Book review catchup: February and early March

[terriko]

So, yeah. February. Here's the list with very short reviews:

1. 
   The Dead Girls' Dance - I didn't enjoy this as much as the first in the series, probably because it went more towards action and less towards mystery overall, probably because a lot of denouement was happening as mysteries unravelled and things happened. But I've found that Rachel Caine can have one I don't like as much followed by two I love, so I'm not too worried and I'm sufficiently curious to read the next one when I have time.
   
   
2. 
   On the Edge - I loved Ilona Andrews' other series... but I think I may like this one even better. There's fairyland, there's the regular world, and in between are the people who live on the edge in the borderland between. Very strong female lead, interesting worlds, good characters, great story. In particular, I liked how she dealt with the various types of classism that would happen in that world -- really added to the richness of everything for me. This may be my favourite book for this month.
   
   
3. 
   Y: The Last Man Vol 1: Unmanned - I'm on a bit of a Brian K. Vaughan kick between finishing Ex Machina, starting Runaways, and chancing upon him in Buffy, so I figured I should go to the beginning. I don't know, though... while it's clearly good, this one just didn't grab me and pull me in the way others did. Maybe I'm just not that interested in a world where all the men suddenly die horribly... except for one. I'll give the next book a try, though.
   
   
4. 
   The Gratitude of Kings - Cute little fairy tale. Kept feeling like something horrible would happen, but it's a kids book so it didn't.
   
   
5. 
   Magic Bleeds - Latest in Ilona Andrews' first series. Loved it as much as the others and highly recommend the series as a whole. This is the "set in a broken version of Atlanta" series I mentioned here, where "broken" in this case means that magic and technology come in waves, so sometimes the car works and sometimes you have to take a donkey to get anywhere. Best thing about this book in the series: the dog. ;)
   
   
6. 
   Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories - cute graphic novel with side stories to Dr. Horrible. Enjoyable, but a little plot free. I found it to be a bit of a disappointment compared to The Guild's graphic novel, which advanced my knowledge of the characters considerably. Hey, did I ever review that here?
   
   
7. 
   Ex Machina Vol. 9: Ring out the Old - Still enjoying the series, but this was far from my favourite episode
   
   
8. 
   Hex Hall - Teen story about a girl whose inability to control her magic gets her sent to the remedial school for supernatural types who can't blend in to normal society. It didn't grab me the way, say, On the Edge did, but I did read it all in one sitting.
   
   
9. 
   The Impostor's Daughter - putting the novel in graphic novel, I picked this up because I was surprised to see what appeared to be a normal hardcover in the graphic novel section. It's an interesting autobiographical story from a woman who finds out that the father who she worshipped as a child is a con man.
   
   
10. 
    Spike, After the Fall - This way much more enjoyable than I found Angel, After the Fall. (uh... which I apparently never reviewed. Good concepts, but it didn't quite click for me, and why the heck can't comic artists ever do a consistent Angel? Is David Boreanaz that hard to draw?). Felt very much like Spike, and by concentrating on one person primarily I think this book really was a better package.
    
    
11. 
    White Rapids - the complete story of a small town made to support a hydroelectric dam in Quebec, and closed when the power company automated the power plant. Feels more like infographics than a comic; I really loved the graphic design of this story.
    
    
12. 
    White Tiger, A Hero's Compulsion - I just got this out because it was written by Tamora Pierce, and I loved many of her young adult novels. I liked the story of White Tiger finding her way as a new superhero, but I have to agree with my sister who said that she felt like she really needed to know more about the back story and universe to really get this volume. (I often feel this way with american comics, sadly, but I haven't the energy to devote to learning enough to feel like the worlds are complete when I enter them.)
    
    
13. 
    Runaways vol 4 True Believers - Still enjoyable. Kinda sick of how they kept name dropping the Avengers in there, but I'm not sure it could be avoided in this case.
    
    
14. 
    Beet the Vandel Buster vol 1 - Cute story, if a fairly standard tale: little kid decides he's going to save the world; everyone laughs, but it turns out he's actually pretty powerful. By the end of the story, he and his best friend sidekick (a surprisingly strong girl in her own right) are heading out... for adventure! It feels very derivative, but I found it enjoyable nonetheless.
    

Honourable mention:

• 
  Only Human - A third of the way through it it was only just getting interesting... but I had to return it to the library before I got through it. Interesting concept wherein a filing error suddenly makes a small number of inanimate objects human, but at a third of the way through they'd barely done anything. Might try to pick it up later, but it felt a little too slow for my tastes.
  

That's just my library list -- there's a few other books which I'll list off later.

Comments

[jrosen]

I totally get where you're coming from with White Tiger; it wasn't meant to be a graphic novel, it was an abortive attempt to launch a new Marvel monthly series. And it came at the cusp of the company-wide "Civil War" event, if I remember correctly, so there was a ton of external continuity going on (the Daredevil-impostor and the whole thing about superheroes being feared as much as the criminals they were fighting were ongoing stories outside of the series, for instance.)

Add to that the fact that the protagonist was a legacy character (ie, someone picking up the mantle of an existing hero) based on a rather obscure one from the 70s, with ties to various other characters throughout the Marvel Universe, and I can see why you felt the way you did.

When it didn't catch on, they pulled the plug, which left the story feeling rather lacking -- there's not really enough there to feel like a complete work, whereas if you knew there was more coming you'd probably stick with it a bit longer and get more of the world presented to you.

It's really frustrating, as well, because it could have been a great series to give to new readers if they'd given it a bit more time and maybe made it more accessible (I don't blame Tamora for that, I blame the non-stop EPIC STORYLINES that plague Marvel and DC both.) As far as I know, there are no other Hispanic characters with their own series in mainstream Marvel or DC right now (just whites, blacks, and aliens[1]), and while there are a few women they're more often rather more cheesecake-y than White Tiger was.

This title represents a bit of a sore spot for me, you may have noticed. A wasted opportunity and a great example of much of what I dislike about Marvel from the last decade or so.

[1] There is a Korean-American hero who's slated to get his own series back (he had one in the 90s) in the next few months. We'll see how long that lasts.

[terriko]

This is actually totally fascinating... I don't suppose you'd be interested in having a guest post on geek feminism about how Marvel kinda failed White Tiger?

[jrosen]

Let me get back to you on it -- I'd want to do more research first. :)

[jrosen]

For instance, looking at my issues now, it was always labeled a mini-series. Still, with the ballyhoo Marvel made of signing her Pierce (and yet her never having written anything for them since) and giving the mini-series a big name artist to do the covers, I think there was more expected... Still looking.

[terriko]

Very interesting indeed. I do think it's fairly interesting that they signed Pierce. In many ways, she's a good fit, but it really speaks to wanting to attract a young adult audience, or at least to attract adults who associate her with good strong female heroines. It's got a bit of a "comics are for kids" flavour as a choice too, I suppose, but I don't think that was the intended message.

[unregisteredpseudonymspls]

I kind of liked Y in the beginning but got disappointed in it as time went on. Y is a send-off of a particular genre of feminist SF in the 70s, which is also recapitulated in Elisabeth Bear's much more recent (and excellent) Carnival.