trilbynorton's reviews
247 reviews

Creatures of Light and Darkness by Roger Zelazny

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

A great example of the importance of prose. Creatures of Light and Darkness is essentially pulp space opera, with superpowered beings zipping about space and fighting each other. But Zelazny's prose is mysterious and evocative, turning lurid science fiction into enigmatic mythology.

Seaguy by Grant Morrison, Cameron Stewart

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

"Egyptian meteors. A mummy on the moon. Now I've seen everything."

What would a world in which the superheroes actually, finally won look like? Maybe an absurdist late-20th century stasis in which nothing happens and people in silly costumes spend all their time going to theme parks and watching TV.

Morrison's "everything and the kitchen sink" storytelling works brilliantly here, as his post-superhero utopia is a great vehicle for weird stuff.

The Ganymede Takeover by Ray Faraday Nelson, Philip K. Dick

adventurous funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Like a lot of books from Dick's "middle period", this contains a veritable hoard of good ideas that never really get developed. The Earth has been occupied by worm-like beings from Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon. The occupation is opposed by a small resistance force comprised mostly of America's black population. The rest of the US seems to have reverted to something resembling the antebellum south, complete with the return of slavery. A cache of weapons is found that can create persistent and physical hallucinations, with a purported mega-weapon that can allegedly detach the Earth's entire population (and anyone telepathically linked with them - oh yeah, the worms are telepaths) from reality. One of the worm overlords goes native and becomes obsessed with 20th century fighter planes.

It's impossible to dislike a book that has this much stuff in it.

Vimanarama by Philip Bond, Grant Morrison

adventurous funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Fun but slight. The story moves along at a fast clip and includes a lot of Morrison weirdness, but there's no real room for the stakes to matter or the characters to grow. It also feels a little odd to have the protagonists be British-Asian. It obviously feeds into the Hindu/Buddhist flavour of the Morrison weirdness, but it is very clearly a non-British-Asian writer writing about that experience.

Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko

challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

There are concepts that cannot be imagined but can be named. Having received a name, they change, flow into a different entity, and cease to correspond to the name, and then they can be given another, different name, and this process - the spellbinding process of creation - is infinite; this is the word that names it, and this is the word that signifies. A concept as an organism, and text as the universe.

In many ways, Vita Nostra is the anti-Harry Potter. Both feature young people getting invited to weird schools to study an unusual curriculum, making friends, passing exams, and clashing with teachers along the way. But whereas Harry Potter creates a cosy pseudo-Victorian stasis that readers would love to live in themselves (to the point of hurling themselves at a wall in a London train station), Vita Nostra instead takes place in a hostile and unpleasant institute which no one in their right mind would wish to attend. Students aren’t invited with magical letters but essentially blackmailed into attending; they don’t study fun and easily recognisable subjects like Potions and Charms but a mysterious subject simply named “Specialty” which is never actually explained to them; and instead of getting the loving support of a friendly faculty, students are antagonised and bullied by mean teachers to the point of mental breakdown.

There is a point to the academic belligerence, although we are left as much in the dark as the students until late in the novel. There are hints throughout, to do with the relationship between language and reality, but I won’t spoil anything here. Suffice to say that Vita Nostra is one of the strangest books I have ever read. The strangeness is imparted in large part by the slippery prose, in an excellent translation from the novel’s original Russian; in even simple descriptions of places and people, the book’s prose seems to loosen the reality of the world. Now that I’ve read it, Vita Nostra is going to stay in my head for a very long time.

Kill Your Boyfriend by Philip Bond, D'Israeli, Grant Morrison, Daniel Vozzo

funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Grant Morrison's Natural Born Killers. This feels a bit flimsy compared to the work Morrison had done previously (Animal Man, Doom Patrol). Still, it does evoke a time in British culture when people did seem to believe that teenage delinquency would genuinely lead to the downfall of civilisation.

Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick

challenging reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Expanded from Dick's short story "You're Appointment Will Be Yesterday", Counter-Clock World sees the Earth engulfed in a time reversal field in which people begin conversations with "Goodbye", food is regurgitated onto empty plates, and the dead return to life. It's the last which is the book's primary focus, as the deceased founder of a religion is due to return, possibly with insights into the afterlife. To be honest, neither of these subjects - time reversal or the theological implications of mass resurrection - are fully explored, with Dick seemingly more interested in the ethical implications of his characters various extra-marital affairs. Still, the whole thing moves along at a brisk pace, and the themes presage Dick's later metaphysical obsessions.

Kid Eternity by Grant Morrison

adventurous challenging dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Grant Morrison has two modes: thrillingly bonkers and tediously bonkers. Thankfully, Kid Eternity is the former (see his Green Lantern run for the latter). In the first few pages alone an abstract painting comes to life to murder partygoers and the titular Kid summons a knight and a 30s gangster (complete with tommy gun) to fight it. The art by Duncan Fegredo is mesmerising, evoking Dave McKean's work in Morrison's Arkham Asylum.

Chapterhouse: Dune by Frank Herbert

adventurous challenging dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I've enjoyed my time spent in the Dune universe, but I'm glad it's over (I probably won't be reading Brian Herbert's sequels, let alone his prequels). Frank Herbert's allusive and elusive writing has reaped diminishing returns since God Emperor, to the point at which Chapter House: Dune happens entirely elsewhere and all the reader is given is space nuns sitting around talking politics. Even the political and philosophical discussions seem trite compared to previous books.

Chapter House: Dune ends on a cliffhanger, but that feels like a good place to leave the series. Dune has always been about the dangers of prescience and the need for uncertainty and the unknown in human affairs, so it feels fitting to walk away as the characters venture into an unexplored universe.

Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? by Alan Moore

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I knew that this was Alan Moore's “conclusion” to Superman's story ahead of his reboot after the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, but I was expecting something more reflective. What it is is two decent, if rushed, Superman stories with a framing device. Whereas I wanted something more along the lines of Neil Gaiman’s What Ever Happened to the Caped Crusader?. Honestly, I think Grant Morrison did this idea better in his All-Star Superman book.