Number 39 - Incursion - Alex Paknadel et al

 This was cheap, and has a pretty cool looking cover which is the entire reason I bought it.  I had no knowledge of this title or any of the characters.

Anyhoo... 

It transpires that I'm so out of touch with the comics world that i didn't know that Valiant is a third comics empire, competing with the big two (Marvel and DC) with it's own set of ongoing series and heroes.

They seem to have a more fantasy based mythos, as opposed to the more sci-fi trappings of most superhero faire.  This title is a big crossover event in the Valiant universe, pulling together several of their main characters into one story, an Avengers Assemble type of thing. Even the aliens in the opening pages look somewhat like the Kree.

This would all probably excite me much more if I was a follower of the comics in question.  However, as a casual reader encountering this universe for the first time, I feel some of the finer points of the story were probably lost on me.

The story follows a threat to the existence of life on planet earth when a creature from another world infects the Geomancer - a young girl linked inextricably to life itself. the creature has made a mistake because the girl is protected by an eternal champion who makes it his mission to save her by any means necessary.  The writing does a fair job in letting us know who each of these characters is.  At no point did I find myself wondering what was going on. 

It's all beautifully illustrated and inked.  Visually this is a remarkable piece of work.  The story is possibly less impressive. We're in very familiar territory here.  I know there are very few original stories out there, but at least try to dress your plot in unfamiliar clothes. 

It was entertaining.  It killed 45 minutes yesterday. Kudos to the art team for a great job. Otherwise it's a bit same old, same old. It's not entirely cliched, but I can't award it anything for originality either.

Number 38 - Black Mouth - Ronald Malfi

 

I read this book through Netgalley.  It will be formally released on July 19. 

I normally try not to compare to Stephen King when I review a horror novel as that just feels lazy, but in this case, there is so much Kingism going on it’s almost impossible not too. 

Small American town, a group of friends who bonded over childhood trauma are drawn back to their childhood homes many years later to fight the evil all over again. The flashback structure, juxtaposing present with past. Also- 800 plus pages on the file I read. It’s classic king storytelling territory.

 It differs on the  scale though.  Whereas King would have a huge cast of characters, each playing their role in the story, Malfi concentrates on just the 5 central characters for the whole book, and any other townsfolk are more or less walk on parts.  In a King novel, we'd feel like we'd lived in the town for years and knew everyone that lived there. In this book, we know our central cast and no  one else.

It’s written for the most part in a first person narrative, which limits the scope, but branches out into third person for alternate chapters. All the flashbacks are told by Jamie, our first person narrator.

Jamie Warren is a loser. As the story opens he’s in enforced rehab for his alcoholism, suffering some truly horrific hallucinations. Just after his release, he learns of his mother's death and has to hightail it back to Black Mouth to look after affairs, including his cognitively impaired brother Dennis.

Also on her way back to Black Mouth is his ex-best-friend and crush, Mia. She's had a strange encounter with a woman who knew far more than she should. She's also just seen the Magician, the mysterious stranger who came into their lives when they were children and changed them forever.  Completing the quartet is Clay, a social worker spurred on by the photo of the Magician to look into similar crimes to the one they were involved with.

Following them is Stull, another of the magician's ex-apprentices. in his first chapter he commits an act of animal cruelty that marks him out as one of the most reprehensible villains I've read in many a year. He's a remarkably scary character.

I loved the way Malfi slowly draws the various plot threads together, keeping the characters in the dark while we the readers can see the oncoming shitstorm. He really does know how to build the tension brilliantly. 

I also loved the way the characters react realistically to the situations they find themselves in. There's no sudden leaping to the far fetched supernatural conclusions, more scrabbling around trying piece together a natural explanation that isn't going to happen.

This was my first Ronald Malfi novel and certainly won't be my last. He takes on Stephen King in his own territory and easily holds his own.  He manages to stamp his own style and themes into the familiar formula. When physical copies of this are available, I will be adding this to my shelves.

Number 37 - Observatory Mansions - Edward Carey

 

As any regular readers of this blog will know, I fell in love with Edward Carey's writing style last year when I read Heap House (which I bought when I mistook him for Edward Gorey based on the artwork).

This is his debut novel, and more adult oriented than the Iremonger books.

It does feature a lot of the themes that run through Heap House. A run down building inhabited by a bunch of grotesques, an obsession with gathering objects other people see as junk etc. However it is still a very different novel.

It is narrated by Francis Orme, a,,, actually, I'm not sure what single adjective could possibly accurately describe him. He works as a statue on a plinth.  He's blessedly oblivious to everything happening around him even as he describes it to the reader.  He obsessively collects (steals) objects for his rather inappropriately named exhibition (which is locked in the basement and no one is allowed to even know of its existence). He has a narrative voice unlike anything else I can remember reading (including Heap House). he wears white gloves at all times and saves them to his own personal museum of white gloves when they get dirty (with a card explaining why they're discarded, including dates from start to end of wearing and the reason for their disposal). He is not your everyday narrator.

Observatory mansions is his home.  It used to be the stately home of the Orme family, complete with opulent furniture and paintings, attendant servants and acres of its own grounds.  Now it stands in the middle of a traffic island and all the grounds and all the luxury contents gone, including the servants.  it's been split into flats to try to raise money for its upkeep but most of the tenants have died or moved on and now there are only 7 residents in the building. Most of them are as strange in their own way as Francis.

Their insular existence is threatened when a new tenant arrives. She shakes up the lives of all the residents, but especially Francis's. 

This is one of those books that can make you laugh out loud and then cry and then laugh again... on the same page. The family secrets that are steadily revealed in the narrative are shocking and funny and tragic and completely unpredictable. 

The cast of almost grotesques is made completely sympathetic by the brilliant writing style. We accept their eccentricities and foibles and sometimes outright nastiness and still feel sorry for them.  

This isn't a happy book despite the number of laughs.  It isn't a depressing book despite the misery inflicted on the cast of characters. It walks that tightrope with consumate ease, performing backflips on the rope, just because Carey is so talented he can do that just for the hell of it.

I chose this book for my book group and I think it will make for an interesting discussion. I know thee are members of the group whose tolerance for weirdness is not as high as mine. I will find out in the next week or two.