The 2009 World Fantasy Award Winners

Well the World Fantasy Awards have been handed out and there was a nasty surprise in them for me:

Novel - Tie between The Shadow Year by Jeffrey Ford and Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
Novella - "If Angels Fight" by Richard Bowes
Short Story - "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" by Kij Johnson
Anthology - Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy edited by Ekaterina Sedia
Collection - The Drowned Life by Jeffrey Ford
Artist - Shaun Tan

A tie! Well I'm looking forward to reaching each of those books and have my fingers crossed for something special from both authors.

Unseen Academicals

Every new Pratchett book that comes out now is bittersweet. It's always terrific to get a new one and at the same time I have to wonder if it will be the last book before he succumbs to Alzheimer's. Setting that aside Unseen Academicals was a mid-range Discworld book; not one the best but far the painful worst.

This might the most British book that Pratchett has ever written. Considering that he's done multiple Shakespeare parodies that's quite an achievement. This time around the topic up for skewering is football (a.k.a. soccer but they don't try to Americanize the references for the releases on this side of the Atlantic) and the culture that surrounds it in the U.K. which I only know from imported sitcoms on PBS and passing references to it from the BBC. Consequently I suspect a lot of the book went over my head which may be why I found it lacking in the usual wordplay that Pratchett indulges in. The humor this time around seemed to be more situational than funny narrative asides.

For those who have not heard of him (though I suspect that anyone who stumbles onto this post has) Terry Pratchett is the author of the Discworld series, an extremely long series of satirical fantasy novels which started out as straight parody of some of the bigger names in the field at the time and wound up exploring the human condition.

This time around the wizards of the Unseen University have to play a game of football or risk losing a large bequest. Over the years the game has transformed in the rowdy streets of Ankh-Morpork into something that is less like a sport and more like a riot. The patrician of the city seizes the opportunity to bring the game under control and commissions the wizards to establish a league. Complicating this plot are the common man who feel very possessive about their game and don't really care to have someone tell them how to play. On top of that there's the tale of two star-crossed lovers separated by team loyalty, a busy body cook, a dwarvish fashion revolution, and an extremely intelligent goblin who harbors an extremely dark secret.

That goblin is the real focus of the character arc in the book and that might be the biggest flaw. He is given a storyline of self-discovery that Pratchett has used many times before. The notes are changed a bit but the song remains the same for these characters which makes them feel a bit redundant in the scope of the entire series. Oddly though he did add a new minor character to the cast as a paid to be evil within limits wizards who I hope to see again since there isn't anyone else quite like him around.

This is the longest Discworld novel and somehow it never feels like it drags. Pratchett keeps spinning new plot thread after new plot thread and while I felt that they didn't dovetail very well they were not dull. This is a surprisingly dense novel in that regard.

As usual for Discworld I laughed, I didn't cry (no one saw anything so they can't prove it), I enjoyed it. I can't say I'd recommend it as a first Discworld novel for someone who hasn't read any of them since I don't think it ranked among the best (go with Guards! Guards!, Small Gods, or Reaper Man if you haven't). Of course if you love your football then you'll probably appreciate Unseen Academicals even more than I did.

Review - Dororo

Dororo
by Ozuma Tezuka
2009 Eisner Winner for Best U.S. Edition of International Material: Japan

Dororo was a huge disappointment for me though not as disappointing as creating an Astroboy animated movie and watching it open sixth in the box office returns last weekend. The first two volumes were pretty good and all of the terrific buildup in them vanished in an abrupt conclusion.

In a vaguely seventeenth century Japan a local lord makes a pact with forty-eight demons to exchange his unborn son for political power. Each of the demons take one body part from the child and it is born horribly malformed. After being abandoned the infant is found by a kindly doctor who cared for him. The child developed abilities to compensate for his missing body parts and the doctor fit him with prosthesis so that he could look normal. Upon reaching adolescence the child started attracting spirits to him and through these spirits he learned that if he killed a demon that held a body part he would recover it. So the doctor outfits his body with weapons and the boy sets out to build himself.

That's both extremely condensed and extremely confusing so let me break it down like this: it's a samurai, steampunk, six million dollar man versus the mythical monsters who stole his body parts. He finds a kid sidekick in the self-proclaimed world's greatest thief Dororo and they wander from village to village having exciting battles and then getting run out of town.

Tezuka's plotting wasn't as straightforward as that. For the first two volumes there's a slow burn building with the demons, the father turned despot who now has a second son, and the secrets that Dororo carries. And then it suddenly ends. There's a sixteen page chapter where Tezuka stuffs as much resolution in as he can and then it's over. I can understand why that happened but it doesn't make the whole product enjoyable to read.

That's a shame since the first two-thirds are pretty good. Dororo features an exploration of some Japanese mythology where nine-tailed foxes drive wars and spirits of wealth lure travelers to hidden treasures. The main character is almost as monstrous as the beings he fights and his slow recovery of his flesh is compelling. I wanted more and I was left on a very bitter note.

The artwork is Tezuka's usualy mix of extremely cartoony figures and detailed backgrounds. It can be offputting when drama is placed on characters who look like they're fresh from a Warner Brothers cartoon though it didn't bother me. The action sequences in Dororo tend to be fast and chaotic and that did throw me briefly since it was hard to follow some of them. This only lasted a page or two and the conclusions returned to Tezuka's exceptional storytelling. In fact the one high point in the third volume is that the action in its first story is better structured visually.

I cannot in good conscience recommend Dororo. It's effectively an unfinished work and if you enjoy the story you will wind up just as disappointed as I was. I honestly did not know about the abrupt conclusion when I started which just made it worse. I do recommend Tezuka's work highly; just go with something like Buddha or Blackjack instead of this and you'll be more satisfied.

Review - Hellboy Library Edition Volume 1

Hellboy Library Edition Volume 1
Containing Seed of Destruction and Wake the Devil
Written by Mike Mignola and John Byrne; Art by Mike Mignola
1995 Eisner Winner for Best Writer/Artist for Mike Mignola
1997 Eisner Winner for Best Writer/Artist (Drama) for Mike Mignola
2009 Eisner Winner for Best Production Design

It's rare for an ongoing series by one creator to improve over time. It's far more common for them to spend their effort on the original work and slowly run out of ideas or burn out. With Hellboy I initially didn't care for it. As time went by and people kept raving about the series I decided to give it another chance. What I found was that the earliest stuff was shaky but Mignola found his footing and took things in a better direction. So as I look over the first volume of the Library Edition which contains the first two miniseries and pair of extremely brief preview stories I am inclined to give it a bit more slack because I know what's coming.

The titular character is a paranormal investigator who is usually called in to deal with the problems where hitting the paranormal creature repeatedly is a good idea. He mysteriously appeared in 1944 at a moment the coincided with a failed attempt by Nazi occultists to awaken Lovecraftian horrors. After spending fifty years looking into other people's weirdness his origins come back to haunt him as one of the occultists returns to use Hellboy.

One of the biggest problems I had with Hellboy that I can still see is that Mignola's plots in these books seem to revolve around "What would look cool" instead of making sense. I'll complain loudly when there's too much exposition but the stories in these pages go the opposite route of containing far too little. This is especially a problem in the second story, Wake the Devil, where even knowing what's coming I still have trouble following it. As a broad example of this kind of thing, there is a monster that gets hit and turns into bones and this is a major plot event with no explanation of how or why it occurs. It's just an excuse to show the creature suddenly becoming a skeleton.

Another problem is that when there is a plot it's not a very engrossing one. The first story is essentially Hellboy and crew go to a haunted house where they stay the night and punch deep ones. With the second there's... um... well there's vampires... and a goddess I think... and there's something about an iron maiden that I didn't really follow... well see the above paragraph. There's some exciting action scenes and some spooky locations and some creepy monster monster designs but they just don't come together well. It's stuff that's cool without putting them into a story that's as interesting as they are.

Which isn't to say it's all bad. Occasionally things will come together just right for a flash of brilliance. In particular the climaxes of both stories are better than they deserve to be given their lackluster set up. Yes, the bad guys are going to get beaten and the heroes triumph but the way that things are brought together at the ending is entertaining. The metastory that is being developed in this book is far more interesting than the actual stories and that is what can carry you on to the point where Hellboy starts developing depth.

Mignola's artwork is an acquired taste and when I first read Hellboy I had not acquired it yet. He has a way with heavy shadows that flattens out the perspective. It drove me crazy until I got into the groove of his sharp edged line work that takes advantage of those heavy black areas. It's a very impressionistic style that I've come to appreciate as the look for the creatures of the night.

The Library Edition volumes of Hellboy are the best produced volume of comics that I have on my shelves. They're oversized but not so monstrously oversized that they're uncomfortable to read. They feature the heaviest paper stock I've seen; it's something that I've only encountered before in art books. The cloth binding has no dust jacket to get torn but still looks nice thanks to the embossing and plate set in the front. Oh, and it costs about as much as the first two Hellboy trade paperbacks so it's a bargain as well.

I said a lot of negative things in this review but when it comes down to it I found Seed of Destruction and Wake the Devil to be blandly average comics. Mignola uses these as a launchpad and turns the series into something that explores folklore in a way that I have enjoyed quite a bit. Still I'd recommend starting with the second volume of the library edition and then going backward if you're a newcomer to Hellboy. And whether you are or not if you want to get Hellboy then the Library Editions are the best way to own the series. I wish all of my collected editions were as nice as this book.

Review - Rose

Rose
Written by Jeff Smith; Art by Charles Vess
2002 Eisner Winner for Best Painter/Multimedia Artist

"Does Bone really need a prequel?" I asked myself when I first encountered Rose. I liked Bone a lot but it did start to drag toward the end. And rather than focusing on the comical misadventures of the Bones this was about the rulers of the fantasy kingdom that Bone is set in. It would make a radical departure in style to something that I thought that I probably wouldn't really care for. Still the place I first saw the book was at a convention booth for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and I thought that getting some pleasant Charles Vess artwork, an autographed copy of the book, and supporting a good cause at the same time wouldn't hurt and I picked it up. I'm glad I did because what I found was Rose wasn't Bone Part 2 or even Pre-Bone; it's a pretty good story that stands well on its own.

In a fantasy kingdom the heir is decided by which of the king's children has the greatest mystical abilities. Princess Rose is very strong, can sense danger, communicates with some intelligent animals, and has prophetic dreams but lacks the discipline to do well with her studies. Her sister Briar has the discipline but no mystical abilities. Together they are summoned to a remote cavern for the final test to determine who will be heir. An evil power is stirring and Rose accidently unleashes a tiny portion of it as a dragon. The dragon is just a fragment of a larger scheme and there is a high price to pay for its defeat.

I'm underselling the plot quite a bit in that brief description. Smith crafted a dense story where new subtleties and twists keeps pushing it in new directions. I'm sure that the broad strokes of the plotting will be obvious to anyone (even without the advantage of reading the previous comics); it's the texture that he gives it that makes Rose interesting.

Part of that is in the characterization. Rose is one of those characters who finds that being the hero of the story doesn't mean that things are easy. Her youthful follies out of love and innocence cause most of her problems. This may be the story of a fairy tale dragon slayer but its heroine is not the simple white knight of legends.

Vess artwork is magnificent. The actual layouts are traditional inked lines but all of the coloring is done with watercolors which compliment his swirling line work. It's a technique that he's used many times and I find that his painted colors give the book a gentler tone than more traditional coloring techniques would. In addition he mimics Smith's style of character design in Rose. Usually Vess's figures are are very elaborate and here they seem like a compromise between his extreme and Smith's simple animation based style.

In an interesting spin on things Rose works just as well if you read it before Bone as it does if you read it afterward. On the one hand there's plot developments from half way through Bone that will be given away by reading Rose, but on the other there's bits in Rose that turn some minor conversations in Bone to shocking revelations. The two play off each other amazingly well despite being dramatically different.

If you liked Bone then you really should read Rose. And if you haven't read Bone then I still recommend Rose because it's a charmingly told fairy tale style fable. Though Rose might be overshadowed by Smith's more popular book (I doubt I'm going to find this on shelves at Wal-Mart any time soon, for example) I think it's deserving of equal praise as a companion to it.

Review - Superman: Peace On Earth

Superman: Peace On Earth
Story by Alex Ross and Paul Dini; Art by Alex Ross
1999 Eisner Winner for Best Painter (Interior Art)

"Superman is too powerful to be interesting," is a common refrain among comic book fans. In fact it's become so common that it's not unheard of for those who write comic books to say it rather than doing the obvious thing and placing him in conflicts where that power isn't a solution. His abilities do raise an uncomfortable question that all superhero comics dodge: if he's so great why has he been around for seventy years and hasn't actually accomplished any change in the world? In my experience when writers attempt to address this problem head on they tend to make things worse no matter what position they take whether it's making an excuse or engaging in bland deconstructionism. Superman: Peace On Earth tries to be uplifting but it left me with a bitter taste in my mouth and thinking that the reason Superman doesn't fix the world's problems is because it would be hard.

After living on Earth for his entire life Superman suddenly finds out that there are people who go hungry and feels guilty about it. So he decides that to deal with it he will distribute food to everyone in the world for one day. This plan consists of him gathering up donated food and dropping a cargo container filled with raw grain down in front of hungry people before flying off again. In his idealism he fails to recognize that comically evil forces don't want him making a hollow gesture and he encounters resistance.

No matter how you cut it this is a ridiculous story. Yes, I recognize the irony of saying that about a book where the main character is an alien who flies around doing good deeds. Even if you assume that it only takes Superman a few seconds for each drop off the delivery time is far longer than day; that may seem like picking at nits but the story makes a big deal about feeding the world for a day with an imposed time limit. Anyone with even a fundamental understanding of the scale of the population of the Earth and amount of time in a day will have their suspension of disbelief shaken pretty hard. Then there is the fact that dropping a cargo container of grain in a village of twenty and then flying away to the next delivery is about the worst possible way to handle such a plan. Since one of the major issues with food aid is corruption and inefficiency in getting it into the hands of the hungry individuals this scheme just makes things worse. So what we have is a hollow, inefficient gesture from a Superman whose flighty attention drifted onto this one issue for a few minutes and that makes the ending even worse.

Part of the message that Dini is trying to present in these pages is that while Superman is great he can't do everything by brute force. The problem is that even in the context of the book he can. The only actual problems he faces in Peace On Earth are authorial fiat which leaves a bad impression of the character in the end.

Peace On Earth actually exists to be a poster book for Alex Ross's paintings. It is a bit of stretch to call it a comic since the story consists of flat expository text with no dialog that is illustrated by Ross's art. For the most part Ross's artwork isn't used to develop the story and there are very few sequential panels. It's much closer to a picture book in that regard with prose as dry as a saltine.

Individually Ross does a fine job with his images though for some reason Superman's expressions in the book bothered me. He just seems passive in most of the paintings irregardless of what he's doing. Also I think that the format didn't suit Ross as well as it could have; when he does a two page sequence that demonstrates action things look better than the many stand alone images throughout the book. On the whole it's decent but it's not his best work.

I would only recommend Superman: Peace On Earth if you're a huge fan of Alex Ross's art. Dini's story is unpleasant as allegory or read straight and the actual text doesn't help it at all. If you've seen Ross's art elsewhere and enjoyed it a bit then you may find it to be a bit disappointing here. On the other hand if you can't get enough of his paintings of Superman then having them in this oversized format will be a joy for you.

Review - The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot

The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot
Written by Frank Miller; Art by Geof Darrow
1996 Eisner Winner for Best Penciller/Inker

I've been selecting books to talk about this week based mainly on picking out some lighthearted ones. It occurs to me, though, as I sit here flipping through The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot that I haven't paid a lot of attention to the artists who have won the Eisners. The reason for this is that while I can tell what I like and can recognize how well an artist serves a story actually critiquing artists is beyond me. I can barely tell the difference between two inkers so getting much deeper than, "This guy's got a dynamic style that captures action well," just isn't possible for me.

The reason that this comes up is that The Bug Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot (which I'm shortening to Big Guy from now on) exists entirely as a showcase for Geof Darrow's artwork. Miller's story is barely a framework. It's a touch of fluff that acts as an excuse for Darrow to go crazy. The plot is paper thin and characterization is so close to zero that if you blink you'll miss it because this is a story about high tech fighting machines blowing up dinosaurs.

Here's the story. There's a lab and they accidentally make a dinosaur that spits stuff that turns people into small monsters. This giant dinosaur proceeds to rampage through Tokyo where the Japanese military is just as effective as it ever is against giant monsters rampaging through Tokyo. The government sends in a robot that looks a lot like Astroboy who can't beat it and then call in good old American know how in the form of a giant (but not as giant as the dinosaur) robot who shows up to kick ass.

It's ludicrous, over the top, and more of an excuse than an actual story. Miller plays it mostly straight so there isn't any winking at the audience to let them know that he's being goofy on purpose. This reads like one of those monster movies that are shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000 where people say the most terrible dialog possible with a straight face.

But enough about the Miller's writing. You won't be buying this book for it.

Darrow is known for his phenomenally over-detailed art. If someone is firing a gun that shoots a hundred rounds a minute he'll draw every one of those rounds firing and every spent shell that's falling. His character designs show every fold and crinkle in their faces. His cityscapes are heavily populated with modern life.

He goes crazy with this in Big Guy. There are huge double page spreads that you'll need to break out a magnifying glass to see all the complexity he packed into the images. The collected edition is oversized which helps you take it all in. This might as well be a poster book of Darrow's images.

And there isn't much more to say than that. If you like Darrow's art then you'll enjoy seeing him go crazy with this story and if you don't then Miller's story isn't even an interesting parody. For myself I think the weaknesses outweighed the positive and there's better books featuring Darrow's artwork.