at your own risk.
LibraryThing link

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Monday, September 08, 2008

JLA: Divided We Fall

by Mark Waid, Brian Hitch, et al.

I grabbed this at the Library sale, because, hey, it's been years since I could buy a comic book for 75ยข. It reprints JLA issues 47 through 54. The writing is good, the art is mostly excellent. My one complaint is that it starts in the middle of a story without any summary of what had gone on before. As near as I can figure, right before these tales, the Justice League discovered that Batman had devised plans to capture and/or disable each member in the event that they turned to the dark side or some such. They discovered this because one of Batman's enemies, Ra's al Ghul, managed to get ahold of this data and put the fail-safe plans into action. This honked everybody off and the result was that Batman was voted out of the League, 4 to 3. The result is that you have a divided league who are not only in disagreement over whether Batman should have been axed, but also are starting to wonder what dark secrets their other teammates might be harboring. It makes for some ineffective crime fighting across multiple dimensions. Anyway, that's a long winded explanation of the overall scenario. If you want details, you'll just have to check it out for yourself.

LibraryThing link

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Saturday, September 06, 2008

Justice Riders

by Chuck Dixon, J.H. Williams III and Mick Gray

(I don't normally review comic books, but this one has an ISBN, so I'll make an exception.)
Sometime back the folks at DC Comics must have stumbled across the notion that since their comics are so archetypal, they could take their characters, drop them into a whole new scenario and milk a story out of it. Having been a comics junkie for decades, I tend to enjoy these little jaunts of fantasy, enjoying all the little references to the original mythos that have been tucked into the tale. In Justice Riders, you have the Justice League of America (circa 1997) as they might have existed in the Old West. Sheriff Diana Prince is seeking to avenge the destruction of her town, Paradise. In her quest she gathers people of unique skills to help her--Kid Flash, the Hawk Shaman, Booster Gold, the Beetle and the mysterious manhunter John Jones. They hunt down the wealthy industrialist Maxwell Lord and try to bring him to justice. It's a deliciously rendered offering; a steam-punk tale with just a touch of super-hero fantasy.

Check it out, pardner.
LibraryThing link

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Friday, September 05, 2008

The New Nation

by Joy Hakim

Book 4 of A History of US (or, as they say in Britain, A History of THEM) looks at the United States from 1789 through 1850. Ms. Hakim covers the development of our government under the new constitution, looking at the contributions of our first seven presidents--and then skimming over the next seven. She speaks of the arrival of the Industrial Revolution on these shores and of the drive of our population to the west. She also gives a lot of coverage to the lives and events of America's native and black populations. Having read through this era of American history in the past few years, I kept getting the feeling that she was rushing through too fast. But in the end, I realized that she pretty much covered all the basics. She could have written a book that was ten times as long, but then that would defeat the purpose of covering the entire history of our country.

Check it out!
LibraryThing link

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