Wednesday 31 October 2018

Review: Siege

Siege Siege by Brian Michael Bendis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I buy most of my books from charity shops. In general, this is not a problem but it is trickier with graphic novels where I usually struggle to get the whole story. With Siege, I am coming in at the end of a story and knew nothing about the build up and crossover elements. It took me a while to work out what was going on. For example, what was with the Avengers? Who were these people that were not the people they said they were? I didn't realise at first that Osborne's Avengers were not the Avengers I knew and loved.

Anyway, I got there eventually and mostly enjoyed the story. Some of the artwork was a bit scrappy but there was enough that was good to keep me on board I especially like the sequence of panels that work down the page where you see, from above, the Iron Patriot looking up. As the panels progress, you notice that a spot in the first panel is a reflection of something getting closer and closer until in the final panel, it is clearly about to smack hm on the head. (I won't spoil it completely by saying what was getting closer, but it made me smile when I recognised it.) No dialogue, just a great idea well rendered.

My main concern with it was the "too many heroes" problem. The thinking seems to be: if less is more, just think how much more "more" will be! You like one hero? You'll like two heroes twice as much. And if you like two heroes, get a load of this story with two-hundred and two! My problem is that it is impossible to do justice to everyone involved so, inevitably, some of my favourite characters just get lost in the background.

That said, I enjoyed the story: Osborne was suitably unhinged; Loki was deliciously malicious and some of Earth's (and Asgard's) mightiest heroes were well and truly slapped!

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Saturday 13 October 2018

Review: Neverwhere

Neverwhere Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'd heard the radio adaptation of this book a year or two ago and really enjoyed it. I was surprised to discover though that the book was based on a BBC TV series that Gaiman wrote... what was I doing in the mid nineties that I missed that completely!?

Despite having heard it on the radio, I had forgotten the end and thoroughly enjoyed finding out what happened again. (Crumbs. I just looked it up. I must have heard the radio shows five years ago! No wonder I'd forgotten most of it.) I enjoyed the way Gaiman reused and repurposed London place names: the way some things were taken literally (e.g. Earls Court) and how places became people (Old Bailey being my favourite - I couldn't help but hear Bernard Cribbins voice in my head when I read his lines).

As with the radio programme, the bit that worked least well for me was the character of Richard Mayhew, which is unfortunate since he is arguably the main character. He was so (unbelievably) slow on the uptake, he was clearly supposed to be a messiah type character but it was never clear why and the resolution to his story arc was easily guessable.

Despite that, I still enjoyed this book. Gaiman delivers some nice lines, for example, when describing London he says: "It was a city in which the very old and the awkwardly new jostled each other, not uncomfortably, but without respect..." and I, although I didn't laugh out loud while reading it, I often sniggered quietly. And if that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is!

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