Monthly Archives: August 2018

Justice League

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You may recall that Wonder Woman was a solid movie, and that it gave me the impetus to watch the other DC movies I had skipped in the meantime, which, I mean, they were not abominations upon the face of the earth, but neither did they exactly inspire any more confidence in the DC train than the previews upon the basis of which I had originally decided not to bother.

Still, now that I’ve watched the whole series, might as well watch Justice League, right? And it was fine. Better than anything besides Wonder Woman, and it had some pretty sweet musical cues at key heroic moments, but… well, it’s like this. You know how DC missed the whole point of what Marvel was doing when they decided that one movie was enough of a lead in to their team-up movie?[1] By the same token, they missed the point exponentially moreso when their existential threat to the planet from space was introduced as the plot of an entire movie without ever having mentioned him before.

Plus, I mean, Steppenwolf? That’s a band.

But I still like the Flash, and like I said, it was mostly pretty good. It would just be better if I didn’t have ten years of Marvel to compare against, and if I weren’t snickering every time they mentioned the guy who is here to destroy Earth without also pointing out that he was born to be wild.

[1] And okay, technically that’s not how it went, they made like four movies total before Justice League. But Man of Steel[2] was just another Superman remake when it came out, and I honestly think it’s more coincidence than design that allowed Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad[3] to fall between Dawn of Justice and this one. Which ultimately means I’m shaping the facts to suit my narrative, but I’m not lying when I say it felt this way.
[2] Somehow, I didn’t review Man of Steel. That was an oversight.
[3] Also, let’s be honest, even though Suicide Squad is in the same continuity, it does not build toward anything here. It’s like a spin-off.

Fables: Inherit the Wind

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My favorite thing about Fables having completed its latest story arc is the boundless possibilities as to what happens next. Want a story about a hopeless rebellion against the latest dictator in the lands of Oz?[1] How about hints of the enemies left behind after the latest bad guy’s defeat? Or the main plot of the story, in which an heir must be selected to fill the vacant throne of <spoiler elided, although the title probably hints at it>?

Even better than all that, I’m honestly not sure where any of these stories are going. Which I think is good news, although at the same time there’s a part of me that is wondering whether, y’know, they have as much story left to tell as I have books and spinoffs left to read. For now, at least, it feels like the answer is maybe, which ain’t bad.

[1] See, there’s all kinds of power vacuums left behind in the Fablelands, in the wake of the Adversary’s defeat lo these many books ago.

Brief Cases

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After a pretty long time, a new Dresden Files book! …well, kind of. Brief Cases is short stories (get it?), which if my count is right makes it two main books since the last short story collection. That’s a little disheartening, right? But, they are largely good stories, and that’s not nothing.

Actually, I should say up front that I liked the stories, one and all. Good bigfoot trilogy, good opening number set in the past which I would read another series about (or watch a show, even better), good look into a character I would not have guessed we’d ever get such a close look at. But…

So, look. Harry Dresden has a great narrative voice, and I am a really big fan of him. He’s not always right, but his heart is always in the right place. Y’know? Like, his errors come from a place of love and caring, not anger or hurtfulness, and that means something. (And he learns, if at a glacial pace.) That said, Jim Butcher does not have a lot of range of narrative voice in this series, is what I have come to learn. There are two Molly stories, and while I do not doubt that Harry influenced her life and outlook quite a lot during her apprenticeship, there’s still a problem if I’m reading a female character and think, “Well, this is just Harry with boobs.” No amount of lampshading his influence over her is going to make that okay.

This was probably the only misstep in the book, and certainly the only one I much cared about. But it was egregious enough to color my overall impression, alas.

Cinderella: Fables Are Forever

The first problem is, I don’t really remember what happened in the last Cinderella book. And, now that I’ve read my review, I understand why.

So, here’s the deal. Cinderella is a spy, the kind of actual spy who her own people don’t know is a spy unless they’re her bosses, because need to know and actual effectiveness and all that. What she is not, I suppose by virtue of being under the purview of a different author, is the kind of character who is allowed to make lasting impressions on the main plots of the Fables series from the safety of her side books.

Therefore, if you like Cindy as a spy character on her own merits (and I have decided that I do), these books[1] are fun, if ultimately meaningless, fluff. (With occasional clever visual cues that riff off the not as clever title cues that these are James Bond inspired.) If you do not, they are thusfar devoid of any content that you will feel bad about missing. Which is a pity, but only because I do like her on her own merits.

[1] In Fables Are Forever, her historical and modern competition (spy vs. spy style) with Dorothy Gale is revealed and explored in what I think is fair to say is a surprising degree of detail.[2]
[2] Actual review in the footnotes. This is a new low.
[3] Willingham is only here because they reprinted issue 51 of Fables in the collection, which it seems was Cindy’s first spy appearance, and which I seem to have mentioned at the time? (Or at least near the time.) So that’s cool.

The Unwritten: Orpheus in the Underworlds

A common thread among the past several volumes of The Unwritten that I’ve read is this: I start off wondering if I’ve ever actually read the series before[1], and then over the course of the book things seem more familiar, and by the time I finish the book and look over my recent previous reviews, everything is more or less back in focus.

You would think, therefore, that I could learn a damn lesson and get myself caught up, so as to no longer have this problem. (Or, for all I know, it has wrapped up by now?) But you would be wrong, for a reason that is actually not my fault. It turns out, here at the end of Orpheus in the Underworlds, that they have 100% unexpectedly set up a crossover with Fables. And the last Fables I read was published about two years earlier than the next Unwritten. So, um. Oops.

Who knew?

Aside from that little problem, this was a perfectly cromulent book. The fallout of events from a couple of books ago continues to be explored, from settings as diverse as the underworld[2] and a pre-teen’s badly spelled zombie fiction written on lined notebook paper. Multiple characters I did not expect to see again have reared their heads, but I think my favorite is the page or three of Eliza Bennet, lately fallen on rather hard times and willing to do most anything to survive.

It’s a pity nobody else has read these. Mike Carey is pretty great!

[1] Obviously I know I have, which helps me proceed to the subsequent steps, but it’s very disorienting, the dichotomy between what I know and what appears to be in front of me.
[2] I bet you didn’t see that coming!

Crucible

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Crucible is the last book in the collapsed timeline that is Star Wars Legends. Chronologically, I mean. More have been written for earlier periods, and there are comics set like a hundred years later. But as far as actual books, it’s the one furthest out from Endor.

I have to wonder if they knew it was the last one, if not when it was being written, then by the time it was nearly finished / in early publication. There are definitely ways in which it feels like a coda on the series. Which could easily have been meant as a transition to what comes next, but I have a hard time believing that that particular book farm would have been willing to plow under the fields of these particular characters. (I’m trying to be vague because of spoilers, which seems silly for a number of reasons.)

Anyway, there’s this unchartable nebula or asteroid field or whatever[1] in which Lando has some mining interests, and there have been problems with pirates, so Han and Leia are visiting to be helpful, but once they arrive it turns out there’s a galactic scale financial scheme to unravel, not to mention some weird Force stuff going on, tied into (I swear I’m not making this up) some kind of Quest that the Jedi have been on since… well, I don’t know when? It feels like I would remember something as Grail sounding as this was, but I entirely do not. But I capitalized quest because Luke and the council had sent out ten Quest Knights to find whatever it is they were trying to find. So I guess it’s a big deal? Something to do with Abeloth and the big Sith war from the previous nine book series? Whatever.

None of that foreshadowing of future events is particularly important, because of how the series is now over. I just found it interesting in a slightly disbelieving kind of way. ANYWAY.

The sad thing is: I didn’t really care for the book. The plot was fine, although the bad guys were painted a little too dire to be handled in a single book (as opposed to a trilogy, minimum). But Luke and Leia were way too confrontational and even at times bloodthirsty, and nevermind everyone’s cavalier attitudes toward droids as sentient beings. It felt off, in a way that these have usually not done for me. Some of that may be thanks to Zeynep and Will of Force Visions (see delirium’s front page sidebar, if I have remembered to / remembered how to update my links, which I think I have), but I like to think it would have smelled wrong even if they had not started their incredibly in depth Legends project.

[1] I know this sounds like I’m being lazy, but it’s not me.