Through the Seamy Side

So I splurged a little a while back and ordered a few books from B&N. Now me buying some books isn’t that unusual. What is unusual is that these books are graphic novels. In fact they are two novels in three books. I’ve read both of them in normal comic form, thanks to a friend. I liked them so much that now years later I bought the anthologies. Both of them are by J. Michael Straczynski. I recommend reading his Wiki article. And I read one of the graphic novels over again last night. It was great, so I decided to throw up a short review of Midnight Nation. You know I’m not sure if I should italicize that or put it in quotes. Eh whatever.

I’ll try to keep any spoilers to a minimum. Oh and Smitty you will read this when you move up.

Midnight Nation (Big spoilers in link so don’t look if you haven’t read the story already) was made in 12 issues and covers the year long journey of LAPD Lieutenant David Grey as he walks from LA to New York. Why would someone with a steady job and responsibilities do that? Well David got too close while investigating a murder and what appeared to be a new crime power moving in LA. As a consequence, he had his soul stolen by “The Other Guy”, and he only has a year to get it back. This has thrust him into an invisible world that exists alongside ours where all the lost people and discarded objects go. A woman named Laurel is his guide and possibly more on his journey to reclaim his soul. Together they must traverse the country in heat and snow to get to New York in time. All the while “The Walkers”, servants of “The Other Guy” try to slow him down. Will David make it or will he succumb to the growing urges creeping though his mind as his struggles get harder and the road never seems to end? And one question looms. What must he do once he gets there to reclaim himself?

It’s good. I mean it’s really good. I always love JMS’s writing and characterization. And he has a way with telling a story. Not many times you can read something so profoundly religious (not necessarily Christian), and political, and psychological all at once. I know this one is going to have to make the rounds with some family and friends.

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The Face of Hundreds

Well I finally finished reading The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by H. W. Brands. I tell you what that took me a long time. The thing is over 700 pages long and I swear it’s like 8pt font. I read it in 3 goes. I broke those up with fiction books in between. It helped to take a bit of a break from the flood of information.

Well I’m not exactly sure what to say here. This was a darned good book. It’s well written. It covers an extremely important person in American history. And I really liked it. The reason I don’t know what to say is that the book just covers so much. Franklin lived a long time and did more in his life than most people could imagine. This is one of the people that helped make the US the country it is today. And some of the things the thought of and helped institute are very modern ideas even by today’s standards. So if you like history and good writing then you should pick this one up and give it a read.

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Traveling to Tampa

Well two weekends ago in the middle of April I had the great pleasure of travelling with friends, to meet with more friends, to help two friends get married. It doesn’t get much better than that. And the damnedest thing of all, I didn’t take any pictures. Oh well. There were plenty of others taking pictures. Though we did miss recording the limo trip, the drunken go-cart racing, the game playing, and the drunken mini-golf. Ah that was a hoot right there. But the capstone was getting to stand up there and witness two people who are made for each other take the next big step in their life together. And now they are moving even closer to me. You know 2008 is turning out to be a stellar year. Smittys I hope you had a great honeymoon, and I hope you like the wedding present. I know Dex, Anita, James and Tiffany hope you do as well.

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Eternal Knight

As you can tell I’ve finished Fall of Knight by Peter David. A can’t believe that it’s been over two years since I read the previous book of the series, and the first before that. I’ve been eagerly awaiting this one, but in actuality it has been sitting on my shelf for a little while. I kind of stopped reading for several months there, but I’m trying to make a comeback. I took a pause 1/3 of the way though the Franklin biography. It’s good, but I needed a respite from 700+ pages of 10 point font.

This is the third and probably final of the series. This book is more like the previous one than like the first. Look at my previous review for what I’m talking about. Most of what I said about the quality of the second book applies here as well, but first the plot points. Basically this book starts a couple months after Arthur fights for the Grail and heals his wife Gwen. She and he are keeping a low profile alone on a sail boat in the Pacific. I mean how can Arthur explain the miraculous recovery of the former First Lady after a sniper round to the head? Surprise of surprises they are found out and rumors start flying all over the place about secret government treatments not available to the public and such. Arthur comes back to Washington and comes clean about what happened. Pilgrims start surrounding the White House wanting help from the Grail. Arthur goes into hiding, Merlin disappears, and some yahoo shows up with the Spear of Destiny. They seem to work something out about using the Grail to help people, but then all Hell tries to break lose. In the end it goes to show that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book as much as the second. It gets a bit darker, and some won’t like it for some of the religious stance it takes. I mean come on it has the Grail and the Spear of Longinus in it. How can it not be controversial? If differing ideas don’t daunt you then I recommend this to anyone who likes the genre.

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