Book Review: Goblins

    Readers of this blog will know there are only two fiction authors I obsessively consume whatever new books they release, Christa Faust and Philip Reeve.  They couldn’t be much different.  Goblins is Reeve’s latest (in the States), and this time he’s taken on classic children’s Fantasy.  From early on, I was reminded of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series.  But as it’s Reeve, he takes your preconceptions and turns them on their head on more than one occasion.

    The basic idea couldn’t be much more typical of the genre.  Henwyn, a restless young boy who wants to be a hero, goes on a journey to rescue a princess from the ruined lair of an evil old wizard.  But of course, that’s only the surface.  Things aren’t nearly as they seem, from the princess to the goblin Skarper, to the boy himself.

    Kids just getting into reading, with a fancy for the fanciful, should find this book very readable and lots of fun.  It also has some good lessons on expectations, the twists life throws us, and the importance of friendships of all sorts.  There’s also a bunch of cheeky potty humor that kids will no doubt find very amusing.  The goblins alone provide plenty of fun goofiness, tainted with some dark danger.

    Though this isn’t my favorite Philip Reeve book, mostly because its classic (generic sounds harsher than I mean it, but kind of sums it up) Fantasy setting is simply something I’m not especially interested in.  Tolkien's Lord of the Rings  and other Medieval European substitute settings, for example.  But I always find his books a pleasure to read.

Goblins
Author: Philip Reeve
Publisher: Scholastic Press
ISBN: 978-0-545-22220-4

-Matt

Book Review: Fringe: The Burning Man

    A few months ago, I reviewed the first of Christa Faust’s Fringe tie-in novels, The Zodiac Paradox.  Walter Bishop was my favorite character on the show, and I enjoyed the heck out of all the Walter and William Bell stuff, but was admittedly not engaged in the overall plot about the Zodiac killer.  However, I enjoy Faust’s writing enough to keep me reading and enjoying myself.  I knew going in that this second book focused on Olivia, who I can’t say was ever a character I found especially interesting.  Still.  Faust?  I’m there.

    Early in the book, I was getting a bit nervous.  The nitty-gritty writing was, typical of Faust, quite good.  But the story seemed to be going down a similar path to the first book.  A character from the show, a killer, a psychic bond… Uh oh.  Media tie-in novels are always tough.  There are certain rules you’ve got to stay within while writing, certain ideas of a universe you need to hold onto, and often, an unwillingness on the part of the people with the purse strings to stray too far from what is established.  Was this second book going to follow a formula that would be the basis of all the Fringe novels?  That would be sad.  But thankfully, no.  My faith was restored when the plot took a pretty darned surprising turn about two thirds of the way in, and the focus of the book shifted rather wildly.  Excellent.  I won’t go into details, but the last third or so of the book gets into some very Fringe-worthy world building, and hints at some really nasty stuff.

    If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ve heard it before.  I’ll pick up anything Christa Faust writes.  She and Philip Reeve are the two authors I don’t take any time to think about.  I just get it, and read it.  Like listening to James Earl Jones read the phonebook, I don’t so much care what she’s writing about, I just really like the way she does it.  But getting past that, I am impressed by how well she’s able to capture the voices of established characters.  That’s probably the single greatest challenge of making media tie-in novels work for fans, and she’s got it down pat.  Even though most of this book deals with Olivia as a teenager, you can see the Olivia of the TV show in proto-form.  And she makes for a good, smart, tough character, with a much more proactive approach to life and its problems.

    I have to admit, I am darned surprised that I ended up enjoying this Olivia focused book more than the Walter one.  But the plot pivot kicked me in the expectations, and that’s something I intensely enjoy.  If you’re a fan of the show these books are worth checking out.  Or if you just enjoy brisk, compulsively readable books.  And now I’m looking forward to Sins of the Father.  Back to a Bishop.  I don’t know what the future plans for these books are.  Will there be more?  Will Christa Faust still be on them?  I know I’d love to read more about Walter Bishop and his adventures in mad science.  It feels like so much of his life is unexplored.  Time will tell.  In the meantime, go out and get a copy (and while you're out, grab Faust's Money Shot and Choke Hold!).

Fringe: The Burning Man
Author: Christa Faust
Publisher: Titan Books
ISBN: 978-1781163115

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (9/1/13-9/7/13)

    I started out the week by actually finishing some things.  Yes is the Answer, a sort of oral history of Prog Rock and The Burning Man, Chirsta Faust’s latest Fringe novel.  And the end of the week went crazy with Baltimore Comic-Con, and a visit from Dan and Chris.

Dredd:  A satisfyingly brutal take on the venerable comic character, Dredd finally does 2000AD’s bent sense of humor and grim future justice.  And yes, the helmet NEVER comes off.  Karl Urban makes a great Judge Dredd, with a constant frown and that chiseled jaw.  The villains are nasty, the heroes are nastier.  The violence is weirdly beautiful and the world building is spot on.  For some reason I’ll never understand, this movie did not get anything like the audience it should have.  I’m constantly seeing stuff online from people just seeing it, saying ‘this is so good; how did I not see it before?’  I don’t know.  I saw it in the theater, and had it been there longer, I’d have gone again.  Loved it then, and love it on this second viewing.

Battle In Outer Space:  A pretty good space launch turned alien attack movie from Japan, this is perhaps too slow paced.  Still, in spite of the slow pace and the occasionally meandering plot, I found myself enjoying the adventures of the various characters.  Cool Toho type model work.  It’s not great, and not as wild and weird as some others of the era.  But it’s good.

Mothra:  The argument could be made that this is just kind of a Godzilla clone, with a giant moth instead of a giant dinosaur.  But so what?  It’s fun, it’s well done, and it’s got some cool model destruction.  The King Kong style island adventure in the middle is cool.  There’s a nice twist in the middle.  And the action is solid.

Lords of Salem:  I’m actually kind of impressed by just how unimpressive this film is.  It’s easy to crap on Rob Zombie.  House of 1000 Corpses was a jumbled mess (with a few interesting bits).  The Devil’s Rejects (his best) is uneven, to say the least.  The Halloween remakes sucks (there; I said it; it sucks).  El Superbeasto was absolute garbage.  And now Lords of Salem.  It has a lot of the disorganized, aimless feel of 1000 Corpses, with the yawn inducing boredom of Halloween.  But, it also looks great.  That’s the thing with Zombie’s work.  He does some good stuff.  He works with different cinematographers every time, but always has very cool imagery in his films, which I assume come from him.  But the writing.  It’s just not there.  I loved a lot of the early scenes of Sheri Moon Zombie walking around, and going about her life.  It had a very nostalgic, New England in the early 80s vibe to it that I thought was quite nice.  But otherwise, the movie is just a mess.  I think he was aiming for some combination of The Devil’s Rain and The Sentinel, but he missed the mark.

Hey look.  A goat.

The African Queen:  “Ain’t a thing I can do about it.”  I enjoy the heck out of this light-hearted adventure movie, set against WWI era Africa.  Bogart and Hepburn are two down and out people on the edge of nowhere, who come together with a hair-brained plan to strike a blow against the Kaiser.  We then follow these two down a torturous river and through the fumblings of a budding romance.  I love that the actors don’t look good.  Hepburn is clearly getting older.  Bogart looks like crap.  They sweat, they get dirty, and they just don’t look like movie stars.  Yet, the film is beautiful to look at.  Is it an amazing, life changing film?  No.  But I get why it’s a classic, and I do really enjoy it.

Wrong:  “I only realized that I loved my face after it had been burned with acid.”  Two years ago, Rubber kind of blew me away.  It was so out of nowhere, so strange, so sickly clever that a movie about a murderous psychic tire (yup!) made it on my top ten list.  Wrong is fun, and it’s weird.  But it’s not on the same level.  Sure, there’s plenty of weirdass behavior and strange images.  But while I enjoyed it, I wasn’t blow away by it.

    So, Friday night, Chris and Dan arrived.  Saturday morning…way too early Saturday morning, we hopped in the car and headed to Baltimore, setting up the Warrior 27 table.  We were each able to make various excursions around the place over the course of the day, and I got to see a lot of cool stuff.  This year stood out for me because of the breadth and obscurity of the cosplay.  I was impressed.  Sure, there were a lot of New Who costumes (only one good enough for me to give a pass on the cliché/overexposure).  And there were a bunch of Deadpools (I don’t get it).  But there was a Captain Haddock (from Tintin) for crying out loud.  There was even a couple of ladies doing the nerdy scientists from Pacific Rim.  It was pretty cool.  After the show, co-Dork Brad and our friend Robert joined us for some Mexican at a place not too far from my house.  Too late to bed, and an early rise the next day for Day 2 of the con.  More on that next week, I guess.

-Matt

Book Review: Fringe: The Zodiac Paradox

    I’m a surprise fan of Fringe.  I heard about it, but thought it sounded like a crappy X-Files riff; another of so many shoddy TV shows that recycle ideas with a couple of semi-novel ‘twists,’ last a season (or in truly dire situations, more than one season), and fade into justified obscurity (see every show featuring a vampire in the lead, with the possible exception of Dark Shadows).  And this time, one of those goofy dudes from Dawson’s Creek was on the team and Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  Still, I am not made of stone (though I do have a piece of coal where my heart should be), and eventually I listened to one of the many voices singing its praise and gave it a try.  Glad I did.  It is like X-Files.  Except that instead of one in five episodes being pretty good (with the rest being forgettable or bloody awful), Fringe was fairly consistently good and thematically focused.  And what’s more, the Dawson kid was good (?!).  But the best character, the most fun to watch, the one I found myself paying attention to, empathizing with, and wanting to know more about, was the resident mad scientist, the drugged up nutter Walter Bishop.

    Take my favorite character from an excellent show and put him into the hands of one of my favorite active writers, Christa Faust?  Sounds like a good recipe.  And so it is.  A prequel story about Walter, William Bell, and Nina Sharp and a protracted battle with the Zodiac killer.  Sign me up.  But media tie-in novels are a tricky thing.  I’m a long time Star Trek fan, and have read my fair share of Trek novels…a few of them were even good.  I’ve read some Farscape books, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and others.  More often than not, they’re not very good.  By which I mean they’re garbage.  The key problem is writing characters that sound and feel like the ones you’re used to from the show/film.  Why was The Wounded Sky a good Trek novel?  Because Kirk spoke and acted like Kirk, and McCoy spoke and acted like McCoy.  Once a writer does that, I’m much more willing to sit through whatever story they might wish to tell, but if a writer can not do that…I’m out.  All that is a long way of leading into  the strength of this book.  When Faust puts words into Walter’s mouth, I hear and see John Noble.  When she puts words into Belly’s mouth, I hear and see Leonard Nimoy.  After that, it’s all gravy.

    The story deals with early stage explorations into the mind altering drugs and reality breaking research that is the backstory of Fringe.  Bishop, Bell, and Sharp come together in the early 70s and lay conceptual groundwork for their lives, building the foundation of all that will lead to the events of the TV series.  And this is the stuff I loved about the show.  I’m really fascinated by all that post 60s, post hippie Utopian insanity.  Like the Dharma Initiative on Lost or The Arboria Institute from Beyond the Black Rainbow.  Or experimental hospitals in movies like Rabid and The Brood.  People with nothing but the best of intentions, trying to craft a new, better world, but with dire and sometimes apocalyptic consequences.  Some combination of drugs, the Cold War, profound social change, and wild tech growth created a weird time where almost anything seemed possible.  A time when two science nerds tripping balls in a park might just open a rift to another world, or find a way to boost human evolution.  I’ll admit, the Zodiac killer didn’t particularly interest me.  This is largely due to my ambivalence toward serial killer history and fiction.  It’s well handled, and I think the scenes written from his point of view are appropriately creepy and disquieting.  But due to my own interests and prejudices, I kept wanting the scenes to end so I could get back to Walter, Nina, and Belly, or the student researchers, or even the psychedelic rock band trying to change the world with their music, man.  I can’t imagine there are a lot of people like myself, who would love to read a novel about the founding of Massive Dynamics, and their early research work, without need of a monster or villain.  I should probably just pop on a few more prog-rock albums, watch Videodrome, and be content.

    If you’re a Fringe fan, absolutely check this book out.  It’s nice supplementary material that builds the world a bit more and gives details on the early lives of some major players.  If you’re a Christa Faust fan, you should enjoy her typical cracking action, natural dialog, and uncomfortable violence.  It is a tie-in to a PG-13 type show, so the violence is more restrained than in Choke Hold or Money Shot.  But it doesn’t feel false or too sanitized.  If you’re like me, and a fan of both, this is a no-brainer.  Read it.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (1/20/13-1/26/13)

    Sunday, after watching a movie, Brad, Ben, and I hit up a pretty cool little music shop, CD Cellar, and the only really good used book store I’ve found since moving to Virginia, Hole in the Wall Books.  Scored a few cool books and disks (found some Carl Nielsen, for crying out loud!).


The Last Stand:  You know I’m glad Arnold is back to doing movies.  Sadly, this one never hits its stride, or figures out a tone.  It tries to be funny, but isn’t that funny.  It isn’t really much of an action film, as there’s only a couple bits of action.  It’s not shot well.  The villain is exceptionally lame.  And Arnold seems out of practice.  Still, there are moments.  A few.  And I hope this is just one quick stumble on the path to Old Arnold being a silver screen staple from now on.  And hey, it’s still better than Collateral Damage or End of Days.  Sadly, I think something gets lost when Korean or Hong Kong directors try to make movies in the States.  I’m not the biggest fan of Korean film anyway (It’s called pacing! Look in to it!), but The Good The Bad The Weird was really good.  So I had a bit more hope for this one.  However, it completely lacks that certain energy of Asian films, while also lacking the pacing or script of good American movie.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl:  “But you have heard of me.”  Honestly, I was never much for pirate movies.  With the exception of Yellowbeard, I don’t think there was a one I really liked.  The time period had a lot to do with it.  They’re from that in-between time, from around the dawn of the Renaissance to the late 1800s that is a sort of historical dead zone in my interest.  But I’m also not really in to nautical films in general (I hate submarine stories, for example).  So, when this movie came along, and based on a ride at Disneyland no less, I had understandably low expectations.  Imagine my surprise when this turned out to be a shockingly fun adventure movie with enough humor and horrific fantasy to keep it spicy.  Good action, solid cast, nice music and a pretty good tale.  It prompted me to go back and watch more of the old classic pirate movies.  Unfortunately, I didn’t like them.  Still, this one is good.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest:  “Look!  An undead monkey.  Top that.”  Oh, Jack, that wobbling, crackpot jackanape.  He’s up to his old tricks, and it’s trouble for friend and foe alike.  Fancy Will Turner gets roped into a quest to screw over Captain Jack so he can save his lady love.  It’s pretty much just more of the same, though because they were filming back to back, the filmmakers were able to set more up with the knowledge that a third film would tie things up.  And of course, it allows for a cliffhanger ending.  Filled with new and disgusting underwater nasties (seriously disgusting henchmen), daring-do, drunken stumbling, and adventure.  The cast does a fine job.  The movie looks good.  The Music is nice.  The Black Spot.  And of course, the Kraken.  It reminds me of my youth, picking over old reports of sea monsters throughout the ages.  Giant squids that would suck down sailing ships.  I used to eat that stuff up.

Pina:  “You just have to get crazier.”  Look, I’m the first one to admit I don’t get interpretive dance.  I know there’s some kind of meaning in what I’m seeing, but that meaning remains mostly obscure to me.  So much of it seems like random bits of other dance, like some kind of physical jazz.  But, divorcing it from meaning, I understand fit bodies displaying physical agility.  And this movie has plenty of that.  I’m not a fan of groups of people doing the same dance movies in unison.  I think I’ve been affected by too many pop music videos, where that became the standard like a guitar solo in an 80s rock tune, crammed in even when it doesn’t belong.  Visually, though, this film is really something.  I wish I’d gotten the chance to see it in 3D (and I don’t say that very often).  The format is odd, with performances broken up with dancers talking about Pina Bausch, except they’re not talking.  It’s all in voice over while they sit there looking all artistic. What’s up with French Tobin Bell and hand dancing David Bowie?  And the factory veal dance?  I don’t know.  It is interesting to see this group of dancers, some who were with Pina for decades, reminisce and do some of their numbers.  Like so many artists (dancers and singers especially), these people seem deeply emotionally damaged, and that weird mix of narcissistic exhibitionist and shy introvert.  Like interpretive dance, I don’t think I really got this movie.  I started tuning out after the first 45 minutes or so.  Also, I know this is kind of a little thing, especially in the era of the internet, but the credits are pretty much unreadable, which is something I always find annoying.  The commentary by Wim Wenders is actually far more informative, if that’s the word.  I only listened to about 5 or 10 minutes, but I kind of regret not having it on during my first viewing.  Who knew?

Red Sonja:  “Only women may touch it.”  There was a time when Richard Fleischer made really cool movies.  But somewhere along the way he lost it, and then he made Conan the Destroyer.  Not content with destroying all that had been done in Conan the Barbarian, by turning it into a comic book style joke, he then made this steaming turd.  As so often happens, the very essence of Howard is gutted in the opening scene, making our hero a product of fate and magic, not self made, as Howard’s heroes are.  Especially annoying is that the production design looks pretty good and the music isn’t bad.  And they have a much more appropriate actress for Sonja in the film.  Sandahl Bergman can’t act to save her life, but she’s no worse than Brigitte Nielsen, and at least she looks the part.  Actually, the actress who played Sonja’s sister would have been better.  They had a lot of the technical stuff they needed.  Just not a script or any concept of Robert E. Howard’s writing or philosophy.  Seriously, the script is awful.  If it weren’t for the obvious money that went into the crafting of the film and the appearance of Cona…I mean Kalidor, it wouldn’t even rank up there with the Deathstalker films.  Oh man, and then there’s the little kid king and his goofus slave.  Ugh.

"Let us slay English together!"

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning:  What does ‘graphic nudity’ mean in an MPAA rating?  To me, there’s nudity and not nudity.  Graphic nudity seems to mean something else, but I can’t imagine what that is.  Anyway, the second in this new batch of Universal Soldier movies, following up the shockingly good Universal Soldier: The Regeneration is pretty good.  These films do kind of what I’d like to do with Hellraiser; go back to the original concept, rework it, and make it a solid, fairly well thought out, serious take on a cool idea.  This one feels like they have a bigger budget, as it is filmed in North America, not Eastern Europe.  Although, all the girls still seem Eastern European.  The Plummer, who appears to be played by Gerard Butler’s hideous twin brother is kind of awesome.  Dolph Lungren is becoming beautifully old, and Van Damme is terrifying.  The film’s cult of super soldiers storyline is cool, and it features some crazy super-brawls.

The Night Caller (aka Night Caller from Outer Space, aka Blood Beast from Outer Space):  There’s something just a little different about the way the Brits were making horror/science fiction back in the 50s and 60s.  Much the same stories, the same shoddy costumes and effects as their American counterparts.  But while the destination was the same, the journey was so different.  From odd narrative progression, where fifteen minutes in, the two leads disappear for a half hour, replaced by totally different characters, to the strange and probably unnecessary bits of off topic character interplay, a lot of these movies have a specific charm that is pretty much unique to the UK.  (For a slightly more modern example of what I’m talking about, look at Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce).  This feels a lot like a story from the Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who (but with better pacing).  The creature is pretty lame, but the movie is well worth checking out for the colorful cast and good dialog.  The interplay between the pornographer and the cop alone is worth the effort.

Invasion of Astro-Monster (aka Godzilla VS Monster Zero):  “We’re glad we found friends on Planet X.”  When a couple of dudes take a rocket ship to a mysterious planet, they find much more than they expect.  Those crazy cats from Planet X are ready to get all up in Earth’s business with a giant, gold, three headed beast that spits lightning.  Bah-BAM!  And then they kidnap and control Rodan and Godzilla.  Dude.  Who does that?  Obviously, you have to watch out for the sexy femme fatale.  Especially when she’s not alone.  Nick Adams and Akira Takarada are really fun leads, and play well together.  And I’m always, always glad to see King Ghidorah.  He’s still probably my single favorite giant monster.

Zombie Lake:  “No one knows how I feel, and neither do you.”  Jean Rollin does his thing… this time, with zombies.  Using Jess Franko’s dude-muse (like Tim Burton’s Johnny Depp) Howard Vernon who looks like he’s about to give up the ghost himself.  The zombies look terrible, and unfortunately the camera lingers long enough that you can’t help but notice.  You can see a lot of Rollin’s usual flourishes, but they don’t feel right.  The pacing doesn’t work with the subject, and the dubbing is downright awful, which doesn’t help things at all.  Not just that the voice acting is bad, which it is.  But the English script doesn’t make any danged sense.  When the VW bus full of girls shows up at the lake, though, you’re really reminded that Rollin was an artist, man.  An artist.  Zombie movie fans will almost certainly be disappointed with its focus on a weird love story and a myth shrouded lake (it’s really more of a ghost story), and Rollin fans will likely miss the dreamlike feel of his usual work that only very occasionally peaks its head out here.  I do have to ask, if the child was born during the second World War, how come she’s only like 12 in 1980?  The lesson this movie reminds us of is, like gremlins, don’t ever get Nazis wet.   If anyone wants to know what to get me for Christmas, the mayor’s castle would be A-OK in my book.

Seriously, this is from the movie.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End:  “No cause is lost, if there is but one fool left to fight for it.”  This third installment in the swashbuckling fantasy adventure series is full of the expected danger, daring do, grim characters, and exotic locations.  As the series has progressed, it has become less and less accurately titled, as they’ve sailed quite a distance from the Caribbean.  Of course, the big twists at the end of the second film changes the course of events.  With one hero dead and one villain risen from the grave, all bets are off.  A journey to the nastiest looking Asian port ever put on film is a clear necessity.  All the crazy pirate lore they build in these films is pretty cool.  Nine pieces of eight, the Pirate’s Code, the Flying Dutchman, the black spot, Shipwreck Cove, sea turtles, Calypso, and all kinds of wild snippets of crazy old Pirate tales.  Grand.  The climactic whirlpool battle is overblown and overlong.  But otherwise, it’s a fine finish to a trilogy (of course, there would be more to come).

The Devil Came from Akasava:  “Just go to hell, please.”  It’s Jess Franco!  Luckily, this was early enough in his career that Franco hadn’t devolved completely into the turd maestro he would soon become.  There were still some hints of possible talent allowed to slip into his movies.  The man works his zooms like a Terry Crews works his delts.  I was waiting for the zoom that went microscopic, but sadly, like a good script, that was beyond Franco.  Typical of this type of film, especially when Franco is involved, it feels like key scenes are missing.  A guy walks into a room, suddenly it’s several days later and there’s a whole story about that guy having been killed in his jeep in the jungle.  What?  When did that happen?  Shouldn’t we have seen something about that?  Also, as a side note, posing like you’re in a photo-shoot is not dancing.  If I went to see a dancer and she did that, I’d be less than thrilled.  No matter how cute she was.  Whatever the case, somewhere around the 45 minute mark, I started to tune out.  Considering how little seems to actually be going on, it’s way too long.

Taking no guff.

    I finally tried getting back into reading some monthly comics.  Brad hooked me up with a pile, but the pile kept getting bigger and I wasn’t even making a dent.  So, I finished off The Creep, with its fourth issue.  That’s a big ‘meh.’  It started out seemingly like it might be a really interesting weird mystery, but it ended up being pretty bland, with a reveal that wasn’t all that shocking or surprising.  The main character feels like he should be in a totally different story.  This just came off as an episode of Law & Order.

    After that, I had much more fun reading issues 2 and 3 of the new Fantastic Four.  This is the kind of thing the first family of Marvel should be doing.  Every time Reed exists on Earth for more than six months and the East Coast hasn’t become a technological utopia, the comic doesn’t ring true.  So, here we have him and his band rocketing through space having crazy adventures.  The Fantastic Four are really a ‘cosmic’ group, and like similar comics (Silver Surfer, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the like), they should be in space (and/or time), fighting robots and aliens and all kinds of crazy stuff.

    In spite of a lot of mistreatment, deep down inside, I’m still a Star Wars fan.  Or at least, I want to be.  And for the most part, Dark Horse has been the one ray of light for this fan for like 20 years.  Not all the comics are good, but until the Clone Wars CGI series, the only good Star Wars in decades were in comic form.  And I’m kind of itching to do a Star Wars RPG, which would almost certainly be set in or around the original film’s time.  So, I figured I’d try out Agent of the Empire: Hard Targets.  The look of the cover, the subject, and the character design was all very 70s, so I was kind of hoping it would tap into that Han Solo/Lando adventure novel vibe.  It does not.  There’s potential for some cool stuff here, but right off the bat, I don’t like Agent Cross.  The time period (a couple years before Yavin) is perfect for expanding the universe.  But this feels like too many Star Wars stories, too attached to the original movies, going to the same places, meeting the same characters, dealing with the same issues.  With all the universe to explore, we just keep going over the same territory.  The art is OK.  As usual with Star Wars comics, it doesn’t wow, but it looks good enough to do the job.

    Issue 1 of the new Dark Horse ongoing Star Wars comic holds more promise.  Though again, we’re dealing with characters we already know, the writing works a bit better and the vibe of the first couple movies is more present.  It looks like this will be a bridge story between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, which of course, has already been done.  Still, a fairly good read and I’ll be curious to see where it goes.

    One of the best series out there right now is Godzilla: The Half Century War.  The penultimate issue drops Space Godzilla and Mechagodzilla into a three way battle with our old friend.  And long suffering giant-monster hunter Ota is there for the action.  And this time he gets to strike a blow for the Earth, in an unlikely way.  And man, that last panel.  I can’t wait for the final issue, though I don’t want it to end.

    “Our compass is curiosity.  Our destination is the infinite.”  So, I read FF (Future Foundation), issue 1 & 2, and they were oddly charming.  The art is kind of awful, but with this crazy 60s vibe that fits well with the series.  And Matt Fraction seems to have embraced that same 60s crazy that make The Fantastic Four popular all those decades ago.  It even feels like he’s got some kind of handle on the idea that these people are actively building the future, not just a bunch of weirdoes living in NYC.  There’s almost a Marvel equivalent of Batman: Brave and the Bold to it, as they drag out some weird, weird characters.  Lockjaw, man.  Lockjaw.

    DC’s The Phantom Stranger is an odd, and potentially really interesting series.  It’s connections to the more mystical characters like Captain Marvel (or, I guess they’re calling him Shazam now), could make for some good Creepy/Eerie type tales.  And it feels natural that it might mix up with Swamp Thing and Animal Man, but who knows.  And the art work also reflects that old horror comic style.  I’d almost rather see it in black & white.

    I also finally finished Infidel, which I’d started quite a while back, but put up for a bit while I was busy with other things.  Good book.  And I read Christa Faust’s Double-D Double Cross, which was a fun, quick read.

-Matt

Book Review: Double-D Double Cross

“I needed a cold shower.  Or a hot woman.”

    If you’ve read my reviews, you know one of my favorite active writers out there is Christa Faust.  I don’t remember when I stumbled across her blog, but I know it was quite a while back, ’cause I remember when she announced her first Hard Case Crime book (check out Money Shot!).  I was hooked wicked fast (still living in Maine at the time), and started grabbing everything I could.  Though I never did find that Snakes on a Plane novelization.  I gotta get on that.  Anyway, a couple years ago (I think it’s been that long), she put out hard boiled lesbian detective e-book. It meant little to me at the time, as I’m a lover of the printed page and had no ability or interest in the whole digital book business.  Buuuut, eventually, the e-book craze did capture my attention when I borrowed a friend’s Nook and was able to get a bunch of classic science fiction you just can’t find in print (at least, not at prices I’m ever going to be able to pay).  An then, I was able to get Faust’s crazy alternate world crime novel Hoodtown, which I’d been searching for in print for a dog’s age.  Anyway, fast forward a spell and I now possess a Nook myself, and my first book had to be something from Faust.  The first e-book adventure of Butch Fatale I got when I supported her Kickstarter project for book two.  That’s right.  I’m a patron of the arts.

    Again, if you’ve read much I’ve written, and certainly if you’ve ever met me, you know I’m a pretty square guy.  I once said of myself (and I think it’s still true) that if they ever ran out of vanilla extract, they could just use Matt extract and nobody would notice.  But I know it’s a big world out there, and while I don’t always understand it, I know there are a lot of different ways of living, and as long as everyone is legal and consenting, it’s all jake with me.  I don’t seek out LGBT material, because frankly, I just don’t care.  So, this marks my first excursion into the world of lesbian fiction, if there is such a thing.  That kind of implies that there might be lesbian earth science, or lesbian SAT guides.  Anyway, I mean, it’s fiction and it features a lesbian lead.  And a hefty amount of graphic, sweaty sex with no dudes present.  Does explicit sex push it into the realm of erotica?  I wouldn’t think so, but I don’t know how such things work.  Whatever the case, it also features all the gut-punching, ball busting, eye gouging violence and pulp flavored toughness fans of Faust should expect.  For me, Christa Faust is like reading Christopher Hitchens.  I’m not so much worried what she’s writing about, I just like the way she writes.

    I can never remember which author (was it Chandler?) had that great line about writers block.  Something like, ‘if you’re not sure what to write, have a hand come through the door with a gun and start shooting.’  It feels like Faust may have taken that idea and made it her First Commandment.  The book is not long.  Less than 200 pages.  And it moves at an extremely fast pace.  Part of the reason is that well before a scene begins to lull or a conversation starts to run long, something awful and violent happens.  Gun shots, saps, scary dudes with nice watches...Kevin.  Well, Kevin was pretty cool, actually, in that Mark Wahlberg/mentally challenged puppy kind of way.  It hurls at you like a speeding train.  There are a lot of twists and turns and action sequences packed into a small page count.  And though sometimes quite grim and bloody, the whole thing has a lighter, more wry tone than say, Choke Hold, which nearly put me in a depression (so good, but so relentlessly brutal).  The final beach chase of Double-D Double Cross would probably have me doubled up with laughter if it were a movie, which couldn’t be said for any part of Choke Hold (I’d need a shower, steel wool, and a healthy bosom to burry my face in and cry if I saw a movie version of that).  If you’ve enjoyed Faust’s other work, you should find plenty here to love.  And I’m looking forward to Butch Fatale’s next outing.

Double-D Double Cross: A Butch Fatale Caper
Author: Christa Faust
Format: e-book

-Matt

Kevin?

Matt’s Week in Dork! (7/29/12-8/4/12)

    A lot of TV this week, especially from the 70s.  There’s an odd quality to the women in film and TV of the 70s, a certain fresh-faced look that you don’t tend to see in other decades as much.  Each decade has a type that tends to be more popular, but there’s something about the 70s I’ve been really digging lately.  I was also thinking about the fashion, and how I think we need to have something of a return to dressing up.  What I mean is, we’ve become, I think, too casual as a society.  Now, I’m not against casual.  But I think, for going out, for going to special places, we should take more time in how we dress.  We probably shouldn’t be going to the museum or a nice restraint wearing shorts, for example.  Anyway, off my soapbox and on with the Dork…

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries: Season 1:  This show is awesomely 70s-tastic, from the opening to the fashion to the music.  It’s great.  I’m not as big a fan of the Hardy Boys episodes.  The two leads, especially the (confusingly) teen heartthrob Shaun Cassidy, are pretty darned wooden.  But the Nancy Drew stories are much better, with good supporting cast and solid mysteries.  Plus, Pamela Sue Martin’s outfits are amazing.  She should have been one of Charlie’s Angels.

Doctor Who: Frontios:  I love how 80s this episode is.  The music, the costumes, the hair, the whole vibe of it is very, very 80s.  Stuffed shirt military folks rule over a half-dead colony of a near gone, far distant human race.  As usual, there is some kind of hidden secret, lurking beneath the surface (literally in this case).  It’s One of the better Peter Davison stories.  I just keep thinking about how important good companions are, and how Davison is really weighted down with bad ones.  And he has pretty much the same people through his run.  Alas.

Batman The Animated Series: Season 1:  In the afterglow of 1989’s crazy hit Batman, this groundbreaking animated series somehow rose above the extended toy commercials and neutered silliness that was American animation at that time.  Taking elements from across the spectrum of Batman’s rich history, and filtering it through a retro-futurist art deco style, not unlike Max Fleischer’s Superman cartoons of old.  The subjects are taken seriously, the writing is generally good and sometimes excellent, and the art design is awesome.  Until Batman begins, this was my favorite handling of the character and his crime-ridden city.  As a side note, in the episode ‘See no Evil,’ that cop has to have the best animated expression for a guy who just needs to use the rest room…real bad.

The Hunter:  Willem Dafoe plays a professional hunter hired to go into the wilds of Tasmania to find evidence of a thought to be extinct, semi-mythological animal.  But there are many dangers to face, only some of them in the natural world.  Local loggers don’t take kindly to science-types.  Environmentalists don’t like hunters.  And someone might have already killed to protect some secret.  Defoe is excellent as always, and knows how to do a lot without saying a lot.  And the man loves a good bath.  I also really like Frances O’Connor.  She’s always been a charmer, and it’s especially nice to hear her natural accent.  But as she’s getting older, I’m loving the lines of her face even more.

The Ritual:  Shot on extremely low quality video, this movie looks like a student made film.  I’m assuming it’s extremely, and I mean extremely low budget.  It delves into some weirdass Irish mythology and some stuff about the Celts being the ‘original  master race.’  Whatever.  It feels like the director and equipment weren’t up to the subject and actors.  If that makes sense.  I think I queued this because after the failure of The Wicker Tree to live up, I was still in the mood for some pagan myth based modern horror/fantasy.  But, while the subject is still interesting, this movie isn’t very good.

Wonder Woman: Season 1: “In her satin tights, fighting for her rights.”  Oh, man.  I totally need to wash up on Paradise Island.  Seriously.  That may be the best thing that’s ever happened to anyone in the whole history of everything.  The queen may be bats%$& crazy, but it’s pretty amazing, none the less.  Whoever greenlit this show should be made Sheriff of America.  This seems like it would make a good companion to Adam West’s Batman series.  It’s not quite as camp, but it’s on the same track.  The more I watch, the more I think it’s intentionally bad.  The awkward pauses when Wonder Woman is…thinking(?) are awesomely weird.  Not to mention those crazy intense smiles she gives just before the credits.  I can totally see why Lynda Carter was one of my first childhood crushes, but looking at her with an adult eye, I don’t think she’s really much of a role model.  The show’s pro-women stance has more than a little condescension lurking just below the surface.

The Most Dangerous Game:  “Kill!  Then love.  When you have known that, you have known ecstasy.”  The world was still a mysterious place, filled with shadowed jungles, forbidding islands, and dark secrets when The Most Dangerous Game came along.  A shipwreck could still place a man on an uncharted island with a madman for a host.  The ethics of hunting are explored in a remote and deadly land.  Count Zaroff really is right.  The only way you can call hunting a sport is if you’re on even ground with your prey, so for a human, it would have to be a human.  Which is why I refuse to call it a sport.  Fay Wray sure was a cutie, though her character was sort of typical for movies of this type, screaming a lot.  Many of the people involved in this film, in front of and behind the camera, would go on to make King Kong next, and the two films are kindred spirits.  Zaroff’s island certainly seems to be in the same part of the world as Skull Island.  I can’t help but want the final moments to the chase to look like the end of 28 Days Later, with the hero baptized in his foe’s blood.  Alas, as brutal as this movie is, there were still some grounds left unexplored in the 30s.  But I’ll tell you, fistfights were a heck of a lot more brutal back then, when they’d keep the action at a distance so you could actually see it, unlike today’s super close-up, shaky cam stuff.

    My second viewing of The Dark Knight Rises cements it as an excellent finish to the trilogy.  What is started in Batman Begins ends here.  Bane is handled well.  There are a couple good twists and surprising appearances of iconic characters.  It is interesting that two polar opposite iconic comic movies came out this summer.  The Avengers is the silly insanity of comics allowed to run wild and The Dark Knight Rises is an attempt to make the over-the-top as ‘real world’ as possible.  Both films are shockingly successful in the attempt.

    Finally, after a very, very, very long wait, I got the first two disks of Game of Thrones in.  Nice production value.  Good cast.  Peter Dinklage is straight-up awesome.  Not that he seems to be hurting for work, but that man needs to be in more stuff.  Can’t wait to see where his story goes.  Watching this show really makes me wish someone with some guts would get down to business and make a serious attempt at adapting Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories.  It could be done.

    Just before going out to see The Dark Knight Rises for a second time, with Ben, Paul, and Sarah, I read the New 52 Batman annual #1 about Mr. Freeze (part of the ‘Night of the Owls’ event.  It was pretty good.  A nice twist on one of the more interesting villains in Batman’s rogues gallery.  Mr. Freeze is up there with Harvey Dent and Catwoman for this reader.  Plenty to make the character potentially interesting, even if it doesn’t always come through.  I really like the coloring in this, by Peter Steigerwald.  The art is nice, but the coloring gives it a particular vibe, kind of like the European comics I tend to like more.  This wouldn’t look out of place in the pages of Heavy Metal.

    X-O Manowar’s third issue has our hero fully embraced by the armor, killing green aliens left and right.  The issue feels extremely short, though it has what I guess is a big reveal at the end.  I never read the original, so this was something of a surprise (I guess).  But I gather it’s in keeping with the earlier comic series.  It also has a brief preview for Archer & Armstrong, which is probably the Valiant title I’m most interested in.  If I understand right, these titles are all supposed to tie in to each other in some way.  Not sure how I feel about that, but we’ll see.

    The second issue of Minutemen, from the Before Watchman comics was pretty good.  I like Darwin Cooke’s work, and I think he’s good for this sort of thing.  Captures enough of the vibe of the original work and has enough of its own thing going on to make it worth reading.  Watchmen creates an interesting setting that has the potential for good stories.  I still don’t know that this whole Before Watchmen thing was a good idea, but at least Minutemen is pretty good.

    I tried reading Rocket Raccoon: Guardian of the Keystone Quadrant, with super early art from Mike Mignola.  But it was really, really not good.  Just bad 70s/80s Marvel Comics writing.  Silly and ultimately boring.  With the insanity of the announcement this past San Diego Comic-Con of a Guardians of the Galaxy film leading into Avengers 2, I figured I should check it out.  But nah.  It’s not good.

    After a bit of delay, I sat down and finished Christa Faust’s Choke Hold.  Dang.  Read my review here.  I also read the second collection of Invincible.  Read my review here.  And I started re-reading Habibi for the next meeting of Lisa’s graphic novel book club.

    A good week, but fairly quiet.  I have been trying to do more home cooking again, to some success.  It’s healthier and cheaper, and I actually love doing it.  But sometimes, I’m just on the run so much it doesn’t happen, and I get out of the habit.

-Matt