The Woods Volume 2: The Swarm
(The Woods series, Issues 5 - 8)
James Tynion IV, illustrations by Michael Dialynas
BOOM! Studios
Fiction, Graphic Novel/Horror/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Deep in the deadly alien woods, six students from the displaced Wisconsin high school have encountered wonders and terrors, weighted toward the latter. Computer geek Adrian continues following the alien call from the arrow-stone, regardless of the cost to his companions Karen and Calder, while Sanami, Isaac, and big Ben Stone find themselves captured by strange humans. Just where have they come, and why have they been brought here - and will any of them survive, or is Adrian right that the only way to succeed is to stop thinking of others altogether?
REVIEW: Intercut with flashbacks to a school play one year ago, this issue creates more character depth even as it raises the overall stakes. The school itself is largely left behind, save for the flashbacks, as the wayward teens become the driving stars - or possibly villains, in the case of Adrian, who has all the amoral earmarks of a sociopath. More strange sights and dangers await the explorers, with odd touches of humor even as the violence continues to escalate; the series earned an M rating. So far, it remains interesting and intense enough to keep me reading. (Plus, at least the next volume is available via Hoopla - free's usually a good price.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
Remnants: The Mayflower Project (K. A. Applegate) - My Review
Life as We Knew It (Susan Beth Pfeffer) - My Review
Mirror World (Tad Williams) - My Review
Thursday, November 9, 2017
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
The Woods Volume 1: The Arrow (James Tynion IV)
The Woods Volume 1: The Arrow
(The Woods series, Issues 1 - 4)
James Tynion IV, illustrations by Michael Dialynas
BOOM! Studios
Fiction, Graphic Novel/Horror/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: It started out a typical day at Bay Point Preparatory School outside Milwaukee. Students wrestled with college applications and figuring out the rest of their lives, while peers dealt with rejection and dismissal (or just streaked the halls, in the case of the attention-seeking jock), and faculty tried their best to keep over four hundred teens more or less behaving.
Then came the rumble, and the flash... and suddenly, losing out on a spot in the school play becomes the least of concerns.
The entire school has been suddenly and inexplicably transported elsewhere. Where, nobody knows, but a ringed gas giant planet looms like a malevolent crimson moon, and a primordial forest full of nightmarish beasts surrounds the building. Only a single strange artifact, an arrow-like construct, gives any hint at civilization. While the school body struggles to cope, a handful of students ventures into the woods, following the pointing stone in hopes of finding answers - if they can survive, that is.
REVIEW: This graphic novel kicks off a dark and strange new series. After a quick glimpse at the star players, adult and teen alike, the tale launches straight into survival mode on an alien world (or moon, rather, as it seems to be orbiting another planet.) While the school descends into dystopian chaos as the principal, the head coach, and the student council president vie for control amid food shortages and animal attacks (with brutal, even deadly consequences), six students set out into the woods, led by a computer nerd who may or may not be under alien influence. Disaster quickly brings out the best and the worst in the cast, while the new world targets its latest prey indiscriminately. It's a violent, paranoia-riddled tale, and things only look to get more intense as the series continues.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Saber Tooth (Lou Cadle) - My Review
The Transall Saga (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Birthright Volume 1: Homecoming (Joshua Williamson and Andre Bressan) - My Review
(The Woods series, Issues 1 - 4)
James Tynion IV, illustrations by Michael Dialynas
BOOM! Studios
Fiction, Graphic Novel/Horror/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: It started out a typical day at Bay Point Preparatory School outside Milwaukee. Students wrestled with college applications and figuring out the rest of their lives, while peers dealt with rejection and dismissal (or just streaked the halls, in the case of the attention-seeking jock), and faculty tried their best to keep over four hundred teens more or less behaving.
Then came the rumble, and the flash... and suddenly, losing out on a spot in the school play becomes the least of concerns.
The entire school has been suddenly and inexplicably transported elsewhere. Where, nobody knows, but a ringed gas giant planet looms like a malevolent crimson moon, and a primordial forest full of nightmarish beasts surrounds the building. Only a single strange artifact, an arrow-like construct, gives any hint at civilization. While the school body struggles to cope, a handful of students ventures into the woods, following the pointing stone in hopes of finding answers - if they can survive, that is.
REVIEW: This graphic novel kicks off a dark and strange new series. After a quick glimpse at the star players, adult and teen alike, the tale launches straight into survival mode on an alien world (or moon, rather, as it seems to be orbiting another planet.) While the school descends into dystopian chaos as the principal, the head coach, and the student council president vie for control amid food shortages and animal attacks (with brutal, even deadly consequences), six students set out into the woods, led by a computer nerd who may or may not be under alien influence. Disaster quickly brings out the best and the worst in the cast, while the new world targets its latest prey indiscriminately. It's a violent, paranoia-riddled tale, and things only look to get more intense as the series continues.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Saber Tooth (Lou Cadle) - My Review
The Transall Saga (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Birthright Volume 1: Homecoming (Joshua Williamson and Andre Bressan) - My Review
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
The Fix Up (Tawna Fenske)
The Fix Up
(The First Impressions series, Book 1)
Tawna Fenske
Entangled Publishing LLC
Fiction, Humor/Romance
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The day Holly opened her PR firm, First Impressions, was the day her dreams came true... and the day her marriage ended, her ambitious (now ex-) husband Chase unable to accept a successful, professional wife. Unfortunately, his name is still on the lease of the building she bought; she either needs to sell out and give up, or land the most lucrative contract in her life.
Ben may be the latest in a long line of business tycoons, but he's far more comfortable in a lab room than a boardroom. He doesn't even like looking people in the eye. Now, his father Lyle has made him CEO of the company, insisting he step up to the plate... but if that means acting like the workaholic and incurable woman chaser who perpetually sacrificed family for greed, Ben wants no part of it.
When Holly sees Ben in a furniture store, being bowled over by a saleswoman, she steps in to help - and discovers a brand new angle for her PR firm. Instead of a corporate makeover, Ben needs a personal one... and he's willing to pay triple her usual fee. There's just one catch with this plan: she can hardly keep her hands off her hot new client - and that's bad news, because, luscious as he looks, she's learned the hard way that ambitious businessmen and professional women can't mix. Or is Ben really destined to end up just like his womanizing father?
REVIEW: The Fix Up promises fun, light romance, and it actually delivers. Ben isn't quite as socially inept as he thinks he is, a nerd who (in romance tradition) is also a hottie, but he lives in fear of becoming like his father, a man he both hates and admires; he was, after all, the one who lived with the pain inflicted by Lyle's old-school style of leadership, where family was just a prop for success and skirts were to be chased, regardless of marital status. Holly's a driven professional who has built a successful firm from the ground up, but the voice of her ex still haunts her, telling her she can't have love if she dares to pursue dreams outside the home. There's an underlying theme of dealing with long-entrenched sexism in the workplace, though - this being a romance - it's not really about the theme, but about two lonely people coming together, figuratively and literally. Sparks, of course, fly from the first meeting, with some amusing dialog and innuendo-riddled situations as they dance around their mutual attraction. The climax felt just a trifle contrived, but overall this title is an enjoyable, fast-reading, and somewhat steamy escape.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Some Like It Perfect (Megan Bryce) - My Review
When Lightning Strikes (Brenda Novak) - My Review
Feel the Heat (Kathryn Shay) - My Review
(The First Impressions series, Book 1)
Tawna Fenske
Entangled Publishing LLC
Fiction, Humor/Romance
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The day Holly opened her PR firm, First Impressions, was the day her dreams came true... and the day her marriage ended, her ambitious (now ex-) husband Chase unable to accept a successful, professional wife. Unfortunately, his name is still on the lease of the building she bought; she either needs to sell out and give up, or land the most lucrative contract in her life.
Ben may be the latest in a long line of business tycoons, but he's far more comfortable in a lab room than a boardroom. He doesn't even like looking people in the eye. Now, his father Lyle has made him CEO of the company, insisting he step up to the plate... but if that means acting like the workaholic and incurable woman chaser who perpetually sacrificed family for greed, Ben wants no part of it.
When Holly sees Ben in a furniture store, being bowled over by a saleswoman, she steps in to help - and discovers a brand new angle for her PR firm. Instead of a corporate makeover, Ben needs a personal one... and he's willing to pay triple her usual fee. There's just one catch with this plan: she can hardly keep her hands off her hot new client - and that's bad news, because, luscious as he looks, she's learned the hard way that ambitious businessmen and professional women can't mix. Or is Ben really destined to end up just like his womanizing father?
REVIEW: The Fix Up promises fun, light romance, and it actually delivers. Ben isn't quite as socially inept as he thinks he is, a nerd who (in romance tradition) is also a hottie, but he lives in fear of becoming like his father, a man he both hates and admires; he was, after all, the one who lived with the pain inflicted by Lyle's old-school style of leadership, where family was just a prop for success and skirts were to be chased, regardless of marital status. Holly's a driven professional who has built a successful firm from the ground up, but the voice of her ex still haunts her, telling her she can't have love if she dares to pursue dreams outside the home. There's an underlying theme of dealing with long-entrenched sexism in the workplace, though - this being a romance - it's not really about the theme, but about two lonely people coming together, figuratively and literally. Sparks, of course, fly from the first meeting, with some amusing dialog and innuendo-riddled situations as they dance around their mutual attraction. The climax felt just a trifle contrived, but overall this title is an enjoyable, fast-reading, and somewhat steamy escape.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Some Like It Perfect (Megan Bryce) - My Review
When Lightning Strikes (Brenda Novak) - My Review
Feel the Heat (Kathryn Shay) - My Review
Monday, November 6, 2017
How to Draw a Dragon (Douglas Florian)
How to Draw a Dragon
Douglas Florian
Beach Lane Books
Fiction, CH Art/Poetry/Fantasy/Picture Book
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Dragons are big, but drawing them's easy when you take it in small steps - and when you have a cooperative model. In this rhyming picture book, learn the best way to draw a dragon.
REVIEW: With simple, childlike drawings, this book caters to the young dragon-loving artist who wants to have fun while creating art, without all that bogging down in anatomy or perspective. Each page focuses on a particular part of dragons or their personalities, incorporating both European "Western" and Asian "Eastern" traditions. At the end is a cheat sheet summary. You won't end up with a Picasso or a Whelan, but you will have fun doodling the various dragons for your "art gallery." It's a nice place to start, even if the art was a little simplistic.
You Might Also Enjoy:
How to Draw Your Own Story: The Dragon, The Knight, and the Princess (Don Bolognese) - My Review
Ed Emberley's Big Green Drawing Book (Ed Emberley) - My Review
The Dragons Are Singing Tonight (Jack Prelutsky) - My Review
Douglas Florian
Beach Lane Books
Fiction, CH Art/Poetry/Fantasy/Picture Book
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Dragons are big, but drawing them's easy when you take it in small steps - and when you have a cooperative model. In this rhyming picture book, learn the best way to draw a dragon.
REVIEW: With simple, childlike drawings, this book caters to the young dragon-loving artist who wants to have fun while creating art, without all that bogging down in anatomy or perspective. Each page focuses on a particular part of dragons or their personalities, incorporating both European "Western" and Asian "Eastern" traditions. At the end is a cheat sheet summary. You won't end up with a Picasso or a Whelan, but you will have fun doodling the various dragons for your "art gallery." It's a nice place to start, even if the art was a little simplistic.
You Might Also Enjoy:
How to Draw Your Own Story: The Dragon, The Knight, and the Princess (Don Bolognese) - My Review
Ed Emberley's Big Green Drawing Book (Ed Emberley) - My Review
The Dragons Are Singing Tonight (Jack Prelutsky) - My Review
Thursday, November 2, 2017
It (Stephen King)
It
Stephen King
Signet Books
Fiction, Horror
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: In the summer floods of 1958, Bill Denbrough's kid brother, George, went out to play with a paper boat... and was found dead, mutilated in the streets of Derry, Maine. Thus began another season of killing, a cycle of supernaturally vicious crimes that had played out, generation after generation, in the former logging town for centuries - only, this year, Bill and six other children stood in its way.
In 1985, the former "Losers' Club" has grown up and drifted away... all save Mike, now the town librarian. When the killings begin again, he calls on his old friends in the name of a blood-oath they swore, an oath they no longer remember - just as they no longer remember each other, or the thing they discovered lurking under the streets of Derry. They bested it once, in the forgotten summer of 1958, and only they can beat it for good, but that means returning to their haunted home town to confront once again the murderous face of all fears made manifest, the ageless entity known sometimes as Pennywise the clown, sometimes as Robert Gray, but truly known only as It.
REVIEW: Yes, I suppose I'm a bit late to the party on this one. (The reading backlog's pushing triple digits, counting digital files...) In any event, the 2017 movie remake release prompted me to finally get around to trying it. Well, that, and numerous recommendations, not to mention having been unexpectedly impressed by King's 11/22/63, which made me suspect I might enjoy other longer books of his. And this thing is, indeed, a long book, a doorstop volume north of 1100 pages. It takes a lot of story to fill that many pages, a tale of epic proportions - and Stephen King delivers.
Cutting back and forth between 1958 and 1985, between childhood and adulthood, with the odd trip even further back in time to previous outbreaks of It, King builds remarkably complete characters in a town with a complex, haunted history stretching back hundreds of years. It takes some time to build momentum, not to mention time to sort out the cast, but King masterfully weaves the mundane with the supernatural, the ordinary with the extraordinary, to keep the reader (at least, me) interested while creating a growing sense of horror, not to mention a sense that nobody, not even the main crew, is guaranteed safe passage, let alone a happy ending. His 1958 child's-eye view of Derry brilliantly depicts a lost age, not just in years but in maturity: childhood here doesn't have the blinding golden glow of nostalgia that some authors create, and can frankly suck even without supernatural entities stalking the streets, but it has its good points, too. The era comes alive again as a child experienced it, with favorite TV shows and double feature monster films and whole days spent wandering and playing in a way few children get to experience in this overwired, overscheduled, and (in some ways, at least) overprotective age. As adults, returning memories slowly remind the characters how they became who they are, in good ways and bad; there's no Hollywood moment where everything becomes magically fixed by a Moment of Truth or power montage, but there are answers and some sense of closure. Meanwhile, they must remember the power of their former friendship, even as they try to evade the gruesome traps It sets to stop them. In many ways, the tale is as much about the struggle of childhood, the repeating cycles of life, and the rites of passage (and necessary sacrifices) as one grows up and changes, even into adulthood, a struggle made manifest in the fear-feeding entity of It.
The whole comes together in a brilliantly powerful conclusion, both past and present, followed by a bittersweet yet inevitable ending. It fully deserves its status as a classic, not just in the horror genre but in overall epic fiction - and this is, indeed, an epic tale, even if it takes place mostly in one haunted New England town. I only shaved a half-point for a little bit of excessive wandering, particularly in the interlude flashbacks beyond the main scope of the characters' tales.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury) - My Review
The Ghosts of Belfast (Stuart Neville) - My Review
Rough Draft (Michael Robertson Jr) - My Review
Stephen King
Signet Books
Fiction, Horror
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: In the summer floods of 1958, Bill Denbrough's kid brother, George, went out to play with a paper boat... and was found dead, mutilated in the streets of Derry, Maine. Thus began another season of killing, a cycle of supernaturally vicious crimes that had played out, generation after generation, in the former logging town for centuries - only, this year, Bill and six other children stood in its way.
In 1985, the former "Losers' Club" has grown up and drifted away... all save Mike, now the town librarian. When the killings begin again, he calls on his old friends in the name of a blood-oath they swore, an oath they no longer remember - just as they no longer remember each other, or the thing they discovered lurking under the streets of Derry. They bested it once, in the forgotten summer of 1958, and only they can beat it for good, but that means returning to their haunted home town to confront once again the murderous face of all fears made manifest, the ageless entity known sometimes as Pennywise the clown, sometimes as Robert Gray, but truly known only as It.
REVIEW: Yes, I suppose I'm a bit late to the party on this one. (The reading backlog's pushing triple digits, counting digital files...) In any event, the 2017 movie remake release prompted me to finally get around to trying it. Well, that, and numerous recommendations, not to mention having been unexpectedly impressed by King's 11/22/63, which made me suspect I might enjoy other longer books of his. And this thing is, indeed, a long book, a doorstop volume north of 1100 pages. It takes a lot of story to fill that many pages, a tale of epic proportions - and Stephen King delivers.
Cutting back and forth between 1958 and 1985, between childhood and adulthood, with the odd trip even further back in time to previous outbreaks of It, King builds remarkably complete characters in a town with a complex, haunted history stretching back hundreds of years. It takes some time to build momentum, not to mention time to sort out the cast, but King masterfully weaves the mundane with the supernatural, the ordinary with the extraordinary, to keep the reader (at least, me) interested while creating a growing sense of horror, not to mention a sense that nobody, not even the main crew, is guaranteed safe passage, let alone a happy ending. His 1958 child's-eye view of Derry brilliantly depicts a lost age, not just in years but in maturity: childhood here doesn't have the blinding golden glow of nostalgia that some authors create, and can frankly suck even without supernatural entities stalking the streets, but it has its good points, too. The era comes alive again as a child experienced it, with favorite TV shows and double feature monster films and whole days spent wandering and playing in a way few children get to experience in this overwired, overscheduled, and (in some ways, at least) overprotective age. As adults, returning memories slowly remind the characters how they became who they are, in good ways and bad; there's no Hollywood moment where everything becomes magically fixed by a Moment of Truth or power montage, but there are answers and some sense of closure. Meanwhile, they must remember the power of their former friendship, even as they try to evade the gruesome traps It sets to stop them. In many ways, the tale is as much about the struggle of childhood, the repeating cycles of life, and the rites of passage (and necessary sacrifices) as one grows up and changes, even into adulthood, a struggle made manifest in the fear-feeding entity of It.
The whole comes together in a brilliantly powerful conclusion, both past and present, followed by a bittersweet yet inevitable ending. It fully deserves its status as a classic, not just in the horror genre but in overall epic fiction - and this is, indeed, an epic tale, even if it takes place mostly in one haunted New England town. I only shaved a half-point for a little bit of excessive wandering, particularly in the interlude flashbacks beyond the main scope of the characters' tales.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury) - My Review
The Ghosts of Belfast (Stuart Neville) - My Review
Rough Draft (Michael Robertson Jr) - My Review
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