In my Tom Clancy bedtime re-reads, I had hopes that Patriot Games would have remained readable, being the second Jack Ryan book and therefore early in Clancy’s career. Alas, it is not; evidently, Jack has already become perfect in his author’s eyes, and on this read comes off as a gratingly arrogant and insufferable know-it-all. The sex scenes and the sections from his wife’s point-of-view are also cringe-inducing, or possibly are meant to depict aliens. I’d read another four in the continuity back in the day (The Cardinal of the Kremlin, Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears, and Executive Orders) but didn’t bother with them now.
Clancy, Tom: (01) The Hunt for Red October
Some backlog clearing: After re-reading Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising, I acquired a used copy of The Hunt for Red October. This is his first published novel, the start of the Jack Ryan continuity, and probably his best work. Clancy is very bad at people at any level other than their technical competence (such as politics, emotions, and sex), and happily this book is just lots of soothing technogeekery about submarines. It’s not hard to understand why it was initially published by the Naval Institute Press rather than a traditional fiction publisher; I guess its surprising success is a good example of how sometimes readers actually like exposition.
The movie captures the spirit of the book fairly well, though it is dumbed down in a couple of places for (unnecessary) dramatic tension.
McCloud, Scott: Understanding Comics
I got Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics out of the library a while ago, and after posting quick practical notes on my LJ, completely forgot about logging it until now.
This is a book on the history, theory, and practice of sequential art (comics and manga), told through sequential art. I can understand why McCloud made this choice, since he’d need a large fraction in comic form to illustrate his points; and yet I wonder if the format excludes some people who might get something out of a partly-prose book. I checked this out to increase my understanding as a reader, so I skimmed a lot of the history and the exhortations to creators: highly enthusiastic, but not what I was looking for. As for the practical stuff, some of it crystalized things that I’d noticed (especially in several posts doing close readings of Saiyuki art) but hadn’t verbalized; some of it just felt obvious, but then this wasn’t the first sequential art criticism I’d read.
If you have already found that your brain can process sequential art, and are interested in the history or the nuts and bolts of the form, this is worth a quick browse at the least.
Christie, Agatha: Evil Under the Sun (radio play)
Another BBC radio play, Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun, again with John Moffatt as Poirot. I think I must have re-read this one fairly recently, because I remembered enough of the plot to spot every twist just before it was revealed. The adaptation is again nicely produced and voiced, but unfortunately, it fails to convey an important clue. I enjoyed it, but I can’t recommend it as heartily as I did Death on the Nile.
Arakawa, Hiromu: Fullmetal Alchemist, vol. 2
I wasn’t intending to read volume 2 of Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist just now, as my entry on volume 1 indicated. However, despite my express requests, Chad bought me a copy, and well, if it’s right in front of me . . . .
We’re up to episode 20 in the anime now (so again, if you spoil me for future developments, I will kill you with my brain—also unwelcome are hints, clues, suggestions that something will be important later, and the like. Sorry.), and volume 2 is again stuff that we’d already seen. Here’s the breakdown:
- Chapter 5, “The Alchemist’s Suffering”: corresponds to the Shou Tucker plot of episodes 6 and 7, “The Alchemy Exam” and “Night of the Chimera’s Cry.” Again, unlike the anime, these chapters are not flashbacks: Ed and Al are using Tucker’s library to research bio-alchemy after arriving in East City after the events of the first volume, as Tucker undergoes strange stresses leading up to his yearly assessment to renew his license as a State Alchemist. The anime’s ending is also different in a way that I find more interesting and complex.
- Chapter 6, “The Right Hand of Destruction,” and chapter 7, “After the Rain”: these correspond to the Scar sections of episodes 14 and 15, “Destruction’s Right Hand” and “The Ishbal Massacre.” A serial killer targeting State Alchemists is on the loose, and Ed is in danger.
- Chapter 8, “The Road of Hope”: this corresponds to the Marcoh sections of episodes 14 and 15, as well as the beginning of episode 16, “That Which is Lost.” The brothers accidentially happen upon a hot lead in their quest for the Philosopher’s Stone.
I personally find that the anime’s interleaving of the material in chapters 6-8 / episodes 14-15 works better from a dramatic standpoint, as does its expanded history of the Ishbal Massacre. And I’m beginning to think that Roy Mustang’s complexities were created out of whole cloth by the writers of the anime (a good thing, as far as I’m concerned).
I recall reading that anime tends to be produced faster than manga is written, so that anime ends up with filler episodes, or plot divergences, or both. Comparing story choices with the manga confirms that some anime episodes felt like filler because they were, though at least they were thematic filler; however, it also seems that the difference in production schedules encourages, or at least permits, more time spent on backstory and on setting up later developments. As before, the manga isn’t bad, but in a straight comparison between the manga and the anime at this point, I like the story choices of the anime better, filler bits and all.
I’ve got some further comparison notes, with spoilers, over on my LiveJournal; the specific anime episodes spoiled are 8, 14-16, 18, and 20.
James, Eloisa: (01) Much Ado About You
Eloisa James’ Much Ado About You was mentioned favorably by Rachel Brown recently, and I picked it up as a lunchtime book while I was getting the new Diana Gabaldon (because I am not hauling a 980 page book back and forth to work). As light lunchtime reading, I have no complaints.
This is the first in a Regency romance series about four sisters; those sibling relationships are the distinguishing characteristic of the book. The romance moves a touch faster than I’d like, but has its good points; the overall plot also had a few elements that didn’t go as I’d expected, which is particularly a plus in the romance genre. A number of the secondary characters are also very interesting and I look forward to seeing more of them, though I suspect that a couple of them are going to be taken in a direction that strikes me as awfully tricky (I’ll still read the story even if I’m right; James seems a lot less frothy than Regency authors can be—and while frothy is all well and good for certain moods, it’s not what would be called for in that case). I’ll be checking out James’ backlist from the library.
[2005] Site relaunch & implementation notes
Welcome to the relauched Outside of a Dog, now powered by Movable Type 3.2. The left sidebar now features a search function; automagically generated indexes by genre, author, and series, which I hope will make it easier for you to find your way around (I know it will make my life easier); and, just for fun, a link to a random entry. The comment system has also changed, but it shouldn’t affect you unless you’re a spammer.
All posts and comments have been imported (some of the multi-book posts are somewhat awkwardly split up to make the indexes work, but they’re here), and all old links work. Thanks to Michael Bruce for writing the script to import comments from Blogkomm.
[Implementation details have been moved to the about page.]
Pratchett, Terry: (34) Thud!
Terry Pratchett’s newest Discworld book is called Thud!; it’s named after a chess-like game where the sides are trolls and dwarfs. It’s the anniversary of the Battle of Koom Valley, at which the trolls ambushed the dwarfs, or the dwarfs ambushed the trolls—no-one really knows. Inter-species tensions have been exacerbated by the arrival in Ankh-Morpork of some seriously conservative dwarfs who preach the extermination of trolls, and Commander Vimes and the rest of the City Watch have their hands more than full trying to keep the city from exploding. And that’s before one of the conservative dwarfs is murdered and a troll club is found nearby . . .
But every night at six o’clock, without fail, Vimes reads Where’s My Cow? to his fourteen-month-old son.
(Where’s My Cow? has actually been published separately as a picture book; I haven’t seen it myself yet.)
This is a “things from the Dungeon Dimensions”-type plot, with an invisible quasidemonic entity mucking about looking for a way to influence events. These are normally not my favorite Discworld plots, but this one is worth it for the climactic scene. The rest of the story makes good use of new and old secondary characters, and of expanding prior worldbuilding bits into interesting dwarf and troll cultures. It also introduces a new element, which from a lesser author would strike me as a very bad idea; because this is Pratchett, however, I’m sure he knows where it came from and what effects it’s going to have, which I’m looking forward to learning.
This book also has some particularly good footnotes, such as:
Vimes had never got on with any game much more complex than darts. Chess in particular had always annoyed him. It was the dumb way the pawns went off and slaughtered their fellow pawns while the kings lounged about doing nothing that always got to him; if only the pawns united, maybe talked the rooks around, the whole board could’ve been a republic in a dozen moves.
And:
” . . . I’ve never played games since I grew up. I used to be good at tiddley-rats* when I was a nipper, though.”
* A famous Ankh-Morpork gutter sport, second only to dead-rat conkers. Turd races in the gutter appear to have died out, despite an attempt to take them upmarket with the name Poosticks.
I have a couple of minor quibbles: the Brick POV sections seem superfluous, but they’re short and, as Chad points out, consistent with the genre; and the Da Vinci Code references already feel dated (though I suppose in a while they won’t stand out as references at all). Other than those small points, however, a solid and very satisfying book.
Pierce, Tamora: (209) The Will of the Empress
Tamora Pierce’s The Will of the Empress is set a few years after the Circle Opens quartet; it is a standalone novel, originally titled The Circle Reforged, which should give those familiar with the world an idea of its subject matter.
Briefly, four young craft-mages were brought together at roughly ten years of age to be fostered and trained; they created magical ties between their minds as well as family ones. At about fourteen years of age, three of the four left to travel extensively with their teachers; the fourth, Sandry, stayed home to care for her great-uncle, the ruler of the area they live, who’d recently had a heart attack. As The Will of the Empress opens, the other three are returning, to find that they’re no longer as close as they were and that they are reluctant to re-open their mental ties.
(Actually, they come back over a year and a half, which makes the beginning oddly choppy. I think there are internal chronology reasons for it, but it feels somewhat like killing time until they all hit eighteen.)
Sandry is a noblewoman and has been receiving income from her estates in Namorn ever since she was orphaned. The Empress has long been pressuring Duke Vedris, Sandry’s great-uncle, to have Sandry visit Namorn; Sandry found out about the pressure and determined to go to Namorn to put a stop to it. At Duke Vedris’s request, the other three mages (Briar, Daja, and Tris) agree to accompany Sandry as additional protection. Since the Empress is determined to keep Sandry in the country by any means necessary, this turns out to be a very good thing.
One of those “any means necessary” is a forced marriage; in Namorn, it is still permitted to kidnap a woman and hold her until she escapes, is rescued, or signs a marriage contract giving up her rights. Pierce stated, at the last Boskone, that her publisher required her to soften this practice from its historical analogue by removing mentions of violence, particularly sexual violence. There are small worldbuilding tweaks to make this more plausible on the first look: physical abuse within marriage can apparently be protested to the local lord, and (following the Empress’s lead, who needed heirs but not a spouse who would try and grab power) extramartial childbearing seems socially permitted. However, the attitude towards women shown by kidnappers is such that it’s hard to imagine why they wouldn’t resort to violence, so to me, the lack of violence ended up feeling like the elephant in the corner. This isn’t Pierce’s fault, but it is unfortunate.
I had one other problem with the book, which may just be oversensitivity: Daja discovers that she is a lesbian. The discovery and relationship are handled well, but the combination of butch + smith mage + lesbian bugs me, particularly the “smith mage” part. Probably oversensitive, like I said. (For those familiar with prior books, Rosethorn is mentioned as bisexual, and Lark and Rosethorn are lovers, which is news but not surprising.)
Otherwise, this is just what I want in a Circle-verse book: time with the characters I’m fond of, craft magic, common sense, and a dollop of social commentary. I’m a little sad that the next book will be “how Briar acquired PTSD,” but only because I really wanted “Tris goes to Lightsbridge,” which has been pushed back; but either way, it will still be a buy-on-sight book.
Arakawa, Hiromu: Fullmetal Alchemist, vol. 1
As those who watch my LiveJournal know, I’ve fallen in love with the anime of Fullmetal Alchemist (see these “anime” LJ memories). The story started out as a manga by Hiromu Arakawa, and while I wasn’t planning on reading the manga until after I’d finished watching the anime, the library had volume 1 and it seemed like a good idea to encourage their acquisition of the series.
The anime of Fullmetal Alchemist is complete at 51 episodes, and is being aired in the Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” programming block and released on DVD; there’s also a movie that was recently released in Japan. The manga is still ongoing, and accordingly the stories diverge substantially (apparently. I’m only up to episode 16 of the anime, and so if you spoil me for future developments, I will kill you with my brain). When I asked a while ago which to try first, people were unanimously in favor of the anime, and they were right: the anime hooked me very fast, and upon comparing the changes that it made from the manga, I don’t think the manga would have had the same effect.
The premise, briefly, for those unfamiliar: it’s the early 1900s in a world somewhat analogous to our own, except with alchemy practiced as a science. Edward and Alphonse Elric are gifted young alchemists; at ages eleven and ten, they try to resurrect their dead mother through (forbidden) alchemy. They fail, spectacularly, at the cost of Ed’s arm and leg, and Al’s body (his soul is affixed to a suit of armor). After Ed is fitted with automail replacements for his limbs, Ed becomes a State Alchemist and they go on a quest to restore their bodies—which is still forbidden human transmutation, and dangerous and uncertain to boot. But they’re determined to try.
It’s a great concept, and the show caught me from the very beginning of the first episode, a flashback to the resurrection attempt. More specifically, it shows the brothers finishing their preparations and beginning the transmutation; their realization that it’s going wrong; Al’s empty clothes and Ed’s missing limbs; and then the thing that their attempt produced (the second picture on this page)—which is a very attention-grabbing thing to go to black on. The manga also opens with this, but much more briefly: one page, as Ed realizes that Al’s body is gone, showing only Ed. I suspect the story would have grabbed me anyway, because it is such a good premise, but the manga version strikes me as less immediately engaging.
The four chapters in volume 1 correspond to episodes 1, 2, 9, and 5 of the anime. The first two chapters/episodes tell the story of the town of Lior, where Ed and Al have gone in their search for the Philosopher’s Stone, following a rumor of resurrections by a religious prophet. They meet the prophet and a girl, Rose, who’s been promised that her lover will be miraculously returned to life; they expose the prophet, try to convince Rose to not make the same mistakes they did, and leave the town to pursue their quest. These sections also introduce mysterious characters called Lust and Gluttony (and, in the anime, Envy), who were behind the false prophet.
The broad outlines of these portions are the same between the anime and the manga, but the anime adds some events and changes the sequence of others; the net effect of the anime’s changes is to make Rose more sympathetic (she reappears in the anime, at least), and to add to the viewer’s list of “creepy alchemy uses.”
In the anime, Al tells Rose their life story as part of explaining why resurrecting the dead shouldn’t be attempted, and thus episodes 3 through 9 are all flashbacks; Lior takes place between episodes 9 and 10. In the manga, the events of episodes 9 and 5 take place not in flashback, but after Lior. Chapter 3/Episode 9 is their trip to a coal mining town called Youswell. In the anime, Ed’s sent there to inspect the mine, as his first mission; I think in the manga they’re just passing through. They best a corrupt military official by judicious use of alchemy and trickery, and Ed is hailed as an alchemist of the people.
I found this somewhat of a minor episode in the anime, and in my opinion it’s even more so in the manga, for three reasons. In order of increasing importance: First, Ed is slightly less sympathetic in minor aspects. Second, it lacks an alchemist who works for the corrupt military officer, which hints at a distrust of how the military uses alchemists. Third, Ed’s not starting out his career as a State Alchemist, meaning that it’s less of a challenge for him, and not an opportunity to establish his reputation and the path he’s going to follow.
Chapter 4/Episode 5 takes place on a train that’s taken over by a group of extremists. Again, in the anime, this is a flashback; the eleven- and ten-year-old brothers are on their way to become State Alchemists after their recovery. In the manga, they appear to be heading back from Youswell. Ed and Al subdue the extremists and turn them over to Colonel Roy Mustang, Ed’s nominal supervisor and the Flame Alchemist.
I also found this episode fairly light when I first watched it, and was mostly interested in Mustang’s manipulativeness—something completely absent here. The anime also gives the extremists’ leader a grudge against the military; while I didn’t quite follow his reasoning, it laid foundations for the worldbuilding in much the same way as the alchemist in Youswell. And once again, by having Ed be a State Alchemist of some years’ experience, it removes a layer of peril that the younger anime versions faced.
Overall, Fullmetal Alchemist is a great story, and if you’ve any hint of tolerance for anime or manga, I recommend checking it out. I do agree with everyone who said to try the anime first: it’s more immediately involving and better structured, compared to the first volume of the manga. I’ll probably read the rest of the manga later; it is interesting to compare ways of telling a story, and I believe the manga may appear in a better light once the plots start diverging. It’s not that the manga is bad, certainly, just that the anime is a better introduction.
A few other notes: The translation seemed pretty good to me; there were only a couple spots where the English seemed to clunk. Unlike Saiyuki, the sound effects here are translated, which took me a little getting used to; subconsciously “whoosh” and “bam” and so forth remind me of brightly-colored superhero comics, which makes me take it a little less seriously (the humorously-exaggerated emotional reactions and fight scenes, while within genre conventions as I understand them for both anime and manga, have a similar effect).
The art here strikes me as clean and with slightly more delicate, less detailed lines than Saiyuki. The panel layout is mostly straightforward and linear. I’ve been doing detailed art commentary posts on Saiyuki, but I only found a couple of additional things to say about this art; the LJ post is here if you’re interested.