Definitely the weakest entry - the franchise was getting tired by this point This was the last of the Sherlock Holmes collections, and definitely the oDefinitely the weakest entry - the franchise was getting tired by this point This was the last of the Sherlock Holmes collections, and definitely the one that felt a bit tired and going through the motions, though still skillfully done. It just felt as though Doyle needed to churn more stories out to please his fans and generate some income, a situation not confined to modern authors, and still a far more enviable situation that the starving artist who receives no recognition at all. The stories also seems quite dark and more unpleasant in parts, so really only stuck this one out as it was the last in Stephen Fry's Definitive Collection, which in its 71hrs entirety remains the most impressively done audiobook I've experienced to date....more
The Penultimate Collection of Stories: A Mixed Bag This collection of Sherlock Holmes was published in 1917, consisting of previously published storiesThe Penultimate Collection of Stories: A Mixed Bag This collection of Sherlock Holmes was published in 1917, consisting of previously published stories, and is structured as reminisces by Dr. Watson about some of Sherlock's earlier adventures after Sherlock is already retired in country seclusion in Sussex. Coming out as it did during the latter part of WWI, came out during a very different world of the gaslight and carriages of Sherlock's Victorian times, and much darker. The titular story, His Last Bow, is actually a WWI spy story involving Sherlock coming out of retirement to match wits with a German spy, bringing him closer to the concerns of that tumultuous event.
Unlike past stories, some are actually told from Sherlock's POV or in third person, and I thought the quality of the stories was far less consistent than past collections. Considering that Doyle wrote 56 stories featuring the legendary sleuth, it's hard to fault him if some are not quite as memorable as others. Still, about half the stories were up to the normal high standards, and well worth reading for the Sherlock completist, thought not as an entry point....more
The 4th Full-length Holmes Novella; not At the Top but A Solid Story Nonetheless The book follows the same structure as Doyle's 1st full-length story oThe 4th Full-length Holmes Novella; not At the Top but A Solid Story Nonetheless The book follows the same structure as Doyle's 1st full-length story on Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet. This one is a fairly intriguing murder/suicide mystery set in a country home, with Holmes and Watson on the case. Again the first half of the story is an extended crime investigation, with the second half switching locations completely to a very rough and lawless mining town in the US dominated by a criminally-murderous group of Freemasons called the Scourgers, and just like A Study in Scarlet, Holmes and Watson are completely absent. Also unlike that story, I found this flashback story a lot more hard-boiled and interesting than the tale of love and jealousy in the desert among sinister Mormons. However, it remains a problematic narrative structure as you're very unlikely to be reading this unless you are a Sherlock & Holmes completist, and it's hard to be satisfied when they are completely offstage for half the book. The one improvement structurally I would say is that Sherlock actually solves the mystery in the end of the 1st half, so one of the pleasures of the 2nd half is to slowly see how the events of the 1st half came to be, and the connection between the two seemingly separately stories....more
The Triumphant Return of the Master Sleuth; Hasn't Lost His Edge Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was actually pretty keen to knock off his beloved character andThe Triumphant Return of the Master Sleuth; Hasn't Lost His Edge Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was actually pretty keen to knock off his beloved character and move onto his other passion, historical novels, but the public outcry over Sherlock Holmes spectacular death at Reichenbach Falls with Professor Moriarty in "The Final Problem" was both vocal and very persistent, and after a long hiatus, in which he published historical novels that may have been quality but didn't elicit the same level of excitement and loyalty as the brilliant Sherlock and his faithful sidekick Dr. Watson.
So, like many novelist before, Doyle finally gave in to popular pressure and brought back one of the most famous characters in all of fiction, not just the mystery/detective genre, and did it will gusto and flair. These 13 stories have just as much ingenuity, verve, and humour as what has come before, which really does attest to both Doyles writing skills and imagination, and also suggests that deep down he must still have liked and respected his creation enough to give him some proper adventures and not just "phone it in" as it were. ...more
Another Excellent Collection That Gives Some Backstory on How Sherlock Got His Start, and of course the Notorious Finale Now that I've been on a roll wAnother Excellent Collection That Gives Some Backstory on How Sherlock Got His Start, and of course the Notorious Finale Now that I've been on a roll with the 71-hour mega audiobook Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Audio Collection narrated by the brilliant Stephen Fry, I've stopped thinking about how many stories I've listened to, they are just wonderful windows onto Victorian society (the good, the bad, and the ridiculous), the amazing deductive reasoning skills of Holmes, the unflagging loyalty of Dr. Watson (who seems quite happy to ditch his doctor duties to tag along for some crime solving, not sure what his patients think of that), and of course the ingenious mysteries themselves, introduced and solved in the short span of an hour's listening. ...more
The Best Full-Length Sherlock Holmes Adventure, An Excellent Supernatural Thriller It's hard to imagine a better-executed full-length Sherlock AdventurThe Best Full-Length Sherlock Holmes Adventure, An Excellent Supernatural Thriller It's hard to imagine a better-executed full-length Sherlock Adventure than this. It combines a great setting on the Moors, a frightening take of a bloodthirsty hound that has haunted a family for centuries, a host of memorable characters, multiple plot elements that tie together skillfully, and told at an exciting pace. It's in my opinion far better than either A Study in Scarlet (ruined by the 2nd half lost in the deserts of Utah with no Sherlock/Watson) or The Sign of the Four (not a bad story, but this one just holds together better). I had no plans to read all the Sherlock stories, but having discovered the 71-hour audiobook done by the incomparable Stephen Fry, I am totally hooked and also enjoyed the modernized BBC version featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, filled with homages and easter eggs for fans of the stories....more
The Best Intro to Sherlock Holmes, Ingenuous and Engaging Crime Short Stories with the Most Famous Detective of All Time I had thought just to sample aThe Best Intro to Sherlock Holmes, Ingenuous and Engaging Crime Short Stories with the Most Famous Detective of All Time I had thought just to sample a few of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous Sherlock Holmes stories just so I could tick them off my bucket list, but after discovering the mammoth 71-hour audiobook (at the same price as any other, incredible) narrated by the incomparable Stephen Fry, I just couldn't stop listening to one story after another, they are the ultimate duo, Doyle and Fry, after Holmes and Watson.
The first two books chronologically are full length novellas, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, and while those both have lots to recommend them, I think it's the short stories that really present Sherlock's genius with inductive reasoning based on clinical observations, and are so entertaining and compact at about 1hr each that you just go through them like a bag of crisps or box of biscuits, extremely addictive (though not quite at the cocaine habit level of Sherlock himself). ...more
An Engaging Full-Length Tale of This Crime-Solving Duo This is the second full-length installment in the Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson series that pioAn Engaging Full-Length Tale of This Crime-Solving Duo This is the second full-length installment in the Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson series that pioneered the detective fiction genre and set the template for future generations. I think it was far better structured than the initial book A Study in Scarlett that spent almost the entire second half in the deserts of Utah with some nefarious Mormons, something that would have been exotic for Victorian readers back then but just separated us from the protagonists for far too long.
This book is fast paced and packed with events, but the central focus remains on the cold, cerebral, often patronizing Sherlock, his largely docile sidekick Watson, a tale of lost and stolen Indian treasure, and even some romance for Dr Watson as he meets Mary Morstan for the first time. There are of course elements of Victorian colonialist attitudes which today would be labeled racist, but 140 years ago would have been viewed as standard. I find the stories fascinating for exactly that reason, a window onto a different era and completely different attitudes and values to today.
I've seen the Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman BBC series recently, so I do already have a visual picture of what the characters were like, but the original books retain their verve and cleverness and are as a result quite entertaining....more
The Debut of Watson and Holmes, With a Side-Story of Nefarious Mormons in Utah This book is well know as it features the first meeting of Doctor WatsonThe Debut of Watson and Holmes, With a Side-Story of Nefarious Mormons in Utah This book is well know as it features the first meeting of Doctor Watson and Sherlock Holmes. I don't have anything much to add to all the excellent reviews by my peers. Suffice to say my interested was kindled in the original stories after watching the BBC series with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, so the initial meeting here was actually quite faithfully followed in the TV series, and the two characters are brilliantly conceived and their complex but complementary relationship is the best part of the creation, along with Holmes incredible powers of observation, deduction, and reasoning.
What I wasn't expecting at all was a sudden shift in Part II to the deserts of Utah and a seemingly unrelated tale of frontier life, sinister Mormon elders, and a struggle between families for the hand of a fair daughter and some cavalier suitors. This come out of left field, and Holmes and Watson completely disappear from the picture for a huge chunk of the second half, which really interrupts the narrative flow and I think many readers including myself found themselves wondering if they had picked up a different book by mistake. The story eventually clarifies itself and we see how it related to the orginal murders in London, but really, I don't think modern Sherlock fans have much interest in a sojourn to Utah, they would much prefer the detective duo to stay put in Victorian London and solve murders there instead....more
Spoiled, Rich, Pretentious, Hedonistic, and Jaded College Kids Commit Murder and Come To Regret It - What's Not to Like? Who can resist a skillfully-toSpoiled, Rich, Pretentious, Hedonistic, and Jaded College Kids Commit Murder and Come To Regret It - What's Not to Like? Who can resist a skillfully-told tale of a elite clique of spoiled and jaded rich kids studying Greek and the Classics in a small Vermont liberal arts college, taught by a charismatic and eccentric professor who becomes the sun they are drawn to and revolve around. And of course this is all told from outsider Richard's perspective, a poor kid from a dusty town in CA that is drawn to their alluring little world, and somehow gains a degree of acceptance into the fold thanks to his shared study of Greek and willingness to go along with their hedonistic ways. Things go terribly wrong mid-way, and the characters then spend 300+ pages disintegrating in paranoia, guilt, alcohol, drugs, and mutual distrust.
This book was massively hyped by readers who felt quite sophisticated by reading it, and such books should always be approached with caution, especially if you a self-identified rebel and outsider who would never want to like something so popular. But hey, the irony is quite delicious, and I've learned not to take myself too seriously, certainly not when it comes to books and entertainment, high-brow or low.
Despite the many faults of the book, particularly the smoke-and-mirrors lack of description of the central act of Dionysian/Bacchanalial madness and murder, along with the surprisingly vacuous nature of the central Greek/Classics scholar Julian, and just the sheer bloat/repetition of the middle/latter portion, I found it pretty entertaining stuff. Donna Tartt's writing is sharp, and her descriptions of her character's claustrophobic inner worlds are quite good.
There is plenty of self-indulgent literary references that let us know that Donna is very well-read and clever, and that we can share in that glow of sophistication just by reading along. I liked that she herself read the audiobook, as I would never have approached this 700-page door-stopper in print, and I liked her androgynous and slight Southern twang as she delivered her book the way she wanted it to be heard.
There are plenty of fans and naysayers of this book, but it certainly made me keen to give her next two books a try, The Little Friend and The Goldfinch, especially the latter....more
Caliban's War: Exciting New Plotlines in Second Installment I'm now well on my way with The Expanse, having watched the first three seasons of the Sy-FCaliban's War: Exciting New Plotlines in Second Installment I'm now well on my way with The Expanse, having watched the first three seasons of the Sy-Fy series before starting on the audiobooks. Although initially hesitant, I've come to like the characters on the Rocinante, each with their quirks and moments of greatness amid the action and intrigue. Holden the idealist captain, Naomi the super-competent engineer, Amos the tough, no-bullshit mechanic, and Alex the cowboy pilot, now share the stage with three new major characters, Avasarala the elderly Indian politician with a brilliant scheming intellect and sailor's mouth, Bobby Draper the Polynesian space marine who has to go outside her comfort zone of fighting to the messy world of politics, and botanist Prax Meng who is desperately searching for his lost daughter Mei.
These characters get caught up in the complex ongoing tapestry of interplanetary military conflict between Earthers, Martians, and Belters, along with the sinister and deadly proto-molecule, which behaves at times like a bio-weapon and at other times like an alien proto-intelligence with unknown designs on humanity. Then there is the Machiavellian plots and schemes that Avasarala is deeply entwined with as she tries to defuse the every-increasing tensions between the three main power groups, as this gets stirred up by the brilliant opening set-piece on Ganymede where Bobby Draper and her Martian marine squad face a mysterious attack that ignites events beyond her understanding.
Having seen the series before listening to the audiobooks, the book characters of course mirrored the appearance of the actors in the show, so it was very easy to picture them as I listened to the story. They are depicted well in the TV series, and gain additional depth thanks to the audiobooks, so it's a nice synergy to experience the story from different media. In the last few years I've enjoyed this approach, whether it is Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Man in the High Castle, Altered Carbon, etc. Much of the pleasure derives from comparing how the stories and characters and images differ between the book and film/TV versions. As I'm enjoyed The Expanse in both media, it's on to Abandon's Gate next....more
Angelmaker: Zany mashup of thriller, doomsday devices, and clever repartee Originally posted at Fantasy Literature Angelmaker (2012) is Nick Harkaway’s Angelmaker: Zany mashup of thriller, doomsday devices, and clever repartee Originally posted at Fantasy Literature Angelmaker (2012) is Nick Harkaway’s second book, after his exuberant, clever, digressive and exhausting debut The Gone-Away World. It shares the same qualities with that wild and free-wheeling tale, with relentlessly clever dialogue, quirky and in-depth characters, an intricate but playful doomsday plot, more flashbacks than most readers can handle, and chock-a-block with clever and ironic observations of the weirdly-unique world he has created, and by extension our own less colorful one.
The story skips back and forth in time just like its predecessor, to a degree some readers will get irritated by, as we learn a great deal about the back stories of the main characters but very little of the forward momentum you’d expect from a “political thriller.”
Harkaway is in love with language and cleverness, and this time sets his sights on old-school English gangsters, WWII spy-games, secret agents, doomsday devices, evil arch-villains, dramatic fight scenes, and another mild-mannered protagonist, this time a quiet clock repairman who sets in motion a string of bizarre and potentially world-ending events. Many secretive and sinister characters come out of the woodwork and the whole thing is a bit overwhelming, though Angelmaker is slightly more tightly-plotted than The Gone-Away World, but not by much.
I found both this book and its predecessor to be sufficiently complex that it was difficult to follow the plot or lighting-paced dialogue, filled with anecdotes and carefully-crafted quips. It is probably much better suited to a proper printed page reading experience, absorbing all the various flavors that the cook has poured into his high-brow fusion of multiple genres. The narrator Daniel Weyman does an excellent job of capturing the many larger-than-life characters, including all the different accents, and I find that British accents are inherently charming for this type of humor, especially as I now recognize many locations that are mentioned.
Still, Nick Harkaway’s works are not to be shoveled down like a burger and milkshake, but rather, need to be savored like a multi-course French meal....more
Lock In: Great concept, good extrapolation, and fast-paced story Lock-In has an excellent concept, the outbreak of Haden's Syndrome, as described in thLock In: Great concept, good extrapolation, and fast-paced story Lock-In has an excellent concept, the outbreak of Haden's Syndrome, as described in the GR blurb above. In classic John Scalzi fashion, he then explores the concept in fairly rigorous detail, with his breezy style and snarky (sorry, I know the word is overused, but it works) characters. Much like Peter Clines or Michael Crichton, his stories are fast-paced, well-crafted, and very enjoyable. He puts a lot of effort into really imagining the implications of Haden's Syndrome, which is clearly illustrated by the novella at the end, Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome, which in the audiobook version is performed by a host of well-known narrators. I suspect Scalzi may have created that as part of creating the background of the story, but it certainly adds some verisimilitude to the backstory. Of course the main story is narrated by Scalzi's friend and SF community favorite Wil Wheaton, who does an excellent job as always. They are on the same wavelength and deliver a consummate and engrossing 10 hours of SF entertainment....more
Sin City, Vol. 7: Hell and Back: Treads very familiar territory Originally posted at Fantasy Literature Hell and Back is the seventh and final volumSin City, Vol. 7: Hell and Back: Treads very familiar territory Originally posted at Fantasy Literature Hell and Back is the seventh and final volume in Frank Miller’s SIN CITY series. The artwork is still dramatic, and the story and characters are hard-boiled, dark, and intense. The bad guys are nasty, and the femme fatales have curves that kill (literally, almost). Of course we have the loner anti-hero tough guy, a lethal weapon who isn’t looking for trouble, but trouble seeks him out. We’ve got all the familiar elements of a Frank Miller Sin City story. And that’s either great if you like this formula, or a bit tiresome if you were looking for something new.
Having read all seven volumes now, it’s clear what kind of story Miller likes to tell, and with the exception of the dreadful Vol 5: Family Values, he does it pretty well. His black-and-white artwork and noir style really was fresh and exciting when it first came out, but it hasn’t really evolved all that much. Much of Hell and Back retreads familiar ground, with the exception of a very vivid hallucinatory dream sequence that provides Miller an excuse to pay tribute to many of his favorite characters such as the Spartans from 300, Lone Wolf & Cub, Captain America, Rambo, Astro Boy, Dirty Harry, Moses, Robocop, even Dr. Seuss.
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I enjoyed Hell and Back, but I think Miller has said all he needed to say in the first four volumes, The Hard Goodbye, A Dame to Kill For, The Big Fat Kill, and That Yellow Bastard. Booze, Broads, & Bullets was good because it was short vignettes, but again resembled earlier story elements. So I think you’d be fine just enjoying the first four volumes, as they also benefit from having been incorporated into the two Sin City films, because it’s a lot of fun to compare the artwork of the comics and the movies.
Hell and Back concerns a former Navy Seal named Wallace who is now a starving artist. One day he saves a woman named Esther who tries to throw herself off a cliff into the sea. When he rescues her, he discovers she is embroiled in a whole lot of weird underground criminal business, and he then encounters femme fatale number one, Delia the blue-clad sexy assassin. In case that isn’t enough, there is another skin-tight leopard-patterned lady named Maxine to make things more interesting. Then there are the usual thugs, crooked cops, and assassins to crank up the action, and Wallace goes from quiet slacker-guy with Converse shoes and long hair to invincible one-man killing machine. We’ve been here before, right? It’s all done fairly well, and this is the longest Sin City story, but it really doesn’t blaze any new trails, so I recommend it for die-hard fans and completists only....more
Sin City, Vol. 6: Booze, Broads, and Bullets: Dark little vignettes from Basin City Originally posted at Fantasy Literature
Booze, Broads, and BulletSin City, Vol. 6: Booze, Broads, and Bullets: Dark little vignettes from Basin City Originally posted at Fantasy Literature
Booze, Broads, and Bullets is the sixth volume in Frank Miller’s SIN CITY series, and it’s a welcome return to form after the travesty known as Family Values. The artwork is excellent, the stories are tight, and there are hardly any wasted pages (other than the story Rats perhaps). It makes sense since a number of these stories were written earlier. You will find all of Frank Miller’s favorite themes on display: solitary men intent on vengeance, sultry femme fatales, vile criminal lowlifes, and the seedy black-and-white world of Basin City itself. In many ways Sin City is best taken in small doses, never wearing out its welcome. Since Miller is dealing in crime noir archetypes, we don’t really need in-depth character studies. Certainly he excels at short-clipped tough-guy dialogue, but one of the best stories, Silent Night, features hardly a word spoken and breathtaking visuals. This is one of my favorite Sin City stories thanks to its gorgeous use of stark images to tell the story.
Two of the stories are featured in the Sin City movies, The Customer is Always Right (which opens and closes the first film) and Just Another Saturday Night (which kicks of A Dame to Kill For). And there are FIVE, count ‘em, FIVE stories about sexy femme fatales who dupe guys and make them regret it, complete with cool touches of color (Blue Eyes, Daddy’s Little Girl, Wrong Turn/Wrong Track, and The Babe Wore Red). Of those, Wrong Turn stands out for its vivid artwork and setting, which are the same bizarre dinosaur statues and pouring rain of the Santa Yolanda Tar Pits seen in Vol 3: The Big Fat Kill. Delia’s skin-tight blue dress makes for dramatic contrast with the movie-set backdrop.
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Upon further reflection, though the stories are engaging and effective separately, the whole adds up to less than the sum of the parts. There is a lot of repetition of themes, especially among the femme fatales, which was basically distilled into Vol 2: A Dame to Kill For. So in many ways these sketches feel like explorations that would later be expanded into Miller’s full-length stories, though I’m not sure of the actual writing order. Reading the series in order, there isn’t much in this book that hasn’t been covered earlier, so it’s probably only necessary for serious fans to read, but they are bound to appreciate its vicarious pleasures....more
Sin City, Vol. 5: Family Values: Dreadful artwork and dreary story Originally posted Family Values Family Values is the fifth volume in Frank Miller’s SSin City, Vol. 5: Family Values: Dreadful artwork and dreary story Originally posted Family Values Family Values is the fifth volume in Frank Miller’s SIN CITY series, and its a serious stinker. Until now, the first four volumes have been consistently well-drawn, distinctive, hard-boiled, and fun in a mean-spirited way. I came in expecting more of that, and was shocked to see almost from the first panels an unmistakable drop in the quality of the artwork, dialogue, and story.
Miller is still using his tried-and-true black-and-white palette, but all the details are sketched in whereas before they were precise and clean. He uses ink splashes to indicate rain, which looks cool at first glance but quickly becomes annoying. Worst of all, the faces of the characters are frequently drawn so poorly that you can't make out their features at all, let alone their emotions. In particular, deadly little Miho has inexplicably turned into a strange roller-skating ninja with a square face-covering hood, and zooms throughout the story on skates, dispatching thugs with such ease that I felt as bored as she seemed to be.
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The story is far below the standards of earlier tales. It’s a dreary affair involving Dwight and Miho, who have been pretty cool characters until now. Basically a mafia hitman has targeted the wrong people and killed some innocent bystanders, including a woman from Old Town, and it’s their turn to exact vengeance.
That’s the whole story. Sure, there are some sordid details about the mafia guys’ past and how the hit at a diner went down. But after that we just follow Dwight and Miho as they track down the mobsters one by one, killing them by the numbers. In past stories tough guys like Marvin, Dwight, and Hartigan have faced impossible odds, and got beaten repeatedly before getting their chance at revenge. This time, Miho in particularly is so invincible that she toys with several goons for a good third of the book, until Dwight begs her to finish them off. Once again, she is drawn so poorly that it’s hard to tell what’s going on in the action scenes.
By the time Dwight and Miho reach the mobster’s mansion for the final confrontation, it’s a foregone conclusion that they will all die and Dwight and Miho are unlikely to break a sweat. It all seemed very pointless. I’m not sure why Frank Miller suddenly lost his edge for this volume, but it really doesn’t belong on the shelf with the other titles at all. I recommend giving this one a pass....more
Batman: Dark Victory: An excellent follow-up to Long Halloween Originally posted at Fantasy Literature Batman: Dark Victory (2000) takes place immediatBatman: Dark Victory: An excellent follow-up to Long Halloween Originally posted at Fantasy Literature Batman: Dark Victory (2000) takes place immediately after Batman: The Long Halloween (1997). In the aftermath of the Holiday Killer, Gotham’s Falcone and Maroni crime families are in chaos. Dark Victory is steeped in the same dark crime noir atmosphere as Long Halloween, so if you liked the first title you will like this one too. It’s all about mysterious killings, Mafia wars, the rise of the arch-villians, and the legacy of the past that weighs heavily on Batman and his friends and enemies. Everyone is struggling with a difficult past, and circumstances never allow them reprieve, so the story has the weight of inevitable tragedy. It’s not surprising that Christopher Nolan and David Goyer took direct inspiration from these two books when they created the moody and grim THE DARK KNIGHT film trilogy.
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Since the events of Long Halloween, Alberto Falcone is interred in Arkham Asylum, Sofia Falcone Gigante is confined to a wheelchair with a metal head brace, and Maroni’s sons Umberto and Pino have tried to take up the reins, but freaks like The Joker, The Riddler, Poison Ivy, and Two-Face have risen in power. The balance has shifted in their favor, but the Mafia will not cede control of the city so easily.
Batman and Jim Gordon are still shaken by the transformation of DA Harvey Dent into the mercurial villain Two Face, and mourn the fact that they could not prevent it. Selina Kyle continues to show interest in the taciturn Bruce Wayne, but he is generally unresponsive. A new DA named Janice Porter comes in to replace Harvey Dent, and her first initiative is to reopen the case of Alberto Falcone, claiming he is not responsible for all the Holiday murders.
Into this brave new world a new killer emerges: The Hangman. He targets cops and former cops, both upstanding or corrupt. They are left hanging in public with cryptic hangman clues pinned to their clothes. Clues point to a connection with Harvey Dent, so Batman and Jim Gordon go hunting for him.
[image] Dark Victory is a very dense and tangled narrative. It takes us on a tour of the sewers of Gotham, the courtroom, Wayne Manor, battles between the Freaks and mafia in the streets, and the ever-changing relationship of Batman and Catwoman. I really like the fact that the story is heavily character-driven, not just a series of fights. It also aspires to the classic crime noir theme of criminals unable to escape their own dark pasts, such as Mario Falcone who wants to erase the bad name of his father and make the Falcone empire legitimate. Even Alberto, who was jailed for the Holiday murders, seems to want to make a break with the past. But Sofia Falcone is determined to revive the Falcone criminal empire, so the siblings find themselves at odds.
Meanwhile, despite dozens of clues and leads, Batman and Jim Gordon find themselves getting no closer to solving the Hangman murders. Though each clues clearly points to Harvey Dent, they suspect this is designed to take them off the scent of the real killer. Harvey Dent himself is the ultimate example of a man torn between conflicting imperatives, struggling between upholding the law to jail criminals, and giving in to his darker vengeful side willing to kill crooks. His two-faced appearance is an apt metaphor for this struggle.
[image] Dark Victory also includes the original story of Dick Grayson, the first Robin. He is the young son of trapeze artists, and when his parents high-wire act is sabotaged, he becomes an orphan just like Bruce Wayne. As a result, Bruce takes pity on him and lets him stay at Wayne Manor. The young boy is upset and confused, as Bruce is distant and unattentive, but when Dick encounters Batman, he vows to find his parents’ killers.
True to its crime noir roots, Dark Victory does not reveal the mystery of the Hangman killings until many red herring have been thrown the reader’s way, and even when you think you’re onto the real killer, it’s more complicated than that. We share the struggle of Batman, Jim Gordon, even the villains themselves. So when the final reveal comes, it’s quite a surprise. In my opinion, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale have produced a classic tale of crime and its legacy on all those involved, one that rivals any mafia film. It’s up to you to give it a try for yourself....more
Batman: The Long Halloween: A brilliant crime noir mystery Originally posted at Fantasy Literature Batman: The Long Halloween takes place soon after FraBatman: The Long Halloween: A brilliant crime noir mystery Originally posted at Fantasy Literature Batman: The Long Halloween takes place soon after Frank Miller's Batman: Year One (1987) in chronology. Batman is still in his early days of crime-fighting, while Captain Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent are trying to combat corruption in the police force and courts. This book is a lengthy and gripping noir story that goes back to Batman’s roots as a detective, as he and Jim and Harvey all try to solve the mystery of the Holiday Killer, who has been striking both the Falcone and Maroni crime families on major holidays, always with the same MO: a .22 caliber pistol with the serial number filed off, a baby bottle nipple to muffle the gunshot, and a little symbol to represent each holiday (pumpkin for Halloween, snow crystal globe for Christmas, heart-shaped chocolate box for Valentine’s).
This sets the two criminal organizations into an uproar, with both suspecting each other. It’s actually refreshing to see the mobsters on the defensive for a change, though of course Batman, Jim, and Harvey pledge to stop this vigilante crime wave. We get an in-depth look at the Carmine “The Roman” Falcone family: the don himself, nephew Johnny Viti, son Alberto, sister Carla, etc, along with Maroni and his henchmen.
[image] As the gang war heats up between them, some of Batman’s supervillians begin to surface, such as the Joker, Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy, the Scarecrow, the Riddler, and Catwoman. The complexity of the multiple storylines, alliances, mobsters, supervillains, and crime-fighters is something to behold. For anyone who thinks comics are just for kids, read this one. It is deliciously noir detective procedural, and in some ways it really didn’t need to involve any of Batman’s traditional foes. In tone it felt more like a crime thriller, and while there is plenty of action, it’s the tangled web of suspicions that drives the story.
And of course, what noir detective story comic could be achieved without the right artwork. Tim Sale’s art is very stylized and melancholy, but also sharp and distinct. He excels at character’s expressions and at depicting a world of shadows: Gotham is a city perpetually in shadow, and the dark thoughts of the characters are finely articulated by Sale’s precise work. Most prominently, we see the very subtle but sinister transformation of the upright Harvey Dent into Two-Face. We get a taste for his internal struggle to balance seeking justice without crossing the line.
[image] And no Batman story can ever be complete without his love/hate relationship with the sultry and mercurial Catwoman. As always, her loyalties are ever-shifting, but there are always sparks between the two.
I prefer this side of Batman, since I’m much more interested in a complex murder mystery than a series of slug-fests with monsters and supervillains. There is a follow-up by the Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale team called Dark Victory that is up next, and then a more recent one by Jeph Loeb/Jim Lee called Batman: Hush....more
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