Kraken

China Mieville
Pan Books

A dark urban fantasy thriller from one of the all-time masters of the genre.
Deep in the research wing of the Natural History Museum is a prize specimen, something that comes along much less often than once in a lifetime: a perfect, and perfectly preserved, giant squid. But what does it mean when the creature suddenly and impossibly disappears?
For curator Billy Harrow it's the start of a headlong pitch into a London of warring cults, surreal magic, apostates and assassins. It might just be that the creature he's been preserving is more than a biological rarity: there are those who are sure it's a god.
A god that someone is hoping will end the world.

Well, what a chore that turned out to be.  I'd tried reading a Mieville book the other year and failed miserably.  At the time I put it down to my ambivalence towards stories with aliens in.  I still think that was the case but I'm pretty sure that his prose style would have finished me off not long into it.

This one, 481 page novel, took me the best part of 4 weeks to get through.  I was determined to get to the end but by god (Kraken) it was a chore.

The story itself wasn't the problem; it's one in a long line of magical London stories featuring various religious cults, magic assassins and elemental avatars.  The characters are solid and the story is inventive enough but the way he writes is like wading through mud.  There was no sense of momentum; you could read for an evening and discover you were only 20 pages from where you started.  I like a book that pulls you through the pages as quickly as it pulls you through the plot and this just wasn't one of those.

I'm glad I read it because I wanted to read at least one of his but this I think will be the only one.

My Dead Girlfriend

Eric Wright
Tokyopop

When Finney falls in love with a girl who also happens to be a ghost, he decides to stop at nothing to win her heart, even if that means his own death. This book is a playful reflection on the tribulations of adolescence set in a place where the inhabitants are scarier than the horrors of school, dating, and puberty.

A random charity shop find leads me down a new path for me, American manga.

The story is of a young lad, the only 'normal' in a school full of ghosts and ghoulies.  He lives with the ghosts of his parents and ancestors and is in full knowledge that he'll end his days in a manner most ridiculous.  Then, into his life comes the girl of his dreams but there is, of course, a problem, she's also a ghost.

The whole thing looks and reads like a fairly innocuous US animated series and there's very little to actually hang onto.  The art is clean and clear and the story rolls along but it just isn't very engaging.  It is essentially vapid but not complete dreck.

A Sickness in the Family - Denise Mina & Antonio Fuso

Mina was the writer of a couple of Hellblazer arcs a little while back which I have here but have no memory of reading which doesn't bode well for this. 'A Sickness...' concerns life and death in a dysfunctional Scottish family.

The book is good if a little silly in parts. There's a nice amount of twists and turns and the ending is open. The art gives one part away too early in the game but that's a small quibble. On the whole very enjoyable and I think I should head over to the shelf and drag out those Hellblazer volumes.

Apocalypse of the Dead - Joe McKinney

This is the 2nd in McKinney's trilogy of zombie novels. Whereas the first was a fairly simple survival story about a Houston cop trying to get home this one is on a much larger scale.

The infection has spread and spread fast.  Pretty much overnight the US has fallen to the hordes.  The story follows several groups of people, a very cool retired US Marshal along with the other residents of his old peoples home and an escaped con he's stuck with.  A party bus full of rich kids and porn stars, an immune redneck and the doctor trying to synthesize a cure, a party of escapees from the original outbreak led by an insane cop and finally 'The Family', a group of religious nuts led by the very mad Jasper Sewell.

The story tracks all the groups journeys across the country until  they arrive at the grasslands camp that The Family have set up and are running.  It seems like a haven but it's not long before Jasper's mania becomes noticeable and everything goes profoundly wrong.

I really enjoyed this book.  Zombie novels are generally fairly crappy affairs but this one had a bit of scope and a vision that raised it's head up.  There were chunks of it that I just didn't  like - some of The Family stuff and Jasper in particular was just too far fetched - but on the whole it seemed like a nice run.

McKinney has a very personable writing style and I'm looking forward to tackling the third one.

Dead City - Joe McKinney

A half-decent zombie book is a real rarity so it was a real pleasure to come across this first in a trilogy completely by accident.

McKinney apparently is a cop so the prime character in this boom comes as no surprise and there are several long moments of fairly pointless detours into copworld but on the whole this is a fairly enjoyable little first night of infection romp as the hero cop attempts to get home to his wife and kid.

There's a fair bit of schmaltz and no real depth to what plot there is but it is an entertaining enough way to pass a couple of hours.

Hellblazer: Pandemonium - Jamie Delano & Jock

And it's like he never went away. Delano once again proves why he's the quintessential Constantine writer. The other have all grabbed a bit of him - Ennis really got the romantic manipulator, Warren Ellis got the heart of gold, Azzarello the scary bastard and Carey the family man - Delano's version is all of these and more. He is scarily well realised and a wonderful bastard to boot.

Constantine is forcefully pulled into the Iraqi war by some deeply unwise government spooks and is sent out to participate in the interrogation of a captured Iraqi who has been doing some weird shot. Along the way he meets a friendly native before discovering that an old nemesis is one of the major players in the situation.
It's a lovely little one piece story filled with humour and warmth and ridiculous devilry. It's beautifully painted by Jock with a real sense of dislocation to the art.

I'd love it if they got Delano back on the title but that's not likely.

The Courtyard - Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows

Garth Ennis’ introduction opens with the line, ‘Him and his bloody Cthulu!’ which is as apt a sum up of this book as I ever could have thought up.

The Courtyard is the place wherein our protagonist (a nasty little functioning sociopath working for the FBI) is led whilst trailing the murderer of two people.  His investigation leads him to a rock club where act and audience are speaking in Lovecraftian word salad.  Thinking that the reasons his murderer and the three that preceded him are connected is a drug called Aklo bought from this club.  In truth the drug is in actual fact a language that taps into other /elder perspectives that open his mind to the, I suppose, demon realms.

It was all a bit thin really.  48 pages was nowhere near enough and the whole thing felt both bogged down in the word-salad and distinctly light on plot and development.

Aliens in the Mind - Robert Holmes & Rene Basilico

Originally starting life as a proposed Doctor Who script (Second Doctor) this was later made into this fantastic sci-fi serial starring real-life friends Peter Cushing and Vincent Price as old college friends – eminent brain surgeon John Cornelius and his laconic college friend and parapsychologist Curtis Lark.

I’m very pleased that it was turned down.  Cushing & Price are in phenomenal form trading banter and handling the often pretty absurd banter with aplomb.  And, let’s be honest here they both have amazing voices that I could listen to all day.

The story details their discovery (via another old friend) of colony of telepathic ‘mutants’ on a small Scottish island.  Amongst their number they identify two women they describe as ‘controllers’, mutants who can control the actions of other mutants.  Their investigation into this phenomena leads them to London and an attempt to take over the government.  Which they foil in what must be said is an anticlimactic ending.

The whole thing is gloriously dated and sublimely archaic and great, great, great fun.

Hellboy vol 2: Wake the Devil - Mike Mignola

Absolutely fantastic from start to finish.  This second volume utterly surpassed  the first volume.

The plot relating to the re-awakening nazi followers of Rasputin and the vampire they are attempting to restore.  Hellboy arrives and with much punching and wrestling he brings an end to their scheming.

Considering this is still the very early days (in terms of volumes obviously. I know it's been around for years) of Hellboy it's remakable just how deeply rendered the backstory already is.  It's cool to see mentions of things that even I know will go on to become significant aspects of the mythos - such as Sir Edward Grey.

Fabulously written and sumptuously drawn. An absolute joy.

Hellboy vol.1: Seed of Destruction - Mike Mignola & John Byrne

The first collection of Hellboy stories and it is cracker.  I've actually read more of the Hellboy spin-offs than I have the actual books.  I've even seen more Hellboy films than I have read the books.;  It's nice then to finally get to grips with one of them especially as I have book 2 waiting in the wings also.

The art, as you'd imagine, is beautiful and full of shade and nuance.  From the off both Hellboy and Rasputin are both forceful and dynamic on the page.  I'm not a big fan of the whole Lovecraft pantheon type stuff but here, kept to a minimum, it works well.

The story is an origin tale that gives away very little with regard to H's origin.  It has a nicely Gothic setting and things aren't quite what they seem.

Lots of fun to read and I wholeheartedly intend to catch up on the ones I don't have.

American Vampire vol.1 - Scott Snyder, Stephen King & Rafael Albuquerque

It took me a little while to get into this one. I had a couple of false starts before I found the vibe of it and really started reading it.

The story is of a newly created vampire. A new type of one that is particularly American.  His story is told in two parts - simultaneously.  One part (written by King) is Skinner Sweets' origin tale, his genesis.  It's set in the old west where Sweet, an outlaw, is captured, tries to escape, is turned, buried, escapes, is buried again and finally gets away.

The second tale set some 16 years later has Sweet acting out some sort of Machiavellian scheme against the old vampires.  He creates a new vamp (an actress) and sits back and watches her tear through the ranks of the old guard.

It was a strange little book this one.  It really never felt like it had any real clout.  The idea felt fuzzy and the two stories were never more than vaguely readable.  I'd check out the second volume should it ever be put in front of me but I'm glad my local library stocked this and I didn't buy it.

B.P.R.D.: Hollow Earth and Other Stories - Mike Mignola & others

I'd already read one of the later BPRD books so I was intrigued to check out this original one. It turns out to be an anthology book of five (maybe six) short tales.

The first, 'Hollow Earth', is a nice introduction to Johann Krauss - the disembodied astral projection in a rubber suit. The story sees him and the team rescuing Liz (the firestarter) from a subterranean monster type thingy waving a staff / sword doohickey similar to the one in the Witchfinder book I mentioned in an earlier post. It's a fine intro to the team - taking some other origin story sideroads along the way - and proved to be excellent fun.

The Lobster Johnson story - again his first - was also a bit of fun but was there ever a more naffly named character.

The only real low point came with the final story about the boats, drums & sharks which apart from being fairly mawkish had some of the ugliest art I've seen in a long long time.

I'm slowly building up my exposure to Hellboy and his assorted spin-offs. So far I'm very favourably impressed.

The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft - Mac Carter & Tony Salmons

What an absolute mess of a book, it's all over the place.

The story is an attempt to link old Howard into his own stories and drag his cosmology kicking and screaming into his biography. It's in trouble right from the off as it assumes too much familiarity on the part of the reader with HPL's life whilst not really giving one the chance to experience the mundane before the chaotic intrudes. It all boils down to some haunted book related twaddle and the demon who needs Howie-P to be the 'gate' into our world. It's a load of hackneyed piffle filled with characters who are paper thin and cliched to the level of a soap opera.

The art is OK. nothing particularly eye-catching but diverting enough from the script.

I've never been a HPL fan but thought I'd give this a shot. I'm now a fan of neither.

Zombo - Al Ewing & Henry Flint

A nice little 2000AD obscurity that I'd never heard of until a friend handed it to me on my birthday. Zombo is a genetically engineered zombie built to kill the other zombies created by the sentient worlds that humans are attempting to colonise - yes you did read that right.

Both the creators are names I'm familiar with but the only thing I can think of by either of them that I've read is Ewings 'El Sombra' steampunk novel that he did for the Pax Britannia series.

Zombo is typical 2000AD - completely gonzo and full of uber-violence. The book features several stories starting with Zombo and the passengers of a government flight crashing onto a deathworld. Most barely make it past the fifth page with the survivors soon being picked off by the local fauna and, strangely, a clan of mutated hillbillies and their game of Twister.

The second story is a silly little Xmas story with the third and final one being an all out zombie romp across an entertainment satellite (a la 5th Element) that riffs on Disney, the Rat Pack and Ocean's Eleven amongst others along the way.

All three tales are a laugh but it's the final one that was the winner for me. I was unsure of the book at first glance but I ended up thoroughly enjoying. Not vintage 2000AD but a good approximation.

Jennifer Love Hewitt's Music Box - Jennifer Love-Hewitt & Scott Lobdell

I got this on the same library run as that last waste of paper. This one wasn't anywhere near as bad but was to all (and I do mean all) intents and purposes a straight Twilight Zone and Hellraiser rip. Here though the puzzle box is replaced with a music box (see what she did there? Clever yeah? Yeah? No!) that gives you your hearts desire but takes your sanity.

The first story about the cop was probably my favourite and the art by Michael Gaydos was lovely - kinda reminded me of Ed Brubaker's Criminal series but with hints of Bill Sienkewicz. Most of the others were piss poor 'freaky' tales.

I'm glad I didn't buy it.

Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels - Mike Mignola & Ben Steinbeck

At this point I've not read much Hellboy, one GN, two BPRD GNs and a novel, but the ones I had read I really dug, Sure it gets a bit Lovecraft in places but I can forgive that if the rest is up to scratch. Witchfinder is a spin-off featuring Victorian occult detective to the Queen Sir Edward Grey.

The story deals with Grey investigating a series of deaths that are linioed with a bag of bonesfound on an archeological expedition. The investigation leads Grey and his new found friends through a deliciously grimey and inhospitable London full of violent and raggedy people and strange occultist and religious groups. The story's competent enough for an evenings read, I think I'm always going to prefer Mignola as an artist as opposed to as a writer.

The art by Steinbeck is very nice when it comes to scenery but he seems to struggle occasionally with the people, I do mean occasionally though.

In all it was all good outlandish fun. Lovecraft as reimagined by Hammer studios.

I am Legend - Richard Mattheson

I've wanted to read this novel for years. For those that don't know, it was filmed as 'The Omega Man' starring, that well known humanitarian, Charlton Heston. The basic premise of this book is that the worlds population has been turned into vampires (zombies in the movie) with the exception of one, lone, increasingly deranged / lonely / drunk man.

Unlike the movies' sanitised 'military man searching for a cure' premise the book's is a tale of an everyman trapped not only inside the walls of his, fortress like, home where he sits and drinks himself unconscious every night raging against his memories and desires, but also of a man trapped by his own fears and ignorance.

With this truly unique take on the vampire genre Mattheson takes us on a ride that is compelling and thrilling, culminating in a finale that's as unexpected as it is breathtaking.

Hellblazer: Hooked - Peter Milligan

This is the first of Milligan's run on this title that I've read. I've never been much of a fan - some of his Shade stuff was fun but on the whole his writing leaves me cold.

I'm distinctly unimpressed by his take on Constantine. Instead of the rogueish but comitted anarchist we have here what is generally known as a complete prick. He's just utterly unlikeable. Constantine is protrayed as in love but jilted so he send her wine laced with a love potion which is ridiculously out of character. There's a demon (left over from a previous book) roaming around, who JC also fucks over with the love potion and who subsequently off the love interest by which time I'd stopped caring. Finally there's another girl (the potioneer) who eventually ends up in a zombie induced coma much to the chagrin of her psycho gangster dad.

Garth Ennis wrote all this stuff years ago and way, way better. Only a couple of years ago Mike Carey did it better too. This is just weak.

The art in the first half is by 2 guys I've never heard of called Guiseppe Camuncoli & Stefano Landini. It's quite nice if a bit cartoony. The 2nd half is drawn by Simon Bisely. It's been a while since I saw anything new by him (Heavy Metal Dredd being the last) and this is OK but he typically does JC like some giant musclebound type which is simpy wrong.

On the whole this was poor bordering on piss poor or maybe even so far as 'pretty shit really'.