Book Review: Crooked Little Vein

Okay, so think of a hard-boiled detective story, mix in a healthy dollop of Hunter S. Thompson and understand it's written by the fellow who wrote Transmetropolitan, and you'll have a pretty good idea of where this novel is going to start.

The book follows a private investigator named Michael McGill who goes on one of the craziest cases I think I've ever come across.  His case (don't worry, spoilers will be limited to the first thirty pages) is to track down a secret "second" United States Constitution for the White House, as it may contain magic political power to sway audiences.

Then the book goes more than a little insane - not for the faint of heart, and really just try to answer the question "Whatcha reading?" asked by anyone while in the middle of this book, trying to explain it in a way that won't make you uncomfortable is impossible.

The book is an awful lot of fun, however, working much like a standard detective novel, but mixed in with some of the weirdest, strangest, Fortean plot points I've ever found outside of the Illuminatus Trilogy.

Well worth the read.

Book Review: The Centauri Device

Picking up M. John Harrison’s 1974 Science Fiction novel The Centauri Device, I was pretty excited, as the book was only 185 pages long and seemed to have an interesting premise. It follows a space-trucker who is being drafted by various sides of a massive war to help them control an ultimate weapon, only he has absolutely no interest in them. Think of it like Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), but without Luke and with Han Solo as the main character – not the Han who decides to pitch in at the end (sorry for the mild 37-year-old spoiler), but the Han from the beginning, who could care less about anything other than staying ahead of his debts and finding work.

The novel followed themes I would read again in Transmetropolitan, a world where everything seems messed up beyond all recognition (and yes I know there is a useful acronym for this but both my Mother and my teen daughter read my blog, so deal with it).

Of the various factions attempting to get the help of the main character, two come from armies which are nothing like their contemporary counterparts, and the world is such a bizarre collection of sensory overload that it was often easy to get confused as to what was going on.

Like Alfred Bester's The Stars, My Destination, the book plays with a lot of standard SF story points, but unlike that book, I think only those really interested in reading the more arcane works of classic SF would find it a worthwhile read.

Genre Character of the Week: Songbird

Have you ever felt like you were the sole voice of reason in a roomful of crazies? How about if those crazies were all super-powered? A couple weeks back I was loaned a copy of Warren Ellis' Thunderbolts: Faith in Monsters, which follows a team of super-powered folks in the post-Civil War Marvel Universe who spend their time tracking down unregistered heroes. The character that caught my attention the most, Melissa Joan Gold, aka Songbird.

All right, let me back up, Civil War (which I never read) was a massive Marvel comic crossover event back in 2006 which ruined not one, but two comics I was currently reading (Fantastic Four and Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man), and basically ended up with all the heroes in the Marvel Universe (Iron Man, Captain America, The X-Men, Spider-Man, etc.), taking sides on whether or not the government should be involved in their business.

In the end the decision was yes, and somehow a team of super-villains were put together to hunt down heroes who refused to register. The team included Spider-Man villain Venom, Daredevil villain Bullseye and as a boss they had Norman (The Green Goblin) Osborn. As the team existed before Osborn's reign, there were a couple holdovers, including the once-villain-now-conflicted-hero Songbird.

Songbird spends much of the story arc attempting to bring the extreme level of violence her new team-mates like to use down to merely terrible levels. Honestly, this series really looks at the idea of making the best of a terrible situation and takes it to superhuman levels. As a story it was very violent (I wouldn't let my 14-year-old read it), but as with all of Ellis' writing, it was very, very good.

Things I've Noticed #3: Following your favourite comic-book author may bankrupt you

A quick look at my history with comics in a convenient timeline:

Ages 4 – 10, (1980-1986): I’m pretty much limited to Archie comics

Ages 11 – 13 (1987 - 1989): My own personal Dark Ages - I only read a few scattered X-Men I found in friends basements, dentists offices, etc.

Age 14 (August 1990): Wandering into my local comic book / used book store I came across Sandman #18 (Dream of a Thousand Cats). I had a couple extra bucks and the Dave McKean cover artwork totally grabbed me so I went for it, and I've never looked back since.

Since then I’ve been a big purchaser of series, mostly collections in trade paperbacks as I don’t have the patience to wait month by month for my stories to finish.

My problem with comics actually came a few years back. Basically I had my favourite three series (Sandman, Swamp Thing, Transmetropolitan) and was looking for a fourth. As I had followed Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore into their other works I decided to give Warren Ellis a try.

I looked him up in my library and found they had two books of his, Planetary and The Authority. As Planetary was pretty much stand alone I started there – it was awesome. The libraries copy of the Authority was stolen, lost or damaged before I could give it a look, so I headed off to my local comic book store, where I was told it actually was a continuation of a previous comic of Ellis’ called Stormwatch. Figuring I should probably read Stormwatch before I started the Authority, I decided to look into purchasing the previous 8 years worth of comics (I attempted this in 2001).

Two weeks of research later and here was the problem in a nutshell:

1) I wanted to read more Warren Ellis, so

2) I wanted to give The Authority a try, but

3) The Authority was made up, principally of surviving members of Stormwatch, and

4) Ellis only started writing Stormwatch at issue 37.

5) Before that, the title was written by Ron Marz, who spent a great deal of time tying it in with James Robinsons WildC.A.T.S., to the point where I would need to read WildC.A.T.S. to understand the earlier run of Stormwatch

6) and I didn’t have the three bazillion dollars needed to purchase all these old titles

So there you have it. It’s now been almost 8 years since I decided that maybe reading The Authority would be cool and I haven’t done a thing. I’m scared that in the incredibly complicated tie-in, crossover, dingo-crazy world of comic books that I will end up obligating myself into purchasing more comics than my house can physically hold.

Instead, I’ll call it a day, and go back to my dependable, never-charnging, you can always count on me classic: Archie.

OH MY GOD!?!