Nick Bryan

reviews

The Age Atomic by Adam Christopher – Book Review

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The Age Atomic - Adam Christopher

If you enjoy novels that mash up their genres, smooshing a range of aesthetics together into a weird whole, then Adam Christopher’s The Age Atomic could be for you. At last count, it combines parallel universes, steampunk airships, superheroes, 50s nuclear paranoia and a noirish private dick together into one bizarre soup.

So, to really strain this metaphor to pieces, how tasty is that soup? Is it the same sickly green as the book cover?

Difficult Second Book?

The Age Atomic is actually the second book by Christopher in the world of the Empire State – the first one, simply entitled Empire State, sets up the premise and many characters. If you were lured in by Age Atomic’s lovely cover, I’d strongly recommend making a short detour to check out the previous book first. Don’t worry – its cover is equally lovely.

Not that The Age Atomic is new-reader unfriendly – I think you could get everything that happens easily enough, but it will have more resonance and interest if you’re familiar with everyone. Also, you’ll have appreciation for the improvement between the two: the second book worked a bit better for me.

The fun, runalong, comic-booky tone is the main strength here, and the quicker these books moved, the more I enjoyed them. Empire State has a whole first half which runs a bit slow, whereas The Age Atomic only has the spell in the middle where lead detective Rad Bradley is stuck in a warehouse for ages.

Look, I Just Love Comics, Okay?

“Comic-booky” doesn’t mean silly though – the sad journey of villain Evelyn McHale during the second book is one of the strong points, and her emotional finish brings a little grounding to a climax that might otherwise have been too broad and zappy.

Since the mysteries behind the universe are revealed in Empire State, this sequel is free to explore, flick between the two and show us some different sides to the worlds, especially the “real” New York. That was interesting, it felt more of a living, breathing place this time, like the range of influences fitted together more seamlessly.

I must admit though: after two books, I’m growing restless with Rad Bradley as lead character – his point of view and emotional range seem restrictive; I can detect my enjoyment rising when reading a chapter from someone else’s perspective. Is this intentional? Are the people in the “pocket” universe meant to feel more like fictional characters?

But yes, if you want to see all these genre ideas side to side, in a way that has clearly had thought put into it, these are two decent books and The Age Atomic is the best one. It’s seventy pages shorter than Empire State, and I’d be fine with the next one being shorter still – the more tense and fast-moving the scenes, the better this worked for me. Not life-changing, but enjoyable – if you like comics, they might particularly work for you.

Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughan/Tony Harris – Review

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Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris

Ex Machina is a comic book about a superhero. Well, a past-tense superhero – comic fan and civil engineer Mitchell Hundred gained the power to control machines, and embarked on a brief superhero career as The Great Machine, before jacking it in and running for Mayor of New York, believing he could do more good that way.

The series itself, by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris, starts off with Hundred sitting alone in the dark offering to tell the story of his four years in office, with one warning: “It may look like a comic book, but it’s really a tragedy.”

Well, he wasn’t lying.

The Tragic Machine

Not that I’ll be spoiling the ending, but I’m just saying: it lives up to the tease. Oh, and if you can read the whole series without looking at spoilers, it’s definitely worth doing.

The comic began in 2004, and ran through for fifty issues to a pre-planned conclusion – I read the first few collected editions around the time they came out, then slacked off comics for a while. After Vaughan recently returned to prominence with Saga, a new sci-fi series drawn by Fiona Staples, I decided to finish it off.

The execution of Ex Machina is aptly mechanical – Vaughan’s work always brings the feel of having real thought behind it, from detailed character backgrounds to universe-building, as well as the clear research that’s gone into the political scenarios. (So much research that the characters can’t stop spilling factoids.)

But honestly, it’s the tragic spiral of Mitchell Hundred that’s both most compelling and most difficult to read. As witnessed by the recent success of Breaking Bad, everyone loves a good epic tragedy – watching a character you both love and hate plunge down a horrible rabbithole of their own making is hard to look away from.

Heavy Engineering

Ex Machina might not be entirely perfect – meanders a bit in the middle, slight habit of forgetting supporting cast members until they suddenly become important, – but particularly when read quickly as a whole story, rather than small chunks, these things don’t register as much.

The art is a big part of the success as well; Harris’s photo-realistic style makes it easy to take Mitchell Hundred’s human struggles seriously, even though he has multiple flashbacks to dressing in a silly costume. Said style can vary a lot, sometimes between issues, but it’s never less than lovely

.In short, if you enjoy the big-name mature reader comic sagas like Preacher or Transmetropolitan, I think Ex Machina has earned its place on that list. Maybe it’s not taken as seriously due to the superhero elements, I don’t know, but it’s a great, thoughtful comic. Now, I really need to check out Saga.

How To Review Stuff

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Come on, this post was at least a 7...

As a brief scan of this blog will reveal, I write a lot of reviews. It has now reached the stage where I can formulate a review of a TV show (or other things, but often TV) in a very short space of time.

So, since it’s something I have been asked for advice on, I figured the art of reviewing warrants a blog post. How do I assess stuff? Is there a technique, or do I just splurge?

And yes, some of this will be specific to reviewing TV shows, as that is my area.

How much synopsis?

This is fundamental, and the main thing that annoys me when I read some online reviews: do we need an epic, blow-by-blow description of the entire story? Isn’t that what Wikipedia’s for? If your article is headed “recap”, fair enough, but if your “review” is a painstaking description of the story, with a few words of opinion at the end, that seems bad form.

Of course, do mention plot points when you have an opinion to give about them, but synopsis without opinion is like a sheep with no wool or meat – cold and unappetising. (Or something.)

How much spoiler?

Spoiler use, however, is more personal preference. For TV reviews, especially episodes which aren’t the very first, I tend to write for an audience who have already seen it. So, yes, full spoilers in effect, complete with a warning.

On the other hand, for books or films, the audience might be reading your review for purchasing recommendations. So I avoid spoilers, especially last-third ending spoilers, and when I do give them, they’re clearly labelled or really vague.

But to be honest, there’s not a “right” answer here. Still, worth thinking about before ploughing ahead gleefully.

How much moaning?

How negative to go is another big question, and I could easily do a whole post on this alone. One day, I still might. But in general: there is a lot of negativity on the internet, because, hell, it’s easy to be snide. I try not to review things I know I’ll hate, because I don’t think the rage of someone who would never have liked the show in the first place is useful.

Case in point: over the last few years, various internet people tried to cover The X Factor. We mostly did this, to be honest, because others were doing it and seemed to be getting attention. Many of these faded away, and the ones that did well and thrived were write-ups like Stuart Heritage’s Guardian pieces which, yes, were glib and jokey, but still genuinely enjoyed X Factor when it was getting things right.

Hence why me writing about The X Factor was pointless, but I let myself give often-negative reviews to Sky1’s Sinbad, because although it wasn’t a great show, it was in my wheelhouse – family-aimed fantasy drama, yes, I’ve reviewed that. I truly wanted Sinbad to be good, I’m always happy for decent shows in that genre, and I made sure to acknowledge when it had a strong week.

In short, decent reviewing should come from a place of wanting to be positive. Grumpy, well-known reviewin’ misanthropes like Yahtzee Croshaw of Zero Punctuation and Charlie Brooker may overplay minor annoyances for comic effect, but they also tell you emphatically when they’ve found something they like, and that’s a major reason they have credibility.

There are other things I could write about, like structuring your reviews (try to structure by point, storyline or theme, as opposed to banging through in story order), but I’ve covered my main issues, really. And now you too could become a well known reviewer of TV shows online! (We’re looking for people on The Digital Fix TV site if you want to have a go. Email me. Self-service ends.)

As ever, add your own advice below, or tell me I’m talking complete arse. And obviously, like all my reviews, the above is just my personal opinion. Now, I’m off to review Black Mirror.

A Rare Book Review: Cloud Atlas

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Tonight, I finished reading the novel Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (no, not that David Mitchell), which I started a couple of weeks into the new year and have been picking through ever since. In my defence, it is quite long.

I didn’t think many blogs would want my personal opinions about a years-old book, but after completing this Herculean reading task, I felt compelled to type something about it. Cloud Atlas is most memorable for two reasons, I think. Firstly, the sheer scale and ambition of it.

Mitchell crafts a complex saga, comprising of six separate narratives, nestled within each other in Russian doll style. Starting in the nineteenth century, it works its way forward to the far flung future, then works its way back out again. Amongst these strands, ideas about humanity and reincarnation lurk, along with the six distinct storylines themselves. It’s truly an impressive feat.

Hand-in-hand with that is the actual writing. Writing all these different characters, in different time periods with different writing styles and vocabularies is no small accomplishment. He skates genres from detective novel to escape to sci-fi. But Mitchell pulls it off and, worst of all, makes it look easy. He’s clearly a very, very good writer. The bastard.

Seriously, the worst part is the way each of the plots has their own supporting cast and, you get the feeling, could easily sustain a novel of their own. It’s a great book, and although it took me ages to read, I’m compensated by now feeling like I’ve read six different books. I thoroughly recommend it, if you hadn’t guessed.

If I had to complain (and I really do), the scale of the feat being accomplished kinda made me expect something more transcendentally amazing to happen. He’s crafted six engrossing storylines, but they never exactly come together to form a single amazing hypernarrative in the way I was hoping they might. It remains six separate arcs with call-backs going between them.

But that’ll teach me to take back cover blurbs too seriously, really. It remains an amazing work of book-writing, and definitely worth a try.

Avatar – Belated Review

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Finally saw Avatar a week ago. However, my brief attempts to interest ‘proper’ blogs in a review didn’t go well, as the movie is now over two months old. So I ended up writing this piece for Dorkadore, focusing on its massive financial success (albeit with a few review-esque snippits).
However, I review things out of love, not just as a “job”. So I wrote a straight review of Avatar and am posting it here for the entertainment of anyone who may care.

(Notes: Yes, some points are repeated across the two pieces. And yes, a few small spoilers are contained within.

NICK REVIEWS AVATAR AFTER EVERYONE ELSE

The James Cameron-masterminded sci-fi epic, Avatar, has been out for a couple of months now. The build-up happened, filmgoers got excited, then readied themselves for an anticlimax, and finally felt slightly disappointed when reviews came out and were positive but not spectacular.

Despite all of that, it has ended up becoming the most successful film of all time. Nearly everyone has ended up seeing it in some form, even if only because their friends were going. Which is what happened to me yesterday.

I hadn’t bothered with it until now, because… well, I don’t like hard sci-fi, I can’t stand elves and I disliked most of Titanic intensely. But, you know, it’s the most successful film of all time. I don’t like to feel left out.

Fortunately, Avatar is to hard sci-fi what Emmanuelle is to hard porn. All the same parts are there, but they never get used in sufficient detail to qualify. The ‘avatar’ technology itself, easily the most interesting concept in the film, is skimmed over a tad, in favour of the more conventional culture clash-morality tale-love story involving the (concealed) white man among the noble savages.

Which is frustrating for those of us of the dork persuasion, but I am not convinced we’re the target audience here. Cameron may have included a swathe of sci-fi trappings to differentiate his film from Pocahontas, but this is definitely a film for the movie-going masses. If he’d spent the entire time delving into the intricacies of body-swapping, the record-busting box office figures would probably not have happened.

Not to mention, the story isn’t entirely the point either. Or rather, it is, but only to provide a setting for some lovely visuals. And they are gorgeous, make no mistake. Cameron’s vision of the multi-coloured alien world of Pandora is amazingly realised here, and once again manages to draw in the viewer, even as they moan about plot predictability.

So, yes, even though the plot is mostly predictable, the dialogue sometimes groan-worthy and, yes, ‘unobtanium’ is a horrific name for a rare and valuable element, you can see why it has done well. It may not be anything ground-breaking, but it’s a simple, lush modern-day fable. It was nearly three hours long, yet I was rarely bored. And if nothing else, I’d rather watch this again than Titanic any day.