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dsrtao_Warbreaker_, Brandon Sanderson (version 4)
_Red Son_, Mark Millar et al
_Superman for All Seasons_, Jeph Loeb
_Chosen_, Mark Millar
_Liberty and Justice: JLA_, Alex Ross and Paul Dini
_This Is Not A Game_, Walter Jon Williams
Extremely short version: Good, odd, good, odd, mixed, great.
Brandon Sanderson is going to write the last book of Robert Jordan's _Wheel of Time_ series. OK, last three books. He has a fairly popular fantasy series of his own, called _Mistborn_, and he's writing a big standalone right now. The standalone is called _Warbreaker_, and because he's releasing multiple revisions of it, I should specify that I read V4. My biggest complaint is that Sanderson has created a very consistent-feeling magical fantasy world, given it an interesting kind of life magic which ties into the economy in all sorts of ways, and then stuck a clunker of a BiCapitalized name on it: BioChroma. No other word in the entire book is BiCapitalized, and none of his other made-up words sounds so relentlessly mid-90s dorky. He should search and replace, case-insensitive, /biochrom/chrom/ and I would stop getting tossed out of my suspension of disbelief.
Other than that, it's pretty good, especially as a society that nobody actually wants to live in.
_Red Son_ is the tale of Superman arriving 12 hours early on his famous flight from Krypton -- and thus crashlanding in a Ukrainian collective farm instead of Kansas. I like the alternate Wonder Woman, can't stand the alternate Batman. Argues strongly for nurture over nature. Discusses the basic problem of 'good' dictatorships (succession).
_Superman for All Seasons_, on the other hand, is a relentlessly cheerful take on the origin story, skipping over the spaceship and baby blanket bits to concentrate on high-school senior Clark Kent and his discovery of girls... and superpowers. Continues through a few years in Metropolis, before Lois and Supes hook up. Rockwellian, on occasion. Charming.
_Chosen_ is a story about a kid who might be the second coming of Jesus. This is about as creepy as you can possibly imagine, and is likely to offend just about everyone. I enjoyed reading it once and I can't imagine ever wanting to re-read it.
The JLA book features beautiful paintings by Alex Ross and a plot that doesn't make much sense by Paul Dini.
Walter Jon Williams is one of my favorite authors. He likes to change themes and styles, but he's only written one stinker (The Rift, which was a summer doorstop disaster novel about the St. Louis earthquake of 2002 or so). This is not a second stinker. This is an excellent near-future thriller about some people who run Augmented Reality Games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game) and the possible interactions with the real world. A little like _Sneakers_, but more believable. Strong female lead, and a clear understanding of gamers, programmers, venture capitalists, tourists, and police. I read it in one day, starting after work and finishing about midnight. I guess that makes it a gripping page-turner.
_Red Son_, Mark Millar et al
_Superman for All Seasons_, Jeph Loeb
_Chosen_, Mark Millar
_Liberty and Justice: JLA_, Alex Ross and Paul Dini
_This Is Not A Game_, Walter Jon Williams
Extremely short version: Good, odd, good, odd, mixed, great.
Brandon Sanderson is going to write the last book of Robert Jordan's _Wheel of Time_ series. OK, last three books. He has a fairly popular fantasy series of his own, called _Mistborn_, and he's writing a big standalone right now. The standalone is called _Warbreaker_, and because he's releasing multiple revisions of it, I should specify that I read V4. My biggest complaint is that Sanderson has created a very consistent-feeling magical fantasy world, given it an interesting kind of life magic which ties into the economy in all sorts of ways, and then stuck a clunker of a BiCapitalized name on it: BioChroma. No other word in the entire book is BiCapitalized, and none of his other made-up words sounds so relentlessly mid-90s dorky. He should search and replace, case-insensitive, /biochrom/chrom/ and I would stop getting tossed out of my suspension of disbelief.
Other than that, it's pretty good, especially as a society that nobody actually wants to live in.
_Red Son_ is the tale of Superman arriving 12 hours early on his famous flight from Krypton -- and thus crashlanding in a Ukrainian collective farm instead of Kansas. I like the alternate Wonder Woman, can't stand the alternate Batman. Argues strongly for nurture over nature. Discusses the basic problem of 'good' dictatorships (succession).
_Superman for All Seasons_, on the other hand, is a relentlessly cheerful take on the origin story, skipping over the spaceship and baby blanket bits to concentrate on high-school senior Clark Kent and his discovery of girls... and superpowers. Continues through a few years in Metropolis, before Lois and Supes hook up. Rockwellian, on occasion. Charming.
_Chosen_ is a story about a kid who might be the second coming of Jesus. This is about as creepy as you can possibly imagine, and is likely to offend just about everyone. I enjoyed reading it once and I can't imagine ever wanting to re-read it.
The JLA book features beautiful paintings by Alex Ross and a plot that doesn't make much sense by Paul Dini.
Walter Jon Williams is one of my favorite authors. He likes to change themes and styles, but he's only written one stinker (The Rift, which was a summer doorstop disaster novel about the St. Louis earthquake of 2002 or so). This is not a second stinker. This is an excellent near-future thriller about some people who run Augmented Reality Games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game) and the possible interactions with the real world. A little like _Sneakers_, but more believable. Strong female lead, and a clear understanding of gamers, programmers, venture capitalists, tourists, and police. I read it in one day, starting after work and finishing about midnight. I guess that makes it a gripping page-turner.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-08 07:32 pm (UTC)Ooh, I like that!
I would disagree; some of his early stuff is pretty bad. Have you read Angel Station, from about 1989?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-08 07:37 pm (UTC)It could be worse.
Date: 2009-04-09 02:01 am (UTC)But the male protagonist is a deeply unsympathetic character. No, that's not strong enough: he's creepy. The incestuous relationship is not saved by the fact that they aren't genetically related. (It might be different if he actually loved her instead of exploiting her.)
The holographic father gets to be tiresome long before it gets turned off. The alien who travels with them does an implausibly poor job of learning to understand humans. The computer technology is just senseless, even from a 1980s perspective. But it was really the creepy protagonist that turned me off.
Re: It could be worse.
Date: 2009-04-09 09:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-12 06:43 pm (UTC)"Likely to offend just about everyone" is pretty much the hallmark of Mark Millar. I mean, Chosen is downright earthy-crunchy-nice compared to Wanted. He's a good enough writer that I *tend* to buy his stuff, but he falls uncomfortably between the insane brilliance of Warren Ellis (who simply has so many *ideas* that I follow his writing faithfully) and the gleeful malice of Garth Ennis (who can be truly unpleasant, but also ferociously funny). Millar has a bit of each, but in a somewhat less pure form, and his work is a bit of a mixed bag.
And yes, the JLA book was a remarkable waste of time for something with such good art. Sadly, a lot of Alex Ross' recent work has been that way: his art has become iconic enough that they're stopped pairing him with good enough writers to match up to it. (And even the good writers don't seem to do good work with him: Dini can be excellent, but somehow Ross seems to bring out the ponderous in many writers.) It seems to be almost an artistic version of the Peter Principle...