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BOOKS
Clockers,
by Richard Price
Clockers kicked
my ass. When the gangs exploded in the early
nineties and got really bad, when gangsta rap came
into the fray, I was in middle school. A lot of the
kids I went to school with were very much into the
drug/gun culture. It was more gang oriented than
drugs, but I saw deals done across tables, and I
knew a lot of kids who were screwed up royally. A
gal pregnant at 13, kids who were drunk, etcetera.
Even right now,
I live in a fairly crappy area of the same city. At
times, when people try to kill me, when people steal
my belongings, I think, “Man, I have it pretty
screwed up and hard.”
The self-pitying
instinct is really quite natural, for anyone. You
try and find a basis for comparison and yeah, you
have it harder than many, easier than some.
Clockers reminds
me that there is a world of hell I can’t even
imagine, and shows the hopes, dreams, and fates of
those who walk in it. |
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This book is
a murder mystery on the surface, that’s probably
what they sell it as, but beyond that (and the
mystery is not that great, actually, you can see
through it early on), it’s a masterful piece of
caricature and character. It tells the story of
a hopeless, lost cop, and a young blood in the
face of awful shit rolling around him at all
times in ways he can’t stop. Everything in this
book is hopeless and hard to deal with, and yet
these people survive. In that, it’s the most
hopeful book and relateable book I’ve read in
some time.
It’s long as
hell, but in the end, I didn’t want it to be
over. Usually any book over 300 pages, despite
my patience with Ayn Rand, kills me.
I will be
buying his newest book as soon as I can afford
it, and I recommend you buy this one. I got it
for a dollar fifty used, and it’s one of the
best dollar fifties I’ve spent next to, well,
I’ll get there.. |
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Death Be Not Proud, by John Gunther
Aha! I’m there. For a buck I got Death Be Not Proud.
This is the heartwarming tale (kid you not) of a
seventeen-year-old boy who is struck with a tumor
and slowly but surely loses all of his faculties and
dies.
Laff riot.
But
that sarcasm aside, it’s probably one of the better
books I’ve read, and it’s a true story. One of my
critical examinations of god is the fact that we are
snuffed indiscriminately, nay, that we even have to
die, and this book confronts it head on from the
perspective of a young man dying
The
boy persevered, getting into college, finishing his
schoolwork, pioneering new chemistry techniques, and
just generally looking death in the face and telling
it to suck his ever-loving balls in that kind way
people did back in the fifties and sixties when this
book is set.
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The boy became a
slowly strong figure to me, and I plowed through
the book with a passion. I would have paid ten
dollars for the 200 page tome, having known what
it would mean to me now. Death Be Not Proud has
survived for a reason, it’s one of those books
mislabeled as CLASSIC and thus boring when it
remains vital and awesome to this day.
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World War Z,
by Max Brooks
World War Z is a zombie novel set in the time after
the zombie war is over. It tells, through oral
history (like Please Kill Me), the tales of how
people dealt with the undead rising, the way
governments crumbled, and how ultimately, the people
persevere.
There are moments of brilliance, where, given the
device of the spoken narrative, we learn things that
surprise us and scare us. There’s the chilling
descriptions of starvation. There’s even a kind of
ghost story tucked in there. It’s multi-national and
compelling, in that respect.
However, the same thing that gives it its uniqueness
also tears it down a bit. For instance, there’s
little overall tension knowing that the war is won,
though I dig an unreliable narrator. There’s no
central voice, no central theme. It’s got all of the
negatives of a non-fiction book in terms of boredom,
when really, a lot of these stories conveyed as
their own entities without knowing how things would
end up could have been truly great.
I
enjoyed it a lot, but I wasn’t blown away.
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Keeper/Finder, by Greg
Rucka
I re-read
these two when I found a two volume collection,
the yellow example above, at a bookstore in the
tri-cities. They’re just as good as when I first
read them.
I don’t want
to give away the trick of the first book,
Keeper, but it’s heartbreaking. You develop an
instant love and sympathy for Kodiak. It’s a bit
more political than the other books, but fairly
so, and it’s not polemic, it’s just confronting
a very real issue in a solid way, abortion. It’s
not a story about whether it’s right or wrong to
kill a baby, it’s a story of how insane men who
take their philosophy too seriously do awful
things to people for expressing their freedom to
believe in something. It’s also a hell of a
ride.
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The second
book, Finder, takes a more action oriented
approach to the protection of a single subject
who is at times violently aggressive toward
being protected. It’s a story of corrupt family
and its outstretching dysfunction, the story of
facing a trained military assault team on their
own ground, and ultimately, a love tragedy that
shows what happens when you live a life
surrounded by loss and grief and what it drives
you to.
Solid
foundations for what ultimately becomes the
broader Kodiak arc. Read it, or it’s your loss.
These novels and their subsequent arc are why I
consider Greg Rucka my mentor.
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TRADE PAPERBACKS
Perfect Dark:
Janus’ Tears, by Eric
Trautmann
I
picked this book up a while back, actually, and
didn’t read it until just recently, mostly because I
have a huge stack of books I’m picking through.
Eric’s a friend, I have to say to caveat this in
fairness, but I can honestly say I’m harder on my
friends than my enemies.
This book survives just fine. It’s like I told him,
if it’s a friend’s piece and I don’t enjoy it, I
just won’t review it. This book is kind of
disguised, actually. You open in knowing video games
and the target audience and you expect a lot of
bending over, a lot of cleavage shots, a lot of
random wanton violence and crap.
Instead, Eric delivers a pretty damned good mystery
that evolves out of the first Perfect Dark novel by
Rucka (also great) and advances the story, giving
Joanna a heart, brains, and passion.
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Generally speaking,
one of my biggest story pet peeves is when a
girl can arbitrarily do EVERYTHING because,
well, guys think writing a flawless woman is the
same as fighting sexism.
This book shows
Joanna shot, beaten, near the end of her rope,
put through ACTUAL TRIALS that hurt her. She
uses her brain, she fights with passion, not
cockiness, and I relate to her in the same way I
related to her in the novel, which is oddly
synergistic given how much the body and the head
hardly interact in these kinds of cross-media
things.
Well worth a read
and a buy.
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Highlander Volume
One, by Brandon Jerwa and Michael Avon Oeming
Brandon is also a
friend, to caveat, but to further stipulate, that’s
not why I’m reading these or reviewing them. They
made the book list because they were intriguing
enough to keep my attention and have me rock through
them.
This book functions
as an action piece across time. I concede COMPLETE
ignorance of Highlander and the basic universe, but
after reading this, I’m already into the universe
and pickup up the movies. I didn’t feel like I
didn’t understand what was going on, and yet we
still dive right into everything.
Russian super
soldiers, sword fighting from a plane (as in,
falling from one), and three different time periods
that weave together make this story rule.
But here’s the funny
thing. The last issue, which is irrespective of that
which comes before it, shines for me as a character
piece. It depicts the hardship and reality that
would come with living forever. I’ve seen a lot of
tv shows cover it, and it always comes across as
cheesy. Here, the idea of falling in love and
potentially losing that love well before its time
puts tension to the oddness of living forever, and
you end up just absolutely sympathetic for the fears
of this man despite knowing that ultimately he will
lose all that he loves. Rad.
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Torso,
by Brian Michael
Bendis
Torso shows what
Bendis would become famous for before he was
famous for it. Odd structuring of panels, a
compelling mystery that comes at itself from
strange directions, and a sympathetic batch of
characters that make you see a man often
portrayed as a superhero in a human light.
It also draws a
sharp focus on the problems of poverty in the
inner city, what it can lead to, the perils of
psychosis unrealized (I mean, now we see a Ted
Bundy, we know it, but back fifty, sixty years
ago...), and it shows the way politics can
interfere with good intentions.
A strong, fun
read. I don’t kowtow to this as many others do
as Bendis’ fundamental work. I think, watching
him evolve, that what he did with it later,
applying it to Powers and Spider-Man, serves far
better to represent what this book originates.
Still a damned
good read.
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Toothpaste For Dinner
is my favorite webcomic. I read two. The other is
Penny Arcade. I tend not to read webcomics. This
snark is so fantastic and so laser-aimed at the
yuppies that it just kicks your ass. VERY fine,
consistent work. BUY.
X Omnibus, Volumes 1 and 2
are a weird little ditty. As I read it, I felt like
I was reading the precursor to The Dark Knight
Returns, but it actually came after, and it was a
strong, long-arc story that seemed to have a
beginning, middle, and end, but got cut off
midstream. I want to write the continuation of this
story, it’s so good.
The
basic premise is the Punisher without knowing his
history, and a punisher that never runs from the
law. If the cops show, X stands his ground.
There’s politics, there’s mystery, and it ends just
as it’s getting really near philosophy. Still a
great ride, if a bit hokey and 90s at a few rare
points. I was surprised. When this was recommended
to me, I thought it’d stink, but it was really a
good, worthy read.
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100 Bullets 2 and 3,
Split Second Chance and Hang Up on the Hang
Low now has me by the throat and is choking
me. Real stories that are unparalleled in their
trueness to the streets they come out of,
coupled with a mystery and an ongoing drama of
what motivates humans to revenge. I can’t
believe this hasn’t been thrust into my hand
sooner.
I stand by my
critiques of the man writing Superman, but this
is obviously Brian’s element, and he excels
here.
Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 20
As much praise as I
offer Bendis, he is losing my faith with
Ultimate Spider-Man. The plot isn’t as big in
terms of scope, there seems to be a holding
pattern, and I hope things pick up soon or this
will be the first book I’ve followed for this
long that I will drop beyond Superman.
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It’s not that this
story is bad. It’s good. It’s passable. It’s
even got a lot of heart and character. It’s just
that I know Bendis is capable of more, and you
can’t show more once and then deliver less later
and expect people to take it on name only.
By the end of this
story I care for all four protagonists. I am
glad the story is resolved. But this is not
Powers, where that would be enough. In a world
with all of the Spider-Man villains, in a world
Bendis has eked such drama out of, we deserve
more.
Criminal: The Dead and the Dying,
by Ed Brubaker, Three interwoven stories across
time centered around one royal bitch/awesome
character make it clear to me that Brubaker is
not only continuing what he started in Gotham
Central, he’s evolving his own form and
experimenting in successful ways. This is so
good I can’t buy it monthly. Only Walking Dead
does that for me. Most things, I like a trade,
I’ll buy it monthly. Sometimes, the story is so
good I’d get frustrated waiting, so I just take
it all at a clip. Criminal will be that for me.
Insanely cool.
BODY COUNT: 5 books, 10 trades |
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