Review: Night Watch by Sean Stewart

This is one of those incomplete reviews I write every so often when I make it a significant way into a book (at least 150 pages or so) but just can't find the interest or enthusiasm in me to finish reading.

The book in question is Night Watch by Sean Stewart, a writer who has received high praise for other novels such as Resurrection Man, Perfect Circle, and Galveston. This is the first book of his that I tried to read, and I think I may have picked one of his less successful efforts.

Stewart writes some beautifully evocative prose, and that's what kept me reading as long as I did. I found the dialogue less successful, but enjoyable at times. The setting just did not hold together well for me, and the plotting was uneven at best. The experience of reading the novel was akin to that of watching an artsy version of an action movie made by a gifted cinematographer and a below-average director.

Throughout the book I had the feeling that I had picked up the second or even the third book in a series, one in which all the characters have already been introduced and a certain amount of their intertwined personal histories played out. However, though this novel is set in the same broad setting as Resurrection Man, in which magic is reintroduced to the world following World War II, it apparently takes place long after the events in the earlier novels.

Two hundred pages into this book I couldn't tell you who the main characters were or what exactly their goals were aside from "try to save Vancouver's Chinatown from destruction" for a number of them. I didn't come across any characters that I liked with the possible exception of Wire and Ant-something-or-other, and I really didn't care what happened to any of them.

As far as the unusual setting, a future that mixes various levels of technology with the presence of uncontrolled magical forces, I have no real sense of how magic is supposed to work in this setting, which is always a problem for me, though not for everyone. Magic without limits or rules communicated in some fashion to the reader becomes, in my view, a plot device that is too easy to abuse.

More significantly, I don't know how the people in this setting really view magic. There are a bunch of tough, militaristic white Canadians who are supposed to have a very rational view of the world because they've pushed the magic away into one corner of their city. This seems kind of unbelievable to me, but the real shocker was having a character named Claire, whose mother was a Hawk Goddess called the Harrier, express skepticism about the "superstitious" nature of the Chinatown inhabitants. I would think that her own origins would have cured her of any such traits. And the people of Chinatown are afraid of these white techno-magical cyborg soldiers they've hired as mercenaries, but it's patently obvious that these guys are no match for the magical "Gods" or Powers that live in and around Chinatown.

Ultimately I didn't finish the novel because I didn't trust the author to answer any of the questions that I was interested in. There's a scene where Stewart goes on for at least six pages about a character's efforts to build a fire to save himself. Now, to begin with, I was not invested in that character at that point in the narrative. Even if I was, six pages of him repeating the same basic actions over and over to stave off the cold and get a fire lit was severe overkill. And then the character disappears, at least for the next 100+ pages that I bothered to read. Why on Earth invest that much narrative and reader effort in the struggles of a bit character who is only going to disappear?

Later on, Stewart sets up a scene when several characters are about to embark upon a dangerous attempt to save the life and possibly the soul of a man trapped by demons. Their main resources are the fighting experience of a 95 year old man and the magic sword that his son has brought him. Then Stewart chooses to skip over that scene entirely. We rejoin the characters after they have completed the mission successfully.

The experience of those two scenes encapsulated much of the novel for me. Pages of descriptive prose spent upon topics that I would have happily devoted at most a paragraph of my attention to, and a complete overlooking of various scenes that would have interested me.

I think that in this novel this tendency to toss key scenes "off-screen" and spend time on odd little exchanges goes beyond a quirky choice to emphasize certain literary elements over "less sophisticated" action sequences. It's more like the novel just has no focus, no sense that when you set up the audience to anticipate a big confrontation and then just blow it off as an afterthought, you're toying with them. It felt like a bait and switch. If he wanted to write an atmospheric novel about unlikable characters in a dreamlike setting, I don't think he should have included the military aspects and the battle for the city, because they just don't work here.

Based on his reputation, I'd like to give another Stewart novel a try, but it will be a while before I bother to get around to it. I think I'd rather read a book of poetry by Stewart as opposed to a book of prose.

Review: The Spirit, Vol. I by Darwyn Cooke

The Spirit is a classic comic book character created by the legendary Will Eisner. The Spirit has no super-powers or even much in the way of a costume, as you can see in this picture.

He's basically a cross between a hard-boiled private detective and a costumed street-level vigilante. Like the classic vigilante, he wears a mask, doesn't carry a gun, does his fighting with his fists, and has a rogue's gallery of very offbeat characters. Like a private eye, he gets smacked around a lot, has a wise-cracking sense of humor, uses his wits and contacts to follow up on cases, and deals with a lot of femme fatales. (This collection even has a story featuring the Batman and the Spirit, so you can see the contrasts between them.

Artist and writer Darwyn Cooke has brought the Spirit back in a recent series. I picked this up on a whim, and I was startled at how well done it is.

You might be familiar with Cooke's work on the DC Elseworlds mini-series Final Frontier, which reimagined the emergence of the Silver Age heroes of the DC universe in a 1950s that was truer to the politics of the time than contemporary comics were. The comics were also turned into a DC Animated-style movie. I found The New Frontier interesting but not particularly inspiring, to be honest. And I thought the ending was rather confusing and a bit cliched.

This new Spirit series just crackles with energy and style, however. Cooke's art is crisp and classic, evoking memories of old newspaper comic strips but with an updated sense of design. The coloring in particular is superb, really adding to the emotional nuances of the panels. And the title pages read as homages to Eisner's constant experimentation with design, introducing each story with a distinct visual style designed to tie into its theme.

It's the stories themselves that are a delight, however. Unlike the classic newspaper comics that it reminds me of, Cooke's Spirit moves through each storyline at a brisk, efficient clip, packing in little details of character and plot with great efficiency.

And the stories collected in this volume are self-contained within a single comic issue, which is remarkable in this age of decompressed storytelling. It would take Brian Michael Bendis at least three issues to tell most of the stories in this volume. Characters and subplots seem to carry over from one issue to the next, but you could simply drop in on any of these "chapters" with no prior knowledge of the Spirit and immediately pick up on the characters and plot. And be satisfied with the story arc and its conclusion. This is a completely different approach from that of Fables, which is also excellent, and it's one that is a real pleasure to encounter as a busy parent.

Cooke throws interesting characters out right and left. The pacing is fast and accentuates the sense of action conveyed by the art. Brief flashbacks deftly reveal key details about the main protagonists. There's humor mixed in with adventure. All in all, I give this collection an A+. I admit I was completely surprised by what it had to offer.

Review: Fables: War and Pieces

Unlike the Good Prince, which was volume 10 of Fables, the eleventh collection of Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham's masterpiece, War and Pieces, pretty much demands that you've read the earlier volumes.

It's not that you can't understand what's taking place in this particular graphic novel without having read all that has come before, but you certainly won't appreciate it fully. The storyline has been building toward this huge conclusion for some 75 issues, so much so that Cory Doctorow mistakenly thought that this graphic novel concluded the Fables story.

In fact, there are at least two more collections on the way and I've read bits that suggest the story is perhaps only halfway completed. Willingham is not the sort of author to simply allow his characters a big victory without sifting through the consequences of their struggles.

In any case, in this volume the exiled Fables take the battle directly to the Adversary and his legions in the Homelands. I don't want to say more than that because I shouldn't spoil any surprises. And you can probably find a summary somewhere online if you really want.

I have to say that I've been reading Willingham's material for a while now. I have a nearly complete run of the troubled Elementals comic, which had some fits and starts. I've also got the script book for his Pantheon superhero comic, published in b/w by Lone Star comics. He's always had talent but I found a Elementals to be kind of scattershot in tone and conceptualization, ranging from really intriguing to weird and nearly incomprehensible. It also had a very, very strange collection of characters. Pantheon had some great concepts in it but was let down by poor execution in terms of the production and art. It also tried to cram a bit too much into twelve issues (or thirteen? I forget how many issues there ended up being, as I have the complete story in manuscript form), given all the implied backstory of the various characters and the comic universe that he was revealing. (I almost wish that Buckingham or some other talent like John Cassady could redraw the Pantheon story in color.)

For me, Fables is the real fulfillment of all the storytelling promise that Willingham displayed in those earlier comics. It's not something that I had any interest in reading based solely upon the high concept pitch. But the implementation is a treat. Willingham has found a vehicle whose dimensions are open enough to allow him to stretch even his more bizarre creative muscles, yet confined enough to stay coherent. With this series he really took a leap for me, moving from the ranks of promising journeymen to brilliant creator. And seeing that is as fun for me as reading the wonderful story itself.

Review: Fables: The Good Prince

If you haven't been keeping up with the comic book Fables, written by Bill Willingham and illustrated by Mark Buckingham (pencils) and Steve Leialoha (inks), then you are missing out on one of the best comics being produced today. I'd rank this up there with titles like Ex Machina and Promethea (which has completed its run) for the richness of the setting, dialogue, artwork, and plot.

And it just so happens that this particular volume collects a story that you can enjoy and understand without being very familiar with what has come before. A lot of characters get introduced, but you are told most of what you need to know about them. I didn't read either of the two graphic novels in the series preceding this one and didn't have a problem keeping up.

The basic concept is that the Fables of western lore (and to a lesser degree Eastern--you do get to see them but the focus is mainly on the western fables living in America) were driven from the various faerie kingdoms by a mysterious Adversary and they ended up in New York living in disguise among the mundane population.

This particular storyline follows the adventures of a character who has played a pretty minor role up to this point in the series as far as I can tell, one Flycatcher (the Frog-Prince), who assumes his old role as Prince Ambrose and sets out on a noble quest with very interesting results. I can't say too much more without ruining some of the suspense, but suffice it to say that Willingham & Co. have developed a knack of making even conflicts that have foregone conclusions interesting to read, due to a combination of excellent visuals, some witty dialogue, and an ability to pull back now and then from the big picture view and zoom in on the specific casualties of any given struggle.

It's remarkable to me that Willingham can keep such a vast cast of characters straight and distinctive enough from each other to follow their exploits. He sketches out characters nicely with bits of dialogue, summing up small characters quickly while stretching out explorations of main characters at length. And one of the pleasures of Fables is that you never know when a seemingly minor character is going to be further developed in their own story. The Good Prince is a perfect example of that.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't credit Buckingham's excellent graphic design for helping distinguish the multitude of characters that dance across the page.

I'd only collected the first couple volumes of this series, as I have gotten out of the habit of collecting graphic novels in the past couple years, but I'm seriously reconsidering.

Blogging Milestone

So, I was glancing at the sidebar and realized that I hit 172 posts (now 173). Which means that in 2009 I have officially surpassed my blogging totals from the previous two years [17 posts] by a factor of ten.

I leave it to the blogosphere and the Internet in general to determine is that is a Good Thing or not.

Review: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

This new young adult steampunk novel by Scott Westerfeld imagines an alternate World War I that pits British Darwinists--who have mastered the science of extracting and blending "life threads" to genetically engineer organisms--against German Clankers--who have engineered mechanical walking machines in all shapes and sizes.

It's a clever background. The Germans and their Austro-Hungarian allies have basically assembled a collection of steam-operated mecha, ranging in size from small one-man scouts to large, multi-legged land cruisers equipped with naval cannon. The Brits and their allies have aquatic and aerial navies assisted by their biotech. The wet navy has ships accompanied by giant Kraken-like "companions", while the latest airships used by the flyers are big floating ecosystems based on the greatly enlarged framework of whales.

These various creatures and creations are nicely illustrated in black and white pieces by artist Keith Thompson, scattered throughout the book.

The story starts out telling the parallel stories of two teens from very different sides of the tracks. Aleksander is the son of Archduke Ferdinand, on the run from would-be assassins following the political murder of his mother and father. Accompanied by some loyal house retainers, he helps pilot a walking talk (the Cyklop Stormwalker) to a hideout in the Alps. Deryn Sharp is a young girl determined to make her dream of becoming a member of the Royal Air Corps a reality (in memory of her late airman father), despite the fact that the military has a strict no girls policy. So she disguises herself as a boy with her older brother's help and assumes the role of midshipman Dylan Sharp.

The book alternates chapters in each character's story, until the narratives intersect about halfway through as strange events throw the unlikely pair together on an isolated glacier. Each teen has to adapt to new circumstances and plays a key role in helping their respective sides through a tough scrape. At this stage of their stories, at least, there is a friendship but only the barest hint of romance.

The book clearly demands a sequel, as we're left halfway through the story, though not really on a cliffhanger. And the afterword makes it clear that a sequel is in the works.

As Westerfeld says in his Afterword, "Leviathan is as much about possible futures as alternate pasts. It looks ahead to when machines will look like living creatures, and living creatures can be fabricated like machines." The book interlaces this futuristic element with bits of social issues, such as aristocracy and the role of women in society, that are rooted in its turn-of-the-century millieu. As such, it's a good example of steampunk.

I'm not normally a big reader of YA titles, and this book didn't amaze me or anything, but it's full of clever ideas and likable characters and I think it would be a very good read for a kid interested in exploring the genre.

Review: BPRD The Warning

Most of the BPRD graphic novels to date have worked relatively well as stand-alone stories, with certain character revelations being introduced but the plots being decipherable (well, as much as they ever are) without a lot of familiarity with the earlier collections. Not so with this 10th collection in the series, which announces itself as the first book in the Scorched Earth trilogy.

The Warning tries to bring people up to speed, but I think it would be pretty confusing for those who haven't read several of the earlier graphic novels, such as Plague of Frogs or Garden of Souls. You've got legions of evil frog-beasts, strange devolved hominids building vast machines in the bowels of the Earth, visions of Cthuluesque monstrosities taking over the world, mysterious sorcerers appearing and disappearing in astral form, portents of a big destiny for Liz Sherman that belies her seemingly humble origins, and cryptic messages from the spirit of Lobster Johnston.

The city of Munich gets largely obliterated, the BPRD troops get some more serious gear, Liz gets kidnapped again by occult entities, and Abe Sapien starts acting exactly like Hellboy. Seriously, I don't know if the authors realize this, but in this storyline the personality transformation that began in Garden of Souls seems to be pretty much complete. Abe is talking and acting just as gung-ho, aggressive, and careless as Hellboy here. Still fun to read, but it just made me miss Hellboy actually taking part in these stories. I liked Abe more when they had more differences.

Overall, another good graphic novel, setting up a story arc that looks to deal out tremendous mayhem to Earth as ancient powers seek to reclaim their power and transform the planet into their playground. I'd be surprised if Hellboy himself doesn't make an appearance of sorts at some point in the process.