The Sopranos

And secondly, a review I wrote for the Sopranos Season 1 DVD boxset. I know this blog is called The Reader, but it's still for my thoughts on stories of all shapes and sizes. So my second review of the day was originally posted on DooYoo here on 14/1/10. I'm still watching the Sopranos, and have just finished with Season 5. But it's still never as good as it was in the beginning.

It's hard to believe that these episodes are a decade old now, but if you missed The Sopranos on TV, then you can still enjoy the episodes here for the first time. A DVD boxset seems the best way to view the show, as you'll find yourself getting slowly addicted to this fantastic gangster drama that's not "really" about gangsters.

The strength of the Sopranos lies in its central character, the monstrous yet empathetic Tony Soprano. Tony has a family to feed, a mistress to entertain, an elderly mother to look after and a stressful all-hours job - the twist is that he earns his money from criminal activities, and comes from a generation of men that don't like to talk about his personal problems. Just as Tony has his biological family to take care of, he also has loyalties to his brotherhood of fellow earners in the "Waste Management business", as he euphemistically calls his occupation. The real drama comes when his two worlds collide - his cantankerous Uncle Junior is the gang's official leader, yet Tony must undercut him to ensure his own survival.

There are some brilliant performances here from old hands from mobster movies, as well as Steve Van Zandt (of the E Street Band fame!), but James Gandolfini ultimately shines as the formidable ball of anger that is Tony Soprano. This is a criminal drama with a heart, about personal problems, psychiatry and family headaches as well as the seedy crime world that Tony and his colleagues thrive in. As Season 1, this boxset also serves to set up an epic storyline in the overall, continuing drama - although (arguably) later seasons are not as tightly plotted or as well-written as this first offering.

The Island of Dr Moreau

I don't know if I'll have enough time this weekend to do a proper post, so I'm going to repost a couple of reviews that I originally wrote for Dooyoo.co.uk. First up is The Island of Dr Moreau, by H. G. Wells (1896).

The following was originally posted on 25/4/10 at http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/printed-books/the-island-of-dr-moreau-h-g-wells/1436326/

I've been on a 19th century fiction kick recently and I've enjoyed reading lots of books that I've been hearing about for years, but for some reason or other have passed me by. Originally published in 1896, The Island of Dr Moreau is the latest short novel I've managed to polish off on my morning commute. This novel is part of Well's contributions to early science-fiction, along with War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, etc. and bears a lot in common with Shelley's Frankenstein, in that the central message is a warning against the dangers of scientific exploration left unchecked by ethical concerns.

However, The Island of Dr Moreau is far from a "straight" science fiction novel (if such a thing exists!) and Wells skillfully blends elements of mystery, adventure and horror to make a story that is ultimately about survival. The story begins when a shipwrecked biologist, Edward Prendick, is rescued from his dinghy and taken aboard a ship carrying a mysterious cargo of animals. His saviour, Montgomery, is accompanied by a faithful man-servant who has something very bestial about him. When Prendick arrives at the island of the title and finally meets Dr Moreau, he meets similarly bizarre creatures and starts to question the experiments that he is conducting on his isolated research base. Soon enough, Prendick sets out to discover the island for himself and stumbles upon more of the island's secrets...

To reveal much more of the plot would be to ruin the reader's enjoyment of the novel, so I'd best pass over onto comments on the novel. A|lthough this is a good yarn and keeps you gripped from start to finish, I couldn't help but feel that there's something missing. At some level, the story feels a bit lack-lustre. This could be because, over the years, Wells's novel has been so revered and referenced (it even has a Simpsons episode devoted to parodying it) that it's difficult to live up to the reader's expectations. Similarly, as is the case of many classic mystery novels, the average reader will already have some knowledge of the essential twists which would have delighted its initial audience.

My other criticism would be that the central character isn't very developed: despite proclaiming himself a biologist, he shows very little specialist knowledge throughout the novel and could easily have held any profession. This is in direct contrast to other books of a contemporary time, such as Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, in which the sheer volume of scientific observation can be overwhelming.

Still, this is a short enough novel to read in a few sittings and is definitely worth the effort. The story makes the reader ask what separates animals (beasts) from humans, and shares many concerns with contemporary horror.

What I Read in 2010 part 2: The Comics

Apart from reading novels and short stories, I get through a lot of graphic novels and comic books too. In fact, for the last couple of years I may have read more graphic novels and traditional ones since they're less time-consuming and (generally) less taxing. Digesting the information from a picture is instantaneous, whereas it takes real concentration to decode a page and a half of landscape description - one of my pet hates - so when I'm exhausted, on a bus or simply with a screaming baby, I often plump for the graphic novel.

Anyway, here's a list of (what I can remember anyway) of the books I've read in 2010:

Batman: Face the Face, James Robinson and Leonard Clark - which I reviewed here

Batman: Private Casebook, Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen

Jar of Fools, Jason Lutes

Batman: Hush, by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee. This one's an insanely popular Batman title that ran for a year originally (12 issues). If you ask me, the story's a bit overrated and a lot of it is a big excuse to trot out a series of guest stars as Loeb (sometime writer of TV's Heroes and producer of Lost) enjoys playing in the DC toybox a little too much. However, it's still a great read and Jim Lee's artwork is sublime.

Transmetropolitan Volumes 3: Year of the Bastard and 4: The New Scum by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan is Warren Ellis's career-defining work of journalism, politics, sci-fi, pill-popping and two-headed cats. It's alternately rude, violent, heart-wrenching and hilarious - a very provocative read.

Starman: Sins of the Father, James Robinson and Tony Harris

Catwoman: Dark End of the Street, by Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke. Brubaker is one of the writers responsible for making crime fiction clever and cool again in the world of comics, and Darwyn Cooke's moody artwork suits the scripts perfectly in this revamp of Catwoman for a new era. This volume strips back all the superheroics that you'd expect from a supporting character in a Batman book and sends Selina Kyle off in a new direction of gritty crime and, of course, catburgling. A great place to start reading the character!

The Walking Dead Volume 1: Days Gone Bye, by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore

Parker: The Hunter, Darwyn Cooke. This is the only official adaptation of Richard Stark's Parker series of crime novels. The story's well-known and has been adapted into various films (notably Mel Gibson's Payback). Parker is a man with nothing to lose, looking for revenge on the criminals who double-crossed him.

I've mentioned above my appreciation for Darwyn Cooke's unique style of artwork, but it really has to been seen to be believed, so have a look here, here and here. It's moody and not quite black and white - they're shades of blacks, blues and greys to reflect the morality of the characters. I would say this is one for fans of Sin City, but I don't want to put off readers who found the film/book series's dialogue a bit silly. Parker is much more believable, albeit terse and film noir to the bone.

One of my pet-hates in comics is the tendency to obscure the artwork with massive amounts of writing in captions and word balloons. Yes, the speech is important, but when you get more white space with letters in it than actual pictures, it slows the pace of the strip right down and starts to ruin the reading experience. (There's always an exception of course, as readers of The Walking Dead will know! More on that in a later post.) So in The Hunter, there are large sections of exposition in captions, but they never threaten the flow of the story. In fact, pages of the book read almost as prose with the artwork being shunted to one side. But again, for some reason, Cooke makes it work.

Similarly, there are parts that this really doesn't feel like a "comic" as such. Something about the lettering and panel arrangements makes it feel like something a lot more original - it's not trapped in the ever popular grid that plagues comic layouts and it's not quite the right format (size-wize) for an American comic. If anything, it feels like a novel with its dust-jacket and hardback.

This is the one graphic novel I would recommend to everyone, including people who don't ordinarily dip into comics or graphic novels. As for me, I'm eagerly looking forward to reading the sequel, The Outfit, that I received for Christmas!

Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, by Bill Willingham and various artists. An original Fables graphic novel that stands outside of the ongoing series.

...and I'm going to have to leave this post to be completed later. It's ran on long enough! I'd love to know if anyone's read any of these, and if they have any thoughts, feelings, recommendations. Hopefully soon I'll get to writing about what I'm reading now.

What I Read In 2010

Well, when I set this blog up a little while ago, I joked that I'd do well to make it to a 3rd post. I'm not laughing so much now - a year on and no updates. That calls for a New Year's Resolution, I think...

So this isn't as much a blog post proper as a list of everything I've read last year - and considering how busy I've been with baby, work, graduation and everything else that's happened, it's more than I'd expected.

Also in the past 12 months I've returned to reading novels again. I'm a bit of a lazy reader (see the above distractions!) so I'd got into the habit of reading mainly short stories and graphic novels, without concentrating on any one thing to get through a whole chunk of a novel. But this year I've read a few more. It feels like it's the first time I've read novels for years, but considering I've recently finished a 3 year English Literature course, perhaps it's more appropriate so say it's the first time I've completed a novel of my own choosing in quite a while.

Another theme I've seen in my reading is science-fiction: being a big comic book fan, a lot of people assume that an interest in sci-fi comes as a given, but really - beyond the capes and time machines - I'd never really experienced much sci-fi until this year.

Anyway, here's the list...

The Island of Dr Moreau, H G Wells (1896)

The 39 Steps, John Buchan (1915)

The Seeds of Time, John Wyndham (1959)

The Divine Invasion, Philip K Dick (1982)

Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keys (1966)

Carnacki, The Ghost Finder, William Hope Hodgson (1913)

The Forever War, Joe Haldeman (1974)

20th Century Ghosts, Joe Hill (2008)

The Vesuvius Club, Mark Gatiss (2005)

Beginners, or What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver (2010/1981)

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley (2009)

I, Zombie, Al Ewing (2008)

Love and Mr Lewisham, H G Wells (1900)

Couples, John Updike (1968)

And that's just the novels, I haven't included any graphic novels, single issue comic books or short stories (although 20th Century Ghosts, Beginners and The Seeds of Time are all short story collections). I've done my best to read across a range of genres, times and authors and I think I've done a good job - lots of classic sci-fi, but also a few contemporary authors, some crime novels and even some capital L literature crept in there too. Plus I'd bet that this is the only list this year where a turn of the century novel by HG Wells will be placed next to I, Zombie.

Interestingly, on an Amazon search for I, Zombie, the next item on the list is a novel called I Kissed A Zombie And I Liked It. Don't believe me? See for yourself here. That one didn't make my list.

Maybe next year.