Category Archives: Book Reviews

In which the reader shares his thoughts on the books that possess his imagination throughout the year.

Book Reviews

The Alchemy of Mirrormask

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Many months ago, before Mirrormask started making its way around the globe in every conceivable corner except Kansas City, a very large coffee-table sized book was released entitled…oddly enough…Mirrormask. Two average joe Gaiman/McKean fans ordered said book knowing that it would be a wonderful thing to peruse once they were finally able to see the film. Unfortunately the book was not what they expected. While it was indeed a very large book with many pages it was devoid of a great deal of the pictures that these two expected it to have…it turns out this book was primarily a script book. News of another Mirrormask book began circulating but our two average joes were a bit gun shy and determined to wait until after the film before considering spending money on a second book. After seeing the film one of our two average joes was overcome by the spirit of the inner geek and simply had to have this second book. That book is entitled The Alchemy of Mirrormask, and the geeked out joe is me!

The Alchemy of Mirrormask is the kind of book film fans hope for. From a construction aspect it is perfect. The book is oversized but not unwieldy, the paper is heavy stock with quality, high gloss finish. The cover is a sturdy black hardback with a gold embossed Mirrormask logo covered by a creative, colorful dust jacket. Harper Collins did a very nice job with this one from a book production standpoint and I have to give kudos to them for that.

As far as content goes I believe any Mirrormask fan will be thoroughly pleased with this book. The Mirrormask movie is so full of imagery on each frame that a person cannot possibly take it all in during the unspooling of the film. The Alchemy of Mirrormask gives one the opportunity to dive into Dave McKean’s imagery and swim around awhile…to drink in all the little personal details present in each shot. In addition to screenshots from the film there are pictures taken during the production process, initial texture maps upon which the shots were built, 3D models, paintings of Dave McKean’s that inspired different aspects of the film, etc. One of the things I really enjoyed about The Alchemy of Mirrormask was having the opportunity to see many of the drawings by Dave McKean and Ian Miller that are featured throughout the movie, most particularly as part of Helena’s walls in her trailer and her bedroom. These drawings are so amazing and even the simplest of them are so unique and filled with detail.

Scattered throughout the book are comments by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean indicating where they got inspiration for different parts of the film, how different characters and scenes developed, behind the scenes information and more. Reading the book provided me with dozens of film titles to add to my Netflix list. The Alchemy of Mirrormask does a much better job than the film commentary in discussing the various influences and inspirations of both men in constructing this film. It is divided into chapters discussing various aspects of the film and flows in roughly the same chronological order of the film. One of these chapters has wonderful pictures of various buildings in Warsaw, Trieste, Venice, Prague…places out of which Dave McKean’s vision grew to create his city in Mirrormask.

The Alchemy of Mirrormask, like Mirrormask itself, is admittedly not for everyone. If, however you were enamored of the visual elements of the film and/or are just a fan of Dave McKean’s unique artistic style then you will love this book. It demonstrates both the craftsmanship of a well put together book and the craftsmanship that went into making Mirrormask a unique, ground-breaking cinematic experience. The Alchemy of Mirrormask is a collectible quality art book with some great information in it as well…a combination that is not always easy to find. It is well worth a good read. (And for those of you who don’t, it does have pictures…on every page!)

Fantasy, Short Stories

Harrowing the Dragon

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Harrowing the Dragon is the first collection of short stories by celebrated fantasy author Patricia A. McKillip. Patricia and I have a special bond. Early on in the development of my reading tastes I was exposed to science fiction by my uncle and could not get enough. At that point in my life I had not read any fantasy novels. Then one birthday or Christmas my brother Jason bought a book for me: The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia A. McKillip. It was the first in a trilogy and I devoured all three. Between the late 70’s when I read the Riddle-Master series and the late 90’s I hadn’t realized that Patricia was such a prolific writer. Around that time her novels began coming out in hardcover with wonderful covers by artist Kinuko Y. Craft and my fond memories of her earlier work had me buying these books. Her incredible artistry with language has kept me buying each new book the moment it is released.

Having read so many of her novels I was excited to see how her writing style translated into the short story format. Harrowing the Dragon contains 15 stories written between 1982 and 1999 that had not been collected before. Patricia A. McKillip writes fantasies. There is nothing of the science fiction vein in these tales. To be quite accurate about it, however, Patricia A. McKillip’s work always seems to have a strong sense of the fairy tale in it, much more than many fantasy authors I have read. Her stories have an atmosphere about them formed by tapping into the mythos of the fairy tales of old. These 15 tales are no different.

In Harrowing the Dragon you will find dragons and trolls, witches and princesses, love and loss, music and magic. You will not always find happy endings. You will also not be fed fairy tales in small, easy-to-digest nuggets. Patricia A. McKillip has a true gift of creating art with language. Her stories are not confusing by any means but they are thought provoking and several of these short tales hint at much more going on under the surface than one can see with a quick read through. It is hard to describe how Patricia A. McKillip is different from other fantasy writers, but she is. There are many good writers who do not necessarily have a unique voice. Then there are writers like Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolfe, Jonathan Carroll, and Patricia A. McKillip that you could recognize just by reading a few chapters of their work even if you weren’t aware of who the author was. Patricia’s command of the English language is present in these tales and they are truly enjoyable, but for the full effect of her work I would recommend her novels, Ombria in Shadow being my favorite.

Of the stories in Harrowing the Dragon my favorites are Baba Yaga and the Sorcerer’s Son which in some ways feels like a Hellboy story, Lady of the Skulls, Toad (which is the kiss-a-toad story told from the toad’s point of view), and the Lion and the Lark. Those are my favorites but that isn’t to say that the rest of the stories aren’t good. I actually enjoyed each and every one. Star-Crossed is a very interesting take on the deaths of Romeo and Juliet told from the point of view of the man on watch sent to investigate the mystery of their deaths. The Snow Queen tells a tale of a woman forced because of love lost to become more than she ever was before. There really are some great original stories in here standing side by side with wonderful reworkings of classic fairy tales.

When it comes to Patricia A. McKillip you really cannot go wrong. Her unique and talented voice has produced a number of memorable novels over the last 25 years and I look forward to many, many more. For me, walking into a bookstore and seeing a new Patricia A. McKillip book is akin to finding lost treasure and there are few authors that I would recommend more highly than her.

Comics

Comic Book Day…featuring…Conan!!!

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To conclude, for now, my celebration of the Robert E. Howard Centennial I go to the comics.

Last year on occasion I would hear Jeff and other patrons of A to Z Comics talking about Conan, but I was unfazed. Why would I want to read comics about a barbarian with an Austrian accent? would’ve been my reply had I been asked. However, when the first trade came out, Conan: The Frost Giant’s Daughter and Other Stories I picked it up to take a look and was blown away by Cary Nord’s art. I knew right then and there that I had to have it. After reading the book and reading the biography of Robert E. Howard that was included in the trade I knew I would have to go to the source material and discover Conan for myself, thus was born my affection for the work of Robert E. Howard.

The writing chores for the Conan series falls on the shoulders of Kurt Busiek. Busiek has a reputation as a very strong writer in this field and in reading his adaptations of Howard’s Conan stories I can see why. Busiek has written a very nice framing sequence in which to present the tales that ties each issue in the trade together quite nicely. Often in the life of a comic series the first few issues show the signs of growing pains in the writing. This is not the case with Kurt Busiek’s work on Conan. It is strong right out of the gate. And while the assumption would be that the comics format would have to focus more on the action of Howard’s stories Busiek manages to include the other elements from Howard’s stories that have made them stand the test of time.

The first thing that draws me to any comic is, however, the art. There are a handful of artists who I consider to be top notch in the comics field and Cary Nord is in that elite group. The standard process of comic art involves the artist first pencilling and then inking his drawings before the colorist goes to work. Some artists ink their own work and some have others ink their work for them. On rare occasions an artists pencils are so strong that to ink them would be a travesty. Cary Nord is one of those artists. During the planning stages of the Conan series Busiek wrote a script that Dark Horse used to audition over 20 pencillers. Nord’s audition work, included in the back of this first trade, was so strong that he not only got the job but it prompted colorist Dave Stewart to suggest skipping the inking process and coloring right over the pencils.

Cary Nord does not have a weak area in my opinion. Each character has unique qualities; he draws men and women equally well and his backgrounds are rich and lavish or sparse and unassuming depending on the needs for that panel. Some examples of his page work for Conan can be found here and here.

The addition of Dave Stewart as colorist for this series puts this book into the upper echelon of today’s comic series. Stewart is a mutliple award-winning colorist whose work is unequalled in my opinion. The colors are at once rich and soft and are a perfect compliment to Nord’s pencils. Stewart’s colors captured the appropriate mood in each panel. Cary Nord’s pencil work is so great that I would be buying the book if it was only his pencils however the work is enhanced by Stewart’s colors.

The second volume in the Conan series is currently out, The God in the Bowl and Other Stories,

and the third book is due out this May. Each book is put out in both hardback and softcover simultaneously which is a really nice touch by Dark Horse. I would recommend the hardback but the trade quality is outstanding as well and of course slightly less expensive. The God in the Bowl and Other Stories features work by additional artists besides Nord. The art is good but being sold on Nord’s work it is disappointing to me when he is not the primary artist on certain issues. This book also shows that not all strong characters in the Conan universe are males, the females can hold their own!

If you are into comics at all or, if you are curious as to what a great comic can do, I encourage you to pick up a copy of this series. Action, adventure, history, mythology, romance and derring-do abound.
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There is some controversy as to whether Robert E. Howard was born on January 22nd or 24th. Since Robert himself claimed the 22nd that is the date I went with. There is an interesting article, not all of which I agree with, that was in the Washington Post yesterday (the day they acknowledge as Howard’s birthday) here. For a good review of the article I point you to author James Reasoner‘s comments here.

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Tomorrow you will be set free from my Howard mania! Sex on Wheels is tomorrow’s topic. Tune in!

Fantasy

The Tales of Conan

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Continuing with the centennial celebration of Robert E. Howard I want to review the first two books in a three volume series encompassing the stories that make up the canon of Conan: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian and The Bloody Crown of Conan.

A few years ago the UK’s Wandering Star Books under took a labor of love: the restoration and rerelease of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. According to Wandering Star, “As with many authors who’ve been republished frequently and badly, Robert E. Howard’s work has undergone an unpublicized, but fairly constant process of editing, expurgation, and rewriting”. In their passion to release a product of quality Wandering Star consulted Howard scholars to restore the stories to their original text. They also chose to publish them in the order in which Robert E. Howard wrote them rather than the chronological reordering that had gone on with other publishers. Wandering Star Books also chose talented illustrators and the results were outstanding. A well-crafted book is a thing of delight to me thus I find this letter from Wandering Star to be a moving demonstration of their dedication to making their books a tribute to Robert E. Howard. Random Houses’ Del Rey division obtained the rights for US publication and has released these books in wonderful trade editions as can be seen here.

The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian presents the first 13 of Howard’s Conan Tales. These stories are a perfect introduction to the unequaled work of Robert E. Howard. Herein lie tales of adventure, piracy, conquest, battle, heroism, travel, horror, romance…there is literally a taste of almost all genres that Howard was proficient in. My surprise in reading the stories of Conan was that he is not the ignorant barbarian that he has been portrayed as over the years. Conan is a savage in comparison to the more cultured people’s who populate his world, his people are strong and mighty and come from a tradition of success by labor and battle, but he is not ignorant. Conan may be a man of simple wants and desires but he is also intelligent, shrewd and cunning. I was pleasantly surprised at the philosophical leanings of Howard’s barbarian. These stories are rich with action and adventure but the real treasure is the way in which Howard’s words bring these tales to life. He really was a unique and talented storyteller. My favorite story in the bunch is the Conan pirate tale Queen of the Black Coast but they are all quite enjoyable.

This first volume contains beautiful artwork by one of my favorite illustrators, Mark Schultz. I posted recently about his first art collection here. His color work, as seen here in the cover illustration

is magnificient as are his pen and ink illustrations scattered throughout the book. Examples can be seen here. Again the quality of these books is amazing.

The Bloody Crown of Conan continues Howard’s Conan Tales. This volume contains 3 longer works including Howard’s only Conan novel. I was curious how Howard’s writing style would read in these longer tales in comparison to the shorter stories in the first volume. I need not have been concerned as they are once again outstanding. I rather enjoyed traveling with Conan on these bigger adventures. As I stated in yesterday’s post, Robert E. Howard created a genre that is now known as the Sword and Sorcery genre. In his tales Howard brings us lands and people that are so familiar that one could almost believe that they are historical fiction. Howard’s idea of creating epochs of time that are destroyed by cataclysmic events that render them as a vague memory or as mythology passed on to the next generation lend life and realism to his tales. Howard’s style of presenting the ferocity of battle without reverting to gore is unrivaled. It is the addition of ancient magic that lifts Howard’s tales into a genre all their own. The magic in these tales isn’t like the magic in traditional fantasy. Reading Howard’s descriptions of arcane magic and evil magicians feels like you are reading accounts of occultic practices from times that pre-date ancient Egyptian religion. The simplist way to describe the writing of Robert E. Howard is that is is filled with life…vibrant life.

The Bloody Crown of Conan is illustrated by Gary Gianni. Gianni is a fantastic illustrator whose work, especially his pen and ink drawings, hearkens back to the golden age of illustration. His work has a truly classic look and feel to it.

You can see more of his illustration work for Conan and other books in the gallery section of the above link. I had the opportunity to meet Gary Giani at a comic convention years ago. It was at the start of his book illustration career and he had just completed an illustrated work of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. At that time I had not discovered my affection for classic illustration and am kicking myself now for not picking up some of his work.

In addition to the stories and high quality illustration these books contain extras on par with the DVD’s that geeks drool over: “contextual notes, synopses, plot outlines, initial drafts, original ideas, notes — everything Conan’s creator ever wrote about the greatest barbarian adventurer of all time!”.

These books were originally released in trade paperback format in the United States but are now being reprinted in hardback form with 4 full color illustration plates in each volume. For the avid book collector there are still limited special editions of Wandering Star Books original print run that make me quiver with envy! A sample of what these editions look like can be seen here. Ironic that it took a British publisher to put together a high quality collector’s edition of one of the pioneers of American fantasic fiction.

Forget anything you think you know about Conan and fantasy fiction and discover the wonder of Robert E. Howard’s work for yourself.

Young Adult

The Water Mirror

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I came across a mention of Kai Meyer’s The Water Mirror on the Endicott Studios website in their Young Adult Book Recommendations for Autumn/Winter 2005/2006. I was at once struck by the artwork of Jonathan Weiner. The cover art, including the creepy back cover image of a sharp toothed mermaid, instantly made me want to pick up this book to see what it was about.

In The Water Mirror a medieval Venice is in the midst of a 36 year seige by an Egyptian mummy army who has decimated the rest of the known world. Venice has thus far escaped destruction due to the beneficence of an unseen entity known as the Flowing Queen. This Venice is not quite the same one that exists in our world. In Meyer’s Venice, stone lions patrol the city, mermaids with razor sharp teeth inhabit the canals, and the denizens of Hell itself are edging ever closer to the surface. Into this world two teenage orphan girls, Merle and Junipa, are apprenticed to a magic mirror maker. Each girl is, of course, more than what she seems, having a destiny that only just begins to unfold in this first of a trilogy of novels known as the Dark Reflections series. At 250 pages this book is a quick read, but Meyer manages to pack an amazing amount of story and detail into those pages. Magic mirrors, mermaids, flying lions, plots to usurp the Flowing Queen, thieves, phantoms, mummys, pharoahs, creatures from the underworld…The Water Mirror has these and more. The story is filled with mystery, suspense, adventure, magic, treachery…and all the while the symbolism of mirrors and reflections is interwoven making you realize that you know very little about the characters and are bound to discover interesting and possibly terrifying truths about them as the series continues. The book is filled with plot twists and enough unresolved issues to ensure many more surprises before this series is completed.

This book is translated from the original German by Elizabeth D. Crawford and I can only assume that she does a marvelous job as the story flows very well and is highly entertaining. On a few occasions sentences seem slightly odd and I wonder if this is due to translation issues. By and large though the book makes me understand why Kai Meyer is so popular in his native Germany.

The Water Mirror is indeed a young adult book but despite that has some fairly creepy descriptions of the few beings from the netherworld who make an appearance. The descriptions, though brief, instantly brought to mind the eerie, dark art of Brom. I would suggest an appropriate starting age for reading this to be 12 and it is definitely well written enough to be thoroughly engrossing to adults who love their fantasy laced with sinister suspense. Very engaging!