God I just can't get enough of these novels. And The Ace of Skulls is the last one! What are you doing to me, Wooding!?
Iron Jackal starts off just likGod I just can't get enough of these novels. And The Ace of Skulls is the last one! What are you doing to me, Wooding!?
Iron Jackal starts off just like the first two; the Ketty Jay gets a job, and it goes wrong. Except this time the job doesn't go wrong - everything else does. It is definitely the darkest of the Ketty Jay novels yet, and for a light-hearted steampunky romp it wrenched my heartstrings more times than I'd like to mention.
I seriously cannot recommend this series enough. It is positively brilliant....more
A very satisfying, fitting end to one of the best trilogies I've read in a while.
A couple of niggling things here or there - everyone's complete folloA very satisfying, fitting end to one of the best trilogies I've read in a while.
A couple of niggling things here or there - everyone's complete following of Juliette's orders in particular - but definitely not enough to drop this below 5 stars. Fantastic....more
Fantastic, I was worried after reading Retribution Falls that no sequels could live up to it, but the Black Lung Captain was a more than worthy sequelFantastic, I was worried after reading Retribution Falls that no sequels could live up to it, but the Black Lung Captain was a more than worthy sequel.
Firefly/Serenity parallels continue, but the Ketty Jay definitely has its own character and the world continues to be unique yet familiar. Characters are stellar.
This serves as a review of the 20th Century Boys series as a whole, volumes 1-22, and including the epilogue series 21st Century Boys.
This is without This serves as a review of the 20th Century Boys series as a whole, volumes 1-22, and including the epilogue series 21st Century Boys.
This is without a doubt the best manga I have ever read. More than that, it is one of the best pieces of fiction I've read in a very long time - a great (extremely extended) coming of age story.
20th Century Boys is the story of Kenji and his group of friends who, as children in the early 70's, had a secret club. They planned to save the world and be heroes - as such, they planned out what the evil organisation was going to do to destroy the world, so they could more properly prepare to save it.
Flash forward to 20 years later, and Kenji is running a convenience store and looking after his baby niece. Suddenly events start occurring which are strikingly similar to those which he and his friends chronicled in the Book of Prophecy as children. It's up to Kenji and his friends to save the Earth - for real.
I think my favourite part of 20th Century Boys is the narrative style. The story jumps back and forth haphazardly between 1970-71, the mid-late 90's, and even further on - in total, the series spans nearly 70 years, from 1960 all the way through to 2018. As Kenji and his friends remember different parts of the prophecy they made as children, the story flashes back to them as kids, coming up with all this stuff. It's a really unique way of telling it, and keeps you constantly engaged - whereas if there was simply a huge block of Kenji-and-crew-as-kids and then a huge block of grown-up-Kenji-and-crew, it would get dull.
It certainly isn't a series that is afraid of depth - dozens of things are set up far ahead of time, even things that are hinted at in Volume 1 and are only resolved in Volume 21 or 22. Plenty of red herrings - things that you think matter, but don't - and plenty of double-herrings (is that a thing? I don't care, that's what I'm calling it) - where you spot a red herring, which turns out to be hugely important.
The characters are all so fleshed out and incredibly well done - even the principal villains are hugely interesting and, to a point, sympathetic. Every character is so densely packed with motives and characterisation that, after a certain point, you start to question who's a good guy and who's a bad guy - who's going to live and who's going to die.
I fully intend to read this again, and probably very soon. I'm very interested to see what I pick up on with the knowledge of the end of the series.
May 2018 Plain Text Re-Read: Still really enjoyed the Ship of Theseus, didn't get around to reading the margin notes this time due to time constraintsMay 2018 Plain Text Re-Read: Still really enjoyed the Ship of Theseus, didn't get around to reading the margin notes this time due to time constraints. But still, a good read, though I was cognizant of how hurriedly it wrapped up this time.
Dear god. I wish I'd kept track of the man-hours I spent reading this book cos it has to be over 50. But after six - SIX passes at the book, I am finally done with S. for a little while, at least.
I'm a huge fan of House of Leaves which has a sort of similar concept and gimmicky style - I was very concerned that S. would just be a further use of a similar gimmick to the point where it becomes pointless and irritating.
I loved it though - I think the main thing is that the book itself, Ship of Theseus, is incredibly solid and enjoyable in its own right without even bothering with any of the margin notes or extra crap thrown in.
The margin notes however just add an extra layer to what was already a fantastic work of creative genius - the mystery is interesting and compelling, and Eric and Jen (the margin-writers) are very deep, sympathetic characters. After a while I got more interested in seeing their relationship develop rather than the mystery they were trying to solve. The medium of margin-scribbles is by its very nature an incredibly frustrating read since the exchanges are regularly out of order or allude to things you as the reader have absolutely no knowledge of, but that is also what makes S. such a fantastic experience.
This was fantastic. It's one of those novels I've heard a lot about, despite not hearing much about (if that makes sense), and I'm always very suspiciThis was fantastic. It's one of those novels I've heard a lot about, despite not hearing much about (if that makes sense), and I'm always very suspicious of these. Either something will be amazing and I'll never have heard of it, or something will be incredibly popular and meh. That makes me sound like a hipster, but I've found it has typically been true; random stuff I pull off the shelves at work are great, whereas stuff that is recommended to me specifically isn't.
This was recommended to me, and it was great. My world has been thrown into disarray. Spoilers ahead, blah blah.
Wool has one of my favourite settings, the post-apocalypse, mixed with some of my favourite post-apocalyptic tropes, scavenging, living underground, and a hostile above-ground (ala Metro 2033 or STALKER, Fallout or a dozen other things). The specific setting of Wool, an underground silo built pre-apocalypse to sort of function as a petri dish for a homogenized mankind, is neat and not something I've seen before. Not only that, but there's a massive conspiracy where there's actually a bunch of these silos, and each of them are working to keep their populations ignorant to this fact.
This in particular reminded me a lot of the Fallout video game series, with their Vaults, which are the same basic premise. Similarly also, the Vaults were each subject to different experiments; sticking a bunch of artists in one, more men than women in another, removing entertainment but doubling weapons, that sort of thing, which I always found incredibly fascinating. The setting for Wool feels like a massive social experiment, and indeed plays out much like one.
The characters are well written and characterised, although there were a few sections of character exposition that were almost beating me over the head with their clunkiness. Definitely nothing deal-breaking, though.
The fact that guy who is ostensibly the main character dies before page 50, and the chick who is the follow-up protagonist dies before page 100, Wool has something a lot of other novels don't have; tension. There's a section where the Main Character #3 (third time lucky!) is in mortal danger, and while in most other novels I'd sort of be fooling myself into feeling the suspense, since I knew that of course the author wasn't going to kill off the main character, in Wool I would have been more surprised if the author didn't kill off the main character. Was a nice change.
Anyway, I really enjoyed Wool. Top marks. Now I have to go buy all three books in hard cover because they're so very pretty....more
I've always been fascinated with modern history, especially World War II - it was my favourite subject and topic back in school. I would stay up late I've always been fascinated with modern history, especially World War II - it was my favourite subject and topic back in school. I would stay up late into the night reading up on various things from history (probably instead of doing my actual history homework) that interested me - I seem to remember spending a weekend doing nothing but reading about the Unification of Germany.
It's been a few years since I finished Year 12, and upon starting Stalingrad I was struck by how much I had missed reading about history - and how I hadn't realised until that moment. There is something incredibly emotional, I find, about the way people experience history. I cannot read a historical piece without getting genuinely personally invested in the story being told, even if I (and I usually do) know the result. More on that in a minute.
Stalingrad is an account of the renowned Battle of Stalingrad on the Eastern Front during World War II, written by the respected historian Antony Beevor. It covers all aspects of the siege from the beginning of the Axis invasion of the USSR, right up to the fates of the various prisoners-of-war captured at Stalingrad.
Stalingrad in particular is an event that has always held an enormous amount of my respect and fascination. The idea of the under-equipped, out-numbered and out-gunned Red Army drawing a line in the sand, and declaring "No Axis forces shall pass this city", and not only holding themselves to that vow for months, but utterly defeating the invading force is the quintessential underdog story, and I love that sort of thing.
Going back to my getting personally invested, I was surprised when I finished the book to realise that for probably the last two thirds of the book, I had been rooting for the Axis troops. At some level I knew that of course, they couldn't win. History didn't work that way, and the Allies won.
I can only attribute this to Beevor's writing, which though accurate, is never cold or analytical as a lot of non-fiction works can be. He seems to genuinely care about how his subject is presented, which I find is fairly rare. The case of both the Red Army, stuck in their siege and under incredible pressure, and of the invading Germans, Romanians and Italians, freezing and starving to death, are presented equally, and with great compassion.
Beevor clearly also isn't without a sense of humour, and his numerous jabs at both the Soviet and Nazi leadership, tongue firmly in cheek, despite the grave and terrible things they were often related to paradoxically never failed to bring a smile to my face.
All in all I enjoyed Stalingrad immensely. I guess that makes sense, it wasn't an 'International Best-Seller' for nothing, though that title does get thrown around quite a bit. I'm looking forward to reading more of Beevor's work, specifically The Fall of Berlin 1945, as the Red Army's conquest of Berlin is another event that has always intrigued me....more
Liam || Books 'n Beards
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Books:
bought-2013
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