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wbfreema's review against another edition
4.0
Not sure why issue 4 doesn't show up on goodreads. I read this story via single issues, so i'm using the collection for my issue 4 review:
great intertwining of noir sensibilities with the Eldritch. Wonderful interpersonal relationship writing. interesting ideas regarding the Hollywood portions. covers are stunning. interior artwork is nice, but they switch artists a good deal and that's a bit jarring.Roberto de la torre's style best fits the narrative in my opinion. a bit wordy(telling, not showing) in places, but overall a wonderful little series.
great intertwining of noir sensibilities with the Eldritch. Wonderful interpersonal relationship writing. interesting ideas regarding the Hollywood portions. covers are stunning. interior artwork is nice, but they switch artists a good deal and that's a bit jarring.Roberto de la torre's style best fits the narrative in my opinion. a bit wordy(telling, not showing) in places, but overall a wonderful little series.
crookedtreehouse's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't love this volume as much as the first.
I thought there could have been some more clever ways to tell the story that would have made it drag less. One of the instances being that the main character's dead husband is working with her, but she's the only one who can communicate with him, so we occasionally get fed the same information twice as we see the original conversation, and then her reiterating it to someone else. It would be way better if we couldn't understand what her husband said, either. As the reader, we could see him, and maybe read his gestures and facial expressions, but we wouldn't know exactly what he said until his wife translated it for another character.
I feel that a few more quirks like that would have made this a four or five star book for me. As it is, I occasionally found myself wanting to skip ahead a few pages to see where the story was going, rather than savoring moments with the characters.
I also didn't really get a feel for anyone in this book except the main character and her dead husband. Everyone else just felt like devices designed to move the plot forward.
I thought there could have been some more clever ways to tell the story that would have made it drag less. One of the instances being that the main character's dead husband is working with her, but she's the only one who can communicate with him, so we occasionally get fed the same information twice as we see the original conversation, and then her reiterating it to someone else. It would be way better if we couldn't understand what her husband said, either. As the reader, we could see him, and maybe read his gestures and facial expressions, but we wouldn't know exactly what he said until his wife translated it for another character.
I feel that a few more quirks like that would have made this a four or five star book for me. As it is, I occasionally found myself wanting to skip ahead a few pages to see where the story was going, rather than savoring moments with the characters.
I also didn't really get a feel for anyone in this book except the main character and her dead husband. Everyone else just felt like devices designed to move the plot forward.
tmaluck's review against another edition
4.0
Make no mistake: even though this is a star lower than the first Doctor Mirage story, "Second Lives" still contains much of the magic that enchanted me the first time around. I would compare this to Ghostbusters 2, not in terms of disappointing in any way, but just not being as novel. The first Mirage story used each chapter to extend suspension of disbelief a little more and build toward a fantastic climax. This story, just as beautifully rendered by its team as before, plays within those rules and therefore does not deliver the same ecstasy. Still a great read, though, and a top-shelf Valiant series.
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