Things sneak up on the most wary of people. Dates, bills, burglars, weight gain, we all suffer from things we don’t notice until it’s too late to prevent. At that point, the only thing we can do to cope is deal with it. Some things, like an empty gas tank, are simply inconvenient, while things like hatchet-wielding maniacs call for more focused action. And panicking. Some flailing is allowed.
This week is all about the titles that slipped under my radar, either completely or long enough that they might as well be fresh titles to me. Let’s see if, now that they’re noticed, they’re worth reading.
Skyward 3 /6 (Jeremy Dale): Fantasy quest stories have been around for at least a century as we know them, longer if one fiddles with the definition a bit (I would count Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but that’s me). It’s hard for new ones to find a unique hook, and while I can’t say if a quest for a questor has ever been done before, this does draw the reader in.
Quinn lost his parents a while back. It would appear that at the end of the last issue, he also lost the ground. It’s coming to meet him at 32-feet-per-second-squared, and will turn him into a pancake soon. Meanwhile, Abigail and her merry band of easily-persuaded warriors are trying to track the boy down. Somebody finds him in non-pancake form, but may not have had his best intentions in mind. There’s also an army that someone should look into at some point.
Quinn lost his parents a while back. It would appear that at the end of the last issue, he also lost the ground. It’s coming to meet him at 32-feet-per-second-squared, and will turn him into a pancake soon. Meanwhile, Abigail and her merry band of easily-persuaded warriors are trying to track the boy down. Somebody finds him in non-pancake form, but may not have had his best intentions in mind. There’s also an army that someone should look into at some point.
I could go into how the dialog and characters misstep into cliche, or how the art tries too hard in places and highlights its own inconsistencies. Some might argue that I just did that, but I really don’t want to - it would be like yelling at a puppy. There is so much love and enthusiasm that comes through this book it practically drips off the page. Rather than pool and stain, it tries to sweep the reader up in the excitement of being published and shared, and as jaded as I am, it’s hard to resist.
For another thing, the offenses are minor at best. They don’t take away from the story, they just prevent it from being better. The stereotypes and common fantasy tropes (a magical sword, bumbling henchmen, a wayward adventurous daughter, even a faithful animal companion) act like training wheels. Dale relies on them, and it’s hard to be impressed by anything knowing he’s using them, yet he’s telling a story that makes the reader want to see more.
This is a good book for little readers wanting fresh fantasy, training for when they get into stories with a bit more challenge to them. This may also a book for someone that wants “before they were great” artifacts - if and when Dale takes his training wheels off, the dude might just fly.
Strain: The Fall 4 (Lapham/ Huddleston): From the title alone, one could guess what this is about: muscle spasms suffered after an unscheduled trip to the ground. Would it offend if instead this was a vampire story set in Manhattan?
Zephram “Eph” Goodweather is a doctor that was dropped into a hot zone that first looked to be some blood-borne pathogen, but turned out instead to be a viral form of vampirism. Its victims lose skin color, genitalia, mortality, and free will, becoming obedient pawns of those who sired them, ultimately to one Master. That patient has some powerful backers that want a taste of living forever, and is exercising that power to turn the world into its own all-it-can-eat buffet. It’s been planning for centuries, and all it has to deal with are a few hooligans and disavowed doctors.
Zephram “Eph” Goodweather is a doctor that was dropped into a hot zone that first looked to be some blood-borne pathogen, but turned out instead to be a viral form of vampirism. Its victims lose skin color, genitalia, mortality, and free will, becoming obedient pawns of those who sired them, ultimately to one Master. That patient has some powerful backers that want a taste of living forever, and is exercising that power to turn the world into its own all-it-can-eat buffet. It’s been planning for centuries, and all it has to deal with are a few hooligans and disavowed doctors.
I’ve read the first few prose books this series is based on. It’s a bold take on the vampire mythos, but it treats its own quirks like nuclear launch codes and doesn’t give them up without a lot of pain and suffering. This makes it very hard to follow, even if the reader’s read it before. The artwork favors style over detail as well, but in this case it works; a more photo-realistic style would have killed this concept.
The Strain is a unique story no matter what medium you read it in, but take heed: if you don’t start from the beginning, you’ll find nothing to hold on to and no reason to read more.
X-Files Season 10 5 (Carter & Harris/ Walsh [no relation]): Do you own so many tin foil hats that your home interferes with cell signal? Does the Bigfoot Society not return your calls anymore? Are there not enough conspiracy theories for you and you know who’s behind the cover-up? Or did you just like The X-Files on tv? If any of those answers are yes, give this a look.
Mulder and Scully had gone above and beyond the call of duty as FBI agents. They saved lives, protected their country, and revealed truths that would otherwise stay hidden. They deserved a break. Not everyone agreed, so they tracked the couple down and brought them to Yellowstone National Park to be sacrificed and offered to heavenly beings. Things didn’t work out so well for those guys.
Mulder and Scully had gone above and beyond the call of duty as FBI agents. They saved lives, protected their country, and revealed truths that would otherwise stay hidden. They deserved a break. Not everyone agreed, so they tracked the couple down and brought them to Yellowstone National Park to be sacrificed and offered to heavenly beings. Things didn’t work out so well for those guys.
This feels just like the tv show. No surprise, Chris Carter being directly involved and all. Dana Scully is still a stoic analyst right up to the point where the people she loves are threatened, at which point she’s an angel of death. Fox Mulder is still driven to the point of obsessive and would be insane if he weren’t right all the time. Awkward after-action reports, the Cigarette Smoking Man, and figures even more shadowy are all here in just the proper proportions.
This also has what I didn’t like about the show. It’s very, obviously, excruciatingly plot-driven. Plans make sense until they get in the way of where the series needs to be, then they’re thrown out, regardless of how much merit they may still have. This was determined to get the main characters back into the FBI, heedless of the events that drove them away before. Reading it may cause scratching of the head at things that get in the way of the fun bits.
This book flows seamlessly from where the tv show ended, regardless of whether you liked the last season or not. Let that determine whether this is a title for you or not.
And just to sneak one up on you…
S.H.O.O.T. First 1 (Aclin/ Selma): There are some topics in popular culture that aren’t necessarily taboo, but don’t get much time because they are so controversial. Religious violence, accuracy in faith, things like that. It takes a very careful, deft approach to explore these topics delicately. S.H.O.O.T. First may have a lot of guns, explosions, and censored language, but it avoids the pitfalls and comes out being a very readable book.
When someone preys on blind faith for profit, we call that fraud. They are punished when caught. When that someone happens to be from another species with the ability to look and act like something out of ancient religious texts, their punishment gets a bit trickier. S.H.O.O.T., the Secular Human Occult Obliteration Taskforce, proves it’s not impossible. They’re not always able to prevent bad things from happening, but they make sure those responsible can’t profit from it. The team’s made up of members from various races and former creeds so diverse they could have been test-marketed, but at least one has a pretty big secret.
When someone preys on blind faith for profit, we call that fraud. They are punished when caught. When that someone happens to be from another species with the ability to look and act like something out of ancient religious texts, their punishment gets a bit trickier. S.H.O.O.T., the Secular Human Occult Obliteration Taskforce, proves it’s not impossible. They’re not always able to prevent bad things from happening, but they make sure those responsible can’t profit from it. The team’s made up of members from various races and former creeds so diverse they could have been test-marketed, but at least one has a pretty big secret.
The big question you probably want answered before giving this a shot: is this a propaganda piece for atheism? Answer: no. Religion itself is not the bad guy, and is itself a victim. While many of the characters have crises of faith, it does explain that they have not proven the non-existence of God, they’ve just proven that at least two kinds of alien beings use the ideas behind religions to benefit themselves at the expense of human lives. It does suggest God doesn’t exist, but that suggestion comes from a character with a concussion and a few dozen doses of adrenaline holding him up, so it doesn’t carry much stock. I’m sure somebody will argue that this actually is propaganda against religion, (there are several points where it almost sells itself as one), but they’re not reading it close enough.
This does something that I didn’t expect, something I’m not sure they even intended, but I truly enjoyed. It suggests a world that’s going through the same violent, oppressing, depressing stages of humanity that we are, full of religious extremism turning toward horrible acts of violence, and saying it’s not any person’s fault. It postulates that our fellow man is, at heart, not capable of this kind of monstrous behavior, and that only because of malevolent outside forces could we believe otherwise. It’s a naive concept, but it’s one I could get lost in.
The writing is a bit dense, the art’s a bit hard to follow at times, and the concept’s a bitter pill, but put it all together and you’ve got a neat little book.
And like a ghost, I’m gone! See you next week!
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