I Am Legend, Richard Matheson (graphic novel) book review

The graphic novel version of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend borrows heavily from the original novel and follows the plot practically scene for scene. It's a little wordier than your average graphic novel, but that's understandable considering there isn't a lot of conversation, and most of the story is told by a third person narrator.

The text sounded to me like a dumbed-down version of the book, although I discovered rather to my surprise that apparently most of it is taken word for word from the novel. It sounds like they only took the most obvious sentences though: 'Robert Neville is inside the house. The zombies are outside moaning for him to come out.' (Okay, this is my interpretation and not a direct quote, but seriously the narration was just like that).

What's particularly disappointing about the graphic novel is that the images, which I think have a responsibility to add to the drama and read between the lines of the text, do nothing of the sort. If the text says, 'Robert Neville drinks a whole bottle of whiskey', the image shows him actually drinking a bottle of whiskey. Come on.

The best graphic novels, like the best children's books, have illustrations that add a new dimension to the story using layers and sub-text, but there's no attempt to do that here. There's nothing slick or sophisticated in the illustrations, and Ruth, the only other seemingly proper human being apart from the protagonist, is drawn very differently in different scenes. The first time they meet she's quite attractive, but when they meet a second time, she looks like a completely different person with a bulging forehead and bloated face, and there's no reasonable explanation for this fact. Did she suddenly contract down syndrome?

I think the only people who would really enjoy this are the ones who can't be bothered to read the original novel and want the story told in a simple format or young teenage boys. Actually scratch that last one, I think I may not be giving young teenage guys enough credit.

Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris

My vampire fiction journey began well with The Radleys, but it's taken a real nosedive with this clunker.

Dead Until Dark is the first of the Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris, which spawned the True Blood television series. Apparently True Blood is masterful. Having read this book, I can say that must have been quite a feat for the producers.

Okay, let's overlook the ridiculous names. Sookie is a telepathic barmaid who sees her mind-reading powers as a disability and acts like a deer in headlights when others treat her as odd. Bill (Bill! Has there ever been a less sexy name?) is a vampire who's just returned to the small town of Bon Temps to integrate with the humans. Sookie saves his life and promptly falls in love with him. It seems his only attraction is the fact that she can't read his mind, because otherwise he's pretty boring. Laconic, no appreciable sense of humour and not particularly high up in the vampire hierarchy.

The story is told from Sookie's perspective but one can't help but hear a middle-aged author indulging herself a little too much. Sookie is beautiful, has big boobs, is tough but soft, and is desirable to everyone (humans, vampires and everything in between). Oh and did I mention she has an orgasm every time? Like every time. 

The plot itself is surprisingly decent, which leads me to believe that Charlaine Harris is a good story-creator, but not a particularly good storyteller or author. The writing is clumsy and cringe-inducing and the climax is left so far into the plot that when you get to it, you don't care too much. I actually put the book down to do something right in the middle of the climax and didn't pick it up again for another two days. That's unheard of for me; usually I have to know what's going to happen next, but all the eyeball rolling and cringing left me rather untouched by the end. Particularly cringe-inducing was the appearance of an extremely famous now-dead singer incarnated as the vampire Bubba. Seriously.

The characters were one-dimensional and never develop very much, but presumably this is because Ms Harris is busy setting up the following books that have since built her Southern Vampire empire.

If you're a fan, don't hate me. Obviously I'm voicing the opinions of a minority, because this book has received glowing reviews, and not even just from the publishers.

If you want a bit of a thriller with human-vampire sexy scenes thrown in, this might be for you. If you want something you won't be embarrassed to read on the train, then maybe give this a miss.

Sinking my teeth into vampire fiction: a beginner's journey

I started my foray into vampire fiction with Matt Haig's The Radleys, which I really enjoyed. I think that, combined with the fact that I'm stalled on J in my Great Library Challenge (shakes fist at James Joyce), have contributed to my new challenge: read and compare vampire fiction.

Someone in my book club mentioned that the True Blood TV series is based on a book series that wasn't too bad, so I've borrowed book one from that series (Dead after Dark by Charlaine Harris). Someone else suggested the classic Dracula (hang on, is dracula a vampire? are they the same things?) or maybe it was Interview with a Vampire. Yeah that sounds more like it. But my dracula question remains.

Maybe... just maybe I might even give Stephanie Meyers a go. Maybe.

The Radleys, Matt Haig (The Great Library Challenge author H)

The Radleys appear to be a very normal family living a white picket fence life: Peter the doctor, Helen the artist and their two kids Rowan and Clara, who are rather average if a little intolerant to sunlight, quite pale and somewhat sickly.

Noone suspects that the members of this suburban family are actually vampires - especially not the kids, who don't know themselves, until one night, Clara defends herself against a bully and bites his hand. With her first taste of blood, the Radley secret comes spilling out.

This was my first foray into vampire fiction, and like Clara, I liked it. Matt Haig writes deliberately sparse prose that is free from unnecessary flourish, excess drama or gratuitous violence. There's a certain elegance to the writing, which I imagine is something that sets it apart from modern vampire fiction (think Stephanie Myer).

Peter and Helen are abstainers (vampires who choose not to drink blood), who have turned away from their blood-soaked past for the sake of their children. After seventeen years of cover ups and lies, they are forced to deal with their identity to help their children navigate their way around the background of who they really are. It's a family drama in which vampirism is a suppressed form of life, that once unleashed can't be contained. But more than that, it's about learning to accept oneself, and in a strange way, the acceptance of their vampire identities make them more human.

Though it's not a comedy, there is some humour in the novel, which mostly comes from the account of prominent vampires in the past: Lord Byron, Jimi Hendrix (one vampire school of thought says they're one and the same, Lord Byron simply having adopted a new identity for a new generation), David Bowie, and more obviously, Bram Stoker. Peter's brother Will (an unashamed practising vampire whose entry into the household wreaks havoc) says Prince's musical decline happened when he chose to become an abstainer. LOL

The Radleys is an enjoyable novel, not in the sense that it's fun or funny, but because it's a well written story that, at its core, is about being empowered by being yourself. It's a story that, ironically unlike vampires, has a soul.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is the work of first time author Susanna Clarke, and appears to have caused quite a stir in the world of fantasy fiction since its publication. A behemoth at 800 pages, this novel would have benefited from tighter editing of its lumbering footnotes and meandering episodic forays that don't contribute towards the main plot.

The story, however, is intelligently told and well written: a parallel magical history of England during the 1800s and the revival of English magic by two of its foremost practitioners of the day, the book's namesakes, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. There are touches of the usual fantasy elements of prophecy and fate, but it's not so much about magic and its technical aspects as it is about these two men and their all-consuming desire to learn and re-introduce magic into the English realm. But where fantasy heroes often have redeeming characteristics, these two are not particularly likable, and are kept from the reader at an arm's distance by Clarke's writing, which makes it difficult to really get into the book. Mr Norrell, in particular, is a character who is genuinely hate-worthy. His insecurity, pride, jealousy and narrow-mindedness are maddening.

Where the book really loses out is its lack of focus and forward movement. It moves laterally so often and for so long that it's one of those books that are easy to put down and not pick up again. But that would be a mistake, because the ending is extremely intense (unlike so much of the book) and enjoyable. The climax comes very suddenly right at the very end, with an emotional connection that most of the earlier part of the book fails to achieve. It still leaves a few questions unanswered, but it is a good reward for having gotten so far and read so much.

Overall, it was a good read, a great effort for a first-time author (although fairly damning for its editor) but would have been twice as good if it had been half as long.

In Your Dreams, Tom Holt

In Your Dreams is Tom Holt's second novel in the fantasy series about J.W. Wells & Co - a multi-national corporation where magic is a commodity, and where young Paul Carpenter (the somewhat hopeless inoffensive type) finds himself bound by employment. We first met Paul in book one, the eminently readable The Portable Door. In Your Dreams takes up where that story left off, ramping up the fun while taking us deeper into this wacky fantasy world. In this second book, Paul grows a little more accustomed to his workplace surroundings and even becomes promoted to full 'hero' status after slaying a dragon (admittedly a very small one that he accidentally squashed to death by sitting on).

But new mysteries abound - prickly new love-of-his-life Sophie abruptly leaves him and soon Paul finds himself eyeball deep in the world of the Fey - the magical Faerie-like creatures with power over 'glamour'. One faction of the Fey, Paul discovers, is bent on world domination through infiltration of dreams, but with half of Hollywood in their pocket and the ensuing income this provides, no-one at profit-driven J.W. Wells & Co seems inclined to act, leaving Paul somehow the only person in the world who can take them on and save the world.

Again I have to give kudos to Tom Holt's imagination for the absurdly funny and magical elements of this book, but perhaps more so to his literary skills which manage to translate what he sees in his head onto the pages of a book. That's tough stuff. He treads the fine balance of poking deprecating humour at his hero with a genuine fondness that really comes across so we're all rooting for him too. Well worth a read.

The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman

One has to wonder how Neil Gaiman's books can be classified in the children's category. There's always something macabre - a threatening dark shadow - that lurks on the edges of every page. Yet it's also so very compelling and imaginative that, like Roald Dahl, it would be a pity for his books to be confined for kids' enjoyment alone.

The Graveyard Book begins with a murder - in fact three murders, which should have been four. 'The man Jack' has stealthily entered the house of a sleeping family and murdered the parents and a child, but the baby of the family, a lone boy, has toddled off and disappeared, making the murder incomplete. Somehow he enters the one place that Jack can't find him - the local graveyard - where he is sheltered and raised by its ghostly inhabitants. Adopted by a ghost couple, he is called Nobody Owens (Bod for short). Creepy? You betcha. But does it work? Boy does it.

The ghosts are depicted as normal people whose time in the real world had ended, but their lives have not. There are nice ghosts and nasty ones, friendly ones and stuck up ones and boring ones. And of course, there's Silas. Bod's guardian - a shadow who moves between the real world and the ghostly one - who oversees his education and protects him from the malevolent evil that murdered his family and is now out to find him too. Only in the graveyard can Bod remain safe.

The Graveyard Book is a truly imaginative tale of a young boy who grows up learning his boundaries, making mistakes, mastering his lessons and is ultimately set loose to discover the world. The wonderful in-between-death-and-life world that Gaiman conjures up is an interesting (and rather creepy) parallel to the real world and the hurdles children face as they grow up. Its slightly dark nature is actually quite realistic, as I don't remember my childhood being all fairy floss and fun, as many other kids' books would have you believe. Neither did I grow up in a graveyard, but Neil Gaiman's masterful storytelling makes The Graveyard Book a very enjoyable read.

Making Money, Terry Pratchett book review

This is pure Terry Pratchett in top form, with one of his (in my opinion) most likeable Discworld characters, Moist Von Lipwig (Albert Spangler, in another life).

Previously a conman and swindler, Moist is given a second chance by Ankh-Morpork's tolerant despot, Vetinari, who utilises his skill-set by making him the head of the post office. But that's another story – Going Postal, in fact. Making Money is about what happens after Moist turns the post office into a raging success. His thrill-seeking, risk-taking urges are beginning to surface again when Vetinari decides to give Moist the new challenge of taking over the bank and royal mint, which means taking on the almost-certain vampire who works there and the ire of the greedy board of directors, the powerful Lavish family.

Throw in a threat from his shady past, an unearthed army of ancient golems and the stiletto-force of Moist's lady love, Adora Belle Dearheart, and you have a funny, satisfying, intelligent book that doesn't disappoint.

Wicked, book review

Hmm, must say I'm rather disappointed with this book. It's alright in its own way, but certainly not worth all the hype that's followed it. I got bored about two-thirds of the way through and just wanted to race through it to the end.

A lot of the hype surrounding the book has related to its discussion on the question of evil, and whether it's really what we think it is, but rather than touching on the philosophical question of the nature of evil, Wicked actually just re-interprets the story of Oz and turns the widely believed perceptions of the characters upside down. The 'Wicked Witch of the West' is actually just a passionate and idealistic young woman called Elphaba who becomes an Animal-activist and political hermit, often misunderstood because of her unfortunate green skin. She's always the outsider, aligning herself with the disenfranchised and maligned. The 'Wizard of Oz' in Wicked is a power-monger and usurper from another world, while Dorothy is simply a farm girl from Kansas who gets caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There are a lot of characters introduced in the book and a variety of events that don't seem to serve any purpose. The plot wearies on and on... Gregory Maguire builds a lot of expectation and hype around some characters and items like the enchanted shoes, the old witch Yackle, the midget and the time clock that, much like his book, don't actually go anywhere.

Soon I Will Be Invincible, Austin Grossman

Told from the point of view of superheroes in a comic-book world, Soon I Will Be Invincible is an interesting read that makes superheroes seem just like the average person - except, of course, for their superhuman powers. They have insecurities, eating disorders, blonde moments, self-doubt and a pecking order.

The story alternates between two first-person narrators - ageing supervillain Dr Impossible and rookie superhero Fatale. Dr Impossible, fresh from his latest incarceration in maximum security super-jail, is out to destroy the world... again. There's a hilarious and heart-breaking moment when he goes to a dingy villain hangout in an abandoned shopping centre to meet some old cronies. The pathos of Grossman's description of the unglamorous side of villainy is at once hilarious and cringe-inducing, as Dr Impossible catches a bus to get there, changes into his costume in the bushes and has to walk back home afterwards.

Fatale is the newest member of the New Champions, a super-league made up of a motley crew of heroes, including recently divorced Damsel and Blackwolf (yes, it appears superheroes get divorced too). Through her eyes we see the competitiveness, insecurities and all-too-humanness of the superheroes as they are forced to work together to find missing CoreFire, the greatest superhero of them all.

In Soon I Will Be Invincible, Austin Grossman takes a comic book idea and makes it accessible to people who may not really be into comic books themselves but are still fascinated by the whole superhero genre, like me. It's particularly interesting because the heroes and villains aren't stereotyped or revered for their inherent qualities, but are rather deconstructed and shown to be normal people whose personal decisions about their abnormal abilities make them what they are. Overall, I found it to be a great read.

The Belgariad (series), by David Eddings

Review incorporating:
Book 2: Queen of Sorcery
Book 3: Magician's Gambit
Book 4: Castle of Wizardry
Book 5: Enchanter's End Game

The adventure continues (see below review for Book 1: Pawn of Prophecy) until Garion, now Belgarion (the Child of Light), meets the evil god Torak (Child of Dark) for the one-on-one showdown. Eddings adds to the list of characters and even manages to evolve each of them to an extent, which is very gratifying for the reader. Overall it was a satisfying read, although the second time round the major battle in the end is a little bit of a letdown. Call me a girl but I loved the romance and humour through the series, and although I mentioned it adversely in my review of Pawn of Prophecy, I must admit I love a happy ending - c'mon, did you really expect Garion to lose?

Rating: 8/10
Enjoyable and satisfying read

Pawn of Prophecy, Book 1 of the Belgariad by David Eddings

I came across this childhood favourite of mine at a church jumble sale and bought it for $1. What a bargain for this fantastic fantasy fiction.

I enjoyed rereading it enormously – the characters are well-drawn and diverse, the action is vivid and in true fantasy fashion, the journey is epic. The best thing about Pawn of Prophecy is the handful of characters who are drawn together to undertake a journey and complete a task (on which the balance of the world hangs, of course). Each has different strengths and weaknesses, motivations, backgrounds and heartaches, and their interactions are priceless. The whole setup reminds me a lot of the fellowship in Lord of the Rings (as most post-Tolkien fantasies do) but I didn’t know that when I first read this book.

There are elements in the Pawn of Prophecy seen in many other fantasy novels – whole worlds, different races, wise magicians, jealous gods, underdog heroes who discover their destiny and a long journey to right a world gone wrong. So while a lot of it is not strictly original, the book is engrossing and, best of all, genuinely funny. Sometimes the humour is a little... young and somewhat repetitive, but it's still very enjoyable.

The main weakness in the series that I can see now as an adult is that things work out too perfectly – none of the main characters dies, almost everyone finds their match, the world is set aright and they go riding off into the sunset (so to speak). There’s a depth to sorrow and heartache in children's books that grab the juvenile heart and force a kid to grow up, and it is unfortunate that Eddings didn't capture that in this series. Who can forget bawling over Charlotte’s Web and Bridge to Terabithia? Eddings gives the reader exactly what we want – which is satisfying for us, but cheats the series of being great.

Rating: 8/10
Highly enjoyable and satisfying read. And I adore Garion.

Northern Lights, by Philip Pullman

This is a really good read, fast-paced and fantastical, taking the reader into a world where every human has a daemon (animal creature that almost equates to the person’s soul) and evil is afoot. Children begin to go missing from every city, and strong forces journey into the mysterious North to discover the secret of the Dust and the netherworld from which it comes.

Phillip Pullman paints a world of scholars, adventurers, witches, talking armoured bears, gyptians (like real world gypsies) and church-world politics. His heroine is Lyra, a girl whose personal journey is central to the story as she goes on a quest to find her playmate, Roger, who has been captured. Lyra is likeable, sympathetic and completely engaging.

Pullman’s narrative is well written and surges relentlessly forward, almost so fast that we don’t get as full a picture as we could of the incredible races, forces and motivations that he reveals along the way.

I was engrossed until the very end, where there is a wide opening left for the second part of the His Dark Materials trilogy, The Subtle Knife.

Rating: 8/10
A great fantasy adventure – a real page-turner.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

It was alright, but in my opinion, it feels like J.K. Rowling lost interest from book 4 onwards, and you can tell from her writing. The books from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire seem to somehow lose the fun and spontaneity of the the first 3 books, which were the only ones I genuinely enjoyed reading. Deathly Hallows is still a page-turner, but like my 13 year old nephew Christian, I read it mainly because I’ve invested too much time in the series to stop now, and of course there’s the pure interest to see what the major fuss is all about.

In Deathly Hallows, the plot gets ever thicker as dark forces overtake the Ministry of Magic and the entire magical (and muggle) kingdom is in danger of Voldemort’s regime. More people die and Harry becomes a bigger twat than ever with his whining and doubting. I know a couple of people who said they couldn't put the book down, but I found it very easy to do. Harder to do was picking it back up, because Harry was so bloody annoying. However things do improve and kudos to Rowling for meeting expectations of unprecedented proportions to round up the series.

Finally, there's a little epilogue at the back sketching out what happens to the crew 19 years in the future. Most fans will probably be interested to know what happened to the everyone, but I thought it was a bit sterile and jarring.

Rating: 7/10
Finally the series is over and Potter mania can rest... until the next movie, of course.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

It's been weeks since I watched this movie so my review won't be very thorough. My main thoughts from this movie are:

- it was full of pretty good swashbuckling action but the plot got a little complicated sometimes;
- Johnny Depp was great as usual as the hilariously self-centred, self-serving and morally corrupt Captain Jack Sparrow;
- the relationship between Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley's characters didn't have the emotional pull the movie makers were aiming for - personally I just didn't care whether they made it or not. Oh, until the very end, then it was kind of sad and sweet;
- the absolutely eye-rollingly corny scene where Elizabeth Swan launches herself up on the side of the boat to give a 'they can take our lives but they can never take our freedom' type speech;
- the other extremely corny scene where they get married mid-fight;
- it was the first movie where I recognised Bill Nighy as Davy Jones;
- fantastic effects!

.... and that's it.

Rating: 6.5/10
It's a pretty good way to spend 2 lazy hours.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick

The Invention of Hugo Cabret is interesting for its combination of words and imagery to unfold its tale. It's not a conventionally written novel nor is it a graphic novel... in fact, it really defies conventional categories, and for that alone it's quite fascinating.

Selznick combines words and pictures to tell the story of Hugo Cabret, an orphaned 12 year old in Paris who believes that his life is somehow intricately tied with an automaton of a mechanical man sitting at a desk poised with pen in hand. Hugo believes that if he is able to fix it, the message of the automaton will somehow change his life forever. Passages of text are followed by pages of black and white drawings, each one moving the story forward. They're not conventional illustrations to support the written sections, but rather add a whole dimension to the book by continuing the story in its own right. For example, chase scenes through the busy Paris train station are beautifully drawn, and not one word is needed to explain what's happening.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a weighty book - a hefty 355 pages on quality paper in a hardback cover. Clearly a lot of thought has gone into its development, as it is beautifully presented and the pictures are very rich and detailed. The potential for magic is evident in every page, however I felt that the written sections let the book down. The writing was clunky and somewhat amateurish, unable to convey the sort of emotional depth the book was trying to achieve. Otherwise, I thought it was a great innovative job.

The overall feel of the book comes across like a silent movie from the 30s, which is very suited to its content, as the mystery of the automaton leads to Georges Melies, one of the earliest and most innovative French film-makers. Selznick has based this book on a fictional account of one part of Melies' life, asking the question, 'what if...'

Rating: 7.5/10
Beautifully presented and an innovative new way of storytelling.

Spiderman 3

Some movies can go longer than 2 hours and you’re so engaged that you can barely feel it. Spiderman 3 is not one of those movies.

Spiderman/Peter Parker faces a horde of villains in part 3, including the serious-faced Sandman (Thomas Hayden Church, whom I love), Venom (Topher Grace, who plays the role ok), the New Goblin (Harry Osborn, the cute but crooked-eyed James Franco) and even the evil-within-version of Spiderman himself, who dons a cool black costume and acts with uncharacteristic aggression. The action scenes are good but the background plot drags on. There’s a lot of tears and heartache during the scenes where Uncle Ben is mentioned (with nostalgic flashbacks) and in the scenes between Peter and MJ, whose relationship is true of the Shakespeare quote, ‘the course of true love never did run smooth’.

Some of the best scenes (eyebrow-raising humorous but at times painful to watch) are when Tobey Maguire plays the changed Peter Parker – the hip-wriggling, girl-chasing, emo-haired, egotistical flirt. The worst are when Kirsten Dunst sings – you can see why, in the plot, she gets kicked off Broadway.

It’s never explained where the black parasitic symbiote (?) that turns Spidey bad comes from (except from out of space) or why it’s targeted Peter Parker. This and other holes in the plot don’t make it wholly satisfying, but it’s a decent movie with great CG and will probably be a great babysitter for the kids.

Rating: 7/10
A superhero with a villainous side is always interesting.