Comic Book Adaptation - Not Doing, but Falling

A post on my movie blog with relevance to comic books.

Not Doing, but Falling

The Long War

The Long War is the sequelt to Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's probability-hopping The Long Earth, a tale of human expansion into a frontier of infinite possibility.

In this second novel, Joshua Valliente is trying - and failing - to settle down, while his old partner Sally is stirring things up to protect the trolls and other humanoids who inhabit the Long Earth but, never having experienced the pressure of being restrained to a single reality, lack humankind's technological edge and his father in law is heading a drive for US colonies in the stepwise Earths to declare independence from the Datum (original) Earth.

The Long Earth was an interesting work of speculative fiction, and The Long War continues that. It's political aspects are perhaps more successful than some of the more dramatic episodes detailing Joshua and Sally's adventures among the hyper-aggressive 'Beagles', and the heart of the novel is actually their friend and ally, critically ill former cop Monica Jansson, who stands out from the ensemble in coming across as a real person. As with many harder SF titles, The Long War's ideas are better than the characters who surround them.

While it has its flaws, The Long War is still a good book, if radically different from anything else Pratchett has published. If Baxter's touch is more visible in the broad strokes, however, Pratchett is there in the details, and especially in many of the character moments. It's worth the read, but I will definitely be waiting for the paperback price on The Long Mars.

The Man from UNDEAD: Zombie Apocalypse Now and Do Dragons Dream of Burning Sheep

Off the success of The Curious Case of the Kidnapped Chemist I picked up an omnibus of Darren Humphries' first three 'Man from UNDEAD' novels on Kindle.

The omnibus cover actually has more curvy
silhouettes than the books have significant female
(or in fact male) characters.

Agent Ward continues the fight against bad magic and extradimensional gribblies, and further establishes a corps of recurring characters to help him out: Veronika Bevilaqua, super-sexy palaeozoologist and dinosaur wrangler; Penny Kilkenny, super-sexy administrative assistant to the Director of UNDEAD, Mrs Friedriksen (who is not super-sexy, although more than one male character evinces a belief that she has a steamy side); rookie agent Peter Albright; and terrifyingly indestructible security chief Mettles.

Humphries writes a decent adventure yarn and avoids the worst excesses of the Bond genre he is parodying with the introduction of Veronika as a long-term romantic interest instead of making Ward all things to all women, but three books in there is a touch of sameness creeping. Moreover, the set-up and pay-off are not balanced or matched, so that the mad plan to defeat a dragon in book three, for example, is based not on anything that has come before, but on factual and legal conceits of the fictional world which have not previously been mentioned, which for my money is a significant failing.

The minor pop cultural differences between our world and Ward's fictional universe (Jaws exists, but was a French film, for example) were also a little irritating. I confess that it is a conceit that I rarely have time for unless there is a good reason, and Humphries hangs a lampshade on it a little too much.

House of Blades and The Crimson Vault

As I think I've mentioned, I've read some shitty books as a result of my 'is it cheaply available on Kindle' policy, but every so often you hit paydirt. The first two thirds of Will Wight's Traveler's Gate Trilogy set me back about a fiver, and that's actually including £2.31 for three additional books of short stories.

House of Blades introduces us to a world without a name, and the rival kingdoms of Damasca and Enosh. Damasca is a vast Kingdom of nine provinces, ruled over by the almighty King Zakareth and his provincial Overlords, while Enosh is apparently a shiny, happy meritocracy ruled by a council of Grandmasters. Power in both realms derives ultimately from Travelers, individuals who possess the ability to open a gate into another dimension (called a Territory) and draw power from it.

There are eight territories common to both sides, and two others; the Crimson Vault of Ragnarus, which is the sole dominion of the Royal House of Damasca, and Elysia, City of Light, lost for many years. And then there is Valinhall.

In House of Blades we are introduced to three young protagonists. Simon's father was killed and his mother driven mad by Travelers years ago. He was saved by a mysterious fighter, and when his village is attacked by soldiers of Damasca and their Traveler allies, he seeks out his rescuer to learn how to do as he did and kill Travelers. Alin is a semi-professional bard with a flair for the dramatic and a gift he doesn't yet know about. Leah is a mysterious and confident young woman with all the secrets in the world. Wight manages to find a balance between the three characters which carries the core of the novel forward. Simon is the most sympathetic, and also the weakest without being pathetic. Alin is the most conventionally heroic, but the least in control. Leah is the most reasonable, but also the most compromised.

The Crimson Vault takes the story to a grander scale. The narrative of House of Blades is limited to a single province, and focuses closely on the three protagonists and their immediate mentors. The Crimson Vault goes continental, as all-out war erupts between Damasca and Enosh, and the terrifying Incarnations begin to break their bonds. Simon's story begins to weave together with the other Valinhall Travelers, while Alin and Leah's encompass the wider politics of Enosh and Damasca respectively.

Wight writes a good adventure, but what I really like is that he manages to bring in a level of complexity, whereby the obvious villains of the early stages become more sympathetic as their motives become clearer, while the apparent heroes reveal darker hues; where even the most idealistic characters become tarnished by necessity and actions have long and unforeseeable consequences. The Incarnations of the Territories, once unveiled, embody the fundamental principle of the trilogy that simplicity is deceptive, and the easiest answer can have the most terrible consequences.

Bad Books and the Kindle

I've read a fair few bad books lately, largely because I'm reading whatever is cheap on Kindle. It's often a false economy.

In particular, I've read some or all of two books in the last week or so which have Strong Female Leads (TM) who need to have the fact of their strength literally spelled out to them by a gorgeous young man with exotic eyes who makes her go all wobbly on the inside. Apparently this is a genre.

The Woodcutter

Courtesy of an Amazon Kindle deal, my next read is Kate Danley's debut novel, The Woodcutter.

A girl lies dead in the forest, cracked glass slippers on her feet. A beast stalks innocent hearts through the shadows of the trees. The Woods lie at the junction of Twelve Kingdoms ruled by magic and the law of story, but someone is changing the endings and the balance of power is shifting. Only one man can set things to rights, a man at one with the Woods who knows the law and knows the stories. He is the keeper of the borders and defender of the Kingdoms; he is the Woodcutter.

Danley plays with fairy tale conventions to create an intricate web of stories, where all is connected, from the blood on Snow White's hands to the giant beanstalk and the travelling hall where twelve ladies dance each night away in shoes worn ragged. Holding much in common with The Book of Lost Things or Reckless, The Woodcutter remains its own thing, not least through its protagonist, a stoic man rooted in the earth even as he walks in wonder, and shielded by the ordinariness of his own life.

The Woodcutter is one for anyone who loves fairy tales with the claws still on them.

The Man from UNDEAD: The Curious Case of the Kidnapped Chemist

Agent Ward works for UNDEAD, the United Nations Department for the Enforcement and Apprehension of Demons, a vast international agency responsible for magical law enforcement in a world where the Magic Circle is a global conspiracy capable of enforcing world peace and environmental legislation, but generally preferring to stay in the background and do their own mystical thang.

It is thus a shock when the Circle sends a specific request for Ward to investigate the disappearance of a brilliant, but very ordinary chemist, but the circumstances turn out to be anything but ordinary as Ward and his informal partner, the chemist's sister Miranda, travel from Oxford to Wales to Egypt on the trail of a potentially world-shattering conspiracy.

I picked up The Curious Case of the Kidnapped Chemist as part of a trawl through the urban fantasy available on Kindle. As the start of a primarily epublished series, it has the advantage of being a full length novel available for a pittance as a hook for the books that follow, and it's a pretty good hook. Don't get me wrong; it's not exactly replete with surprises or nuanced characters, but then again it's essentially a fantasy/horror homage to The Man from UNCLE, so treacherous blondes, eccentric - often doomed - experts and insane plans for world domination are not merely expected, they are pretty much de rigueur, and on that standard it's a fun read, well worth the 77p.