Darkly Dreaming Dexter

So there’s this guy, Dexter, right? And he’s a CSI guy in Miami, analyzing blood spatter patterns to determine facts about murders. And he has a TV show, which I have watched two seasons of now, and which first season was based on a book that I have recently read. The thing about Dexter is, his off-hours job is to be a serial killer. Many people might find that to be distasteful reading material, but Dexter, see, he’s not like other serial killers.

As the first season of the show and Darkly Dreaming Dexter explain (in very similar, but eventually divergent, ways), Dexter is different from other serial killers. He was adopted by a cop who saw the darkness inside the growing boy, understood what it was, and chose to channel it in constructive ways rather than doom him to a lusterless existence in the mental health system. Dexter has a code that he follows, in which he only murders people who are themselves killers, and he only acts when he is completely certain of their guilt. And that life has worked out pretty well for him: he’s able to fake charm while making use of extensive wit, maintaining shams of relationships with co-workers, his sister, and a girlfriend; and every few months, he strikes again. All that is about to change, however, with the appearance of a new serial killer in Miami, one to whom Dexter feels a disturbingly close bond. (When the guy who stalks around murdering people, even really bad people, is disturbed? That can’t be good.)

What makes the Dexter series stand out from the stacks of murder mystery books and shows out there isn’t that he’s a serial killer himself. Well, okay, that does make him stand out, but what makes him appealing to me is how very funny he is. And the way he views people, and views himself as a separate species from them. What could have been a weakness of the show in copying so closely from the book feels more like a strength to me: that they managed to capture the First Person Bemused viewpoint Dexter brought to my reading experience. In any event, very good book, and slim enough to easily read much more quickly than the show could be watched. But if anything, I’d recommend doing both.

Mouse Guard: Fall 1152

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It was my birthday, not so long ago, and I received a fairly random graphic novel about some mice, right? Just lately I’ve read it, and it was pretty okay. Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 chronicles the doings of several members of the Mouse Guard over the course of the Fall of 1152. (I’m more proud of that than you might imagine.)

But seriously, there’s a hidden society of mice, and for the purposes of transportation and trade, the Mouse Guard keeps the roads safe of enemies: weasels and cats and so forth. The map indicates that they’ve found a way to turn back large predators from their terriroty via a scent barrier; it’s clear that the world has more depth than was presented in this original book. However, all is not well in mousey-town, as someone has snuck out a map of the home city of the Guard for the purposes of villainous treachery.

The art has a very A.A. Milne or Peter Cottontail feel to it, just slightly cartoonish versions of real animals[1], but since everything is at mouse-scale, the occasional marauding snake or crab is quite exciting. The story’s pacing and spare prose adds to my impression that it was meant to be a kid-book. And believe me, it’s a pretty good one that a new reader would get a lot of enjoyment out of. I got probably 50 pages of enjoyment out of the 192 page book, myself. The story was fine, it was just widely paced, like I said. But the art made up for most of that. I just didn’t expect to finish quite that large of a book in a single day around my unreasonably crowded work schedule.

[1] To the extent that mice wear cloaks and carry swords. Which I assume is a very wide extent indeed.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Volume 3

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Remember how I was highly meh on the second Buffy Omnibus of old comics? Unexpectedly, I did in fact find volume 3 used somewhere. So, hey, why not? Answer: because it’s kind of the opposite of what is good. They apparently were struggling to keep up with present day in the series despite not having nearly enough information about the direction of things. The comic is set in season 3, with which it was published concurrently. So they were (self-reportedly) struggling to figure out what was going on with Angel and Faith, as well as the show in general. It’s not that I mind the comic going episodic, despite the arcish nature of the show being one of its strengths; what I mind is how easily they could have agreed to stay a season behind and get things right instead.

I understand that this was right at the beginning of the comic’s creation, and I trust that things will improve: after all, I’ve seen a little bit of those improvements in the first couple of volumes. But for the most part, I regret the hour or two of time I lost, even after getting it in excellent condition at half price. The art and the storylines throughout most of the book are, well, amateurish. The characters frequently don’t ring quite true. The worst part, though, is that the improvements were starting to hit right at the end of the book, as though maybe the fourth one could be better from page one.

Jhegaala

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There are two things kicking my ass about the review of Jhegaala. (Well, three, if you count reviewing a book so deep in a series, but I’m used to that.) The first is that the next two reviews will be so simple, and then I’d be caught up, if only I could get there. The second is that I was developing a wonderfully insightful theory about Vlad’s relationship with with Loiosh, only to have it disproven a few pages from the end of the book. Grrr. I may, of course, be getting ahead of myself.

So, anyway, Vlad’s an assassin, right? And for reasons explained elsewhere, he’s on the run from the mafia-esque organization for which he previously assassinated people. As a result, he has fled Adrilankha to spend a few years among his own people, maybe hook up with relatives of his mother that he never met as a child. Except, he’s Vlad Taltos, and he naturally finds himself elbow-deep into the hornet’s nest before he hears the first buzz of approaching trouble.

I loved it, of course. You will too! Inevitable (if unintentional) spoilers follow…

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Pineapple Express

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Am I still way, way behind? I think you know the answer to that. The sad part is, this shouldn’t have been a hard review for me (and probably still won’t), but I never expected to be delayed by days beyond when I first sat down to type, like this. My time management is gradually getting back into the swing of things, though, and once I catch up on it all, things will be back to normal. (I would skip straight to the review, but I know you love these intricate, behind the scenes looks at how Shards of Delirium works.)

Despite my relative lack of things to say about Pineapple Express, I certainly liked it. It spent a lot of time being funny or sweet (in that slightly off-putting Seth Rogen way, sure, but maybe that contributes to the sweetness, how bad at it he is? Like a puppy who pees just off the edge of the newspaper, while staring soulfully into your eyes), and those were punctuated by chop-socky and explosions; so, like, something for everybody, right?

It’s a stoner comedy, and there haven’t been many of those in a while. But it’s also an on-the-run buddy action movie. My best comparison, which is undoubtedly flawed, is that the writers were heavily influenced by Cheech and Chong movies, but then said, “Hey, what if we throw the slightest soupçon of Boondock Saints into the mix?” Not enough for it to be actually comparable in any way, but like you’re getting occasional hints of it through the clouds of pot smoke. (I’ll have to find someone to ask, someday, if that’s a completely insane comparison or not.) Anyway, that one guy who was in the pregnant movie I never saw is a process server who accidentally witnesses a murder and then teams up with the son of the Green Goblin, AKA his pot dealer. And then, implausibly, they get completely entangled in the drug war that inspired the murder and which is the source of this awesome new weed they’ve been smoking together: pineapple express.

So, yeah: pretty funny! But you probably have to be into that type of movie to really enjoy it much?

Ultimate X-Men: Hellfire & Brimstone

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By the time I finished the fourth X-Men book, I’d had it split up to read parts or all of two other books, plus it’s been more than a week since I finished it. And I’ve already denigrated the previous books in the series, to greater or lesser degree. So it will likely come as no surprise that I’m having a difficult time working out what to say about Hellfire & Brimstone, all things considered.

What is surprising is that despite still being a Mark Millar title, I really kind of liked it. The plots were a largely disconnected mishmash, about the introduction of Kitty Pryde[1], about a new evil growing underneath Magneto’s old island where the Brotherhood of Mutants used to hang out, about some rich people trying to summon a demon or an Old One or something to destroy the universe in exchange for limitless power, and about the evil mutants searching for new leadership. And it’s not just that they appear to be disconnected on the surface: they’re mostly just as disconnected by the end of the volume. But I guess each story was good enough on its own, or had sufficiently cool moments, that the entire thing was elevated as a result. However it worked, I’m relieved to have caught one that ended up being pretty darn good, for a change.

[1] That seems to be her real name, not her superhero name. Which: wow. (She can move freely through solid objects, if you care.)

Ultimate Spider-Man: Legacy

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In fact, I started a completely different book than this, but I accidentally left it at home and then vanished for the weekend. In addition to being so far behind, I’m definitely finding that the mixing around of these books has contributed to my inability to review things at all well right now. I certainly hope this doesn’t happen again, but my work schedule being so non-conducive to internet activities is a thing that will be mostly over now. (Downside: I certainly can’t write reviews at work anymore, as I’m way too damn busy. This has both positives and negatives, one latter of which has been clearly demonstrated today.)

So, anyway, in Legacy, Spider-Man discovers that his arch-enemy, the Green Goblin, is still alive. And awesome things happen, in the realm of fightings and psychological warfare and unexpected revelations about Peter’s place in the larger world and potential romantic triangles. Thinking about it now, it feels like a set-up book that will have long-term repercussions for the development of the series, but at the time, it felt like action-filled comic mayhem. Which is to say, it did both things, and did them both well. How many books in the middle of a series can say that?

Dragons of the Highlord Skies

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I am four books behind right now, until I finish this review. On the bright side, that won’t take long because, on the less bright side, I’m having a really hard time to holding onto reviewable information about Dragons of the Highlord Skies. I mean, it’s another DragonLance book set concurrently with the second one from the original trilogy, in which the knights and the elf chick fight a war at the South Pole while the evil chick struggles to improve or maintain her rank within the evil armies. Both stories are pretty decent examples of what I like about the series in general: sympathetic characters, occasional comedy, good action. Mythic resonance, not so much, but that never works right when rehashing old events that have previously been mentioned off-screen.

The framing device kind of sucked, and I hope they don’t use it again for the third book. But other than that, it’s still basically recommendable for fans of old-school Weis & Hickman.

Tropic Thunder

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A little while back, I had a brief period in which I found myself out of work. It was pretty hard. I lived out of my car for something like half the time, spent some time in theaters watching movies “for free”, hit a bar for the kind of beer-drinking that only the out-of-work can really experience. You know how it is. Eventually, I got back on my feet, slept in an actual bed, and then I had to get up ridiculously early the next morning to start my new job. (And since then, I have been way too busy to write anything, for ages without end. Which explains this two week delay, you see.)

This is the story of that movie.

So, anyway, free preview, right? I glanced at it, then decided I had to work and couldn’t go and promptly forgot about it. Except then someone besides me wanted to go and other people got involved and my last day had slightly shifted hours, such that I ultimately was able to, plus it was free, right? Yay, Studio Movie Grill! A reasonably short-lived line followed by a good long sit-around eating buffet pizza and drinking moderately buffet Shiner later, Tropic Thunder started.

The premise really fails to capture it. Three successful actors are trying to break out of their pigeonholes by making a Saving Private Ryanesque true-life story of a rescued soldier escaping from Vietnam, but problems with egos and the budget are quickly making a hash of things. So the director decides to drop them into the jungle to film the middle portion of the movie Blair Witch style, with some cameras scattered around the forest for most of the shots and the director shadowing the for the rest. Only, the part of the jungle they land in is being used to grow and process drugs, and the natives are not too happy to find “heavily-armed” intruders in their midst. Also, Tom Cruise played a role that indicates every once in a while he remembers he’s a decent actor with a sense of humor, and not just the face of Scientology. Wacky hilarity ensues!

This sounds no more than a mile north of totally dumb, I know. But in practice, I have not laughed so hard at a movie in ages. If you like things that are funny, you should go see it. In the meantime, though, something pretty awesome happened at the theater. Ryan and Laurell and I were having a discussion about gender disparities launched when a male member of the waitstaff set the first pitcher of beer down in front of her. We ultimately concluded that (in the heteronormative world), people with penises and people with vaginas are in competition for scarce resources, and that if our waitress had brought the beer instead, she would likely have (unconsciously?) given it to one of the guys instead of the girl. None of which would be all that interesting to relate, except that a woman at the table in front of us finally got fed up with all of our foul, penis-ridden language and asked us if we knew that there were children here, indicating the 14 year-old next to her. Although I personally believe that a girl of that age has likely heard the word before (and in equally conversational contexts; we were being uncouth neither in topic nor actual verbiage), it was a point well-taken about how some people don’t want to expose themselves to such topics in some contexts, and I felt a little bad; I think we all did.

That is, until we remembered and later observed that this was an R-rated movie with all manner of violent, sexually-topical, and otherwise far more inappropriate material than anything occurring in our conversation. Jack Black, in particular, made reference to a penis (though I am forced to admit that he never used the dreaded word itself) that I actually think I would be leery of having a 14 year-old hear. Our heroic parent and/or guardian, of course, took her delicate child out of the theater within five minutes of the opening reel, once she realized what a mistake she’d made. Because that would be the only logical decision after having made such a scene in the theater a mere half an hour previously. Right? RIGHT?

OH WAIT NO SHE STAYED FOR THE WHOLE MOVIE!!!

Y: The Last Man – Whys and Wherefores

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As promised, I’ve finished Y. Whys and Wherefores felt very much like the last volume that it was, from start to finish. Although there are certainly plot elements left to resolve (not least among them Yorick’s years-long quest to reunite with his girlfriend, Beth), the primary purpose of the book was clearly the tying up of loose ends and general denouement, which is appropriate after a series this long. It worked just as you’d expect, structurally.

What I’ve been trying to decide since I read it (and in the handful of hours I spent staring at the mostly blank screen after I wrote the first sentence this morning) is how I felt about the ending from a purely story-driven perspective. And of course, spoilers mean not being allowed to really go into details, nor even wanting to. Whatever else it was, it was a powerful finish. Which I guess answers my question pretty well all by itself. It’s also a very thoughtful finish. I’m not sure if introspective is the right word to apply to static history imprinted onto dead trees, but even if I cannot apply it to the book, it certainly applies to my mood after the fact.

Shakespeare has been on my mind all along, of course, and well on purpose. I’ll have to reread these someday as a single unit while watching for Shakespeare in general, all English-majory and analytical, but my point right now is that it has occurred to me, with surprising belatedness, that Yorick certainly qualifies for the descriptor of a fellow of infinite jest, which is good: played differently, The Last Man‘s potential for unrelenting grimness would have overwhelmed any other possible message. In retrospect, I’m starting to think that the Walking Dead series might suffer from a terminal case of the same disease.