Halloween Reading Update

This post really has nothing to do with Halloween except the date. It's just a catalogue and (very) short thoughts on what I've been reading since my last post.

Life is a little difficult lately, and so the drive to read is lower than normal. Nonetheless, in the last two weeks I've read:

• To Terra (Keiko Takemiya), an awesome vintage space opera with telepaths. It's a three-volume series and I've read the first two, with #3 waiting its turn.
•  A Bride's Story volumes four and five (Kaoru Mori), a historical shojo romance set in central Asia. I've talked about this one briefly before, and I'll probably post something longer when I finish the series.
• 20th Century Boys volume one (Naoko Urasawa). Okay, I actually didn't finish volume one. I'd heard a lot of good stuff about the series, but the art and characters just aren't for me.
• Vinland Saga volume one (Makoto Yukimura), another that I didn't finish. I'm quite disappointed that this one didn't work for me, as it sounded so cool and I loved Planetes by the same author. I should probably do a post about Planetes sometime, though.
• Chocolat volume one (Shin JiSang and Geo), a Korean comedy romance about fangirls and the stars they love. I actually didn't expect to like this one much, and I've had it out of the library for weeks while I read other things. But the first volume is surprisingly fun and I'm looking forward to the rest
• The Summit of the Gods volume one (Yumemakura Baku and Jiro Taniguchi), a story about mountaineering. Another one that's totally out of my normal genre, but interesting. Very atmospheric. It's a five-volume work and I don't have all the volumes yet, but this one will definitely merit a longer post when that time comes.

That's it for now! More review thoughts are coming soon, I promise.

Review: Terra Formars

Long time, no post! It looks like one review per week is about all I can manage right now. They're more difficult to write than I expected. Not sure why. Anyway, on to the subject of the review: Terra Formars, volumes one and two, by Yu Sasuga and Ken-ichi Tachibana. This review is contains major spoilers for the first volume.

I got this one from my old friend the Las Vegas library system, but I'd been eyeballing it at Barnes and Noble and on Amazon for a while. It's about an attempt to terraform and colonize Mars. At some point (in our near future) scientists introduced two life forms to Mars in order to make it habitable for humanity: algae to introduce oxygen, and cockroaches to eat the algae. Now fast forward a hundred years to the time the story is set, and it's time to send a manned mission to contain the cockroach population so that people can start living there. One expedition has already been sent, but contact was lost and they've never been heard from since. Our Heroes are members of the second expedition.

This is where the spoilers begin, so if you don't want 'em, you might want to skip this one.

What Our Heroes find on Mars are not your average garden-variety cockroach. Exposure to radiation has caused them to mutate into bipedal, humanoid killing machines. They're extremely hostile, fast, hard to kill, and very very good at killing people. Fortunately the mission's crew have undergone some not-too-well-detailed procedure that also gives them some physical characteristics of insects like speed, durability, etc. Still, don't get too attached: most of them are dead by the end of the first volume, when the two survivors beat a hasty retreat to Earth. One of those survivors, Shokichi Komachi, is pivotal in the second volume, set several years later. This one deals with setting up a third manned mission, this time (hopefully) better prepared to deal with the cockroach-people.

I'm of a divided opinion on this one. It hems much more towards the horror genre than anything I normally read (in comics, that is; I have a higher tolerance in pure text). The first volume is in many ways a gore-fest as we watch most of the characters die in abrupt and sometimes bizarre ways, including one character I liked that I was sure would make it out. If I'd had only that volume to go on, I probably would have quit the series. I tend to get attached to characters, and it annoys me when they die for shock value or to reiterate how scary the aliens are. Two or three deaths would have accomplished that for me; a dozen is overkill in the space of one (first!) volume.

However, I'd already rented the second volume, and I'm glad I read it before dismissing the whole series. This one, while still gory, takes a much more character-centric approach and introduces elements that feel like long-term plot. It made me want to keep reading. I get the sense that the authors really like cliffhangers, because this book ends on a big one, but I found myself actually invested in seeing it resolved. I think they've got me. Only one thing is holding me back, and it's the sense I get that this story probably isn't going to have a happy ending. It just doesn't feel like that kind of plot. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm probably going to put myself through the emotional wringer with this one. Either way, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on volume three.

That's it for today! Next time around I'm planning to review a very different kind of science fiction story. See you then!

Review: Yumekui Kenbun: Nightmare Inspector

I'm trying out a different type of post. As I've seen others do on reading blogs, I'm going to try focusing on one book or series per post, with the goal of giving more in-depth discussions while still keeping the posts a manageable length. So I'm going to start with the only comic I managed to read during my trip, thanks (ironically) to a nasty bout of insomnia: Shin Mashiba's Yumekui Kenbun: Nightmare Inspector, volumes one and two.

I rented both of these from the Clark County library system. It's a completed, nine-volume manga set in the 1920s that follows the various exploits of Hiruko, a baku. Baku are a type of mythological creature that subsist on dreams, and Hiruko specializes in nightmares. People come to him who are plagued by nightmares, and he enters their dreams to resolve them, taking the nightmare itself as both payment and sustenance when all is said and done.

Hiruko is an unpredictable main character. He comes across as mischievous and claims his only motives are selfish, but his actions don't always bear that out. At times he's altruistic, but at other moments I'd say he almost crosses the border from mischievous into malicious. Baku aren't human, and sometimes that's jarringly apparent. I have trouble with deliberately unlikable main characters, but he isn't consistently bad enough to drive me away.

It's a highly episodic story, at least so far, with not much continuity between chapters beyond the occasional two-chapter arc. The only recurring characters (again, so far) are Hiruko and Mizuki, the girl who runs the tea house he uses as a base of operations. There's nothing wrong with that type of story, but it's not usually my particular cup of tea. Additionally, I was hoping for a story more on the fantasy side of the spectrum; Nightmare Inspector veers much more strongly into horror than what I normally read. There's no gore, but most chapters end with a horrific psychological twist. For instance, one client who is in love with a film star has recurring nightmares of her suicide; once the nightmare is resolved, a news story comes out about the actress's actual suicide, and it's speculated that she has manipulated her lover to do the same. That chapter ends with the client's new, happier dream, but one of the last panels zeroes in on the dream-lady's sinister grin. Not all the stories have these grim endings, but as I said, many do.

That's not to give the impression that I haven't enjoyed this manga, because I have, and I plan to continue reading it. It has a lot of the flavor of its setting (the 1920s), at least on the surface. The film star is on the silent screen; news is delivered via radio; one client's social standing is indicated by the fact that he has a telephone in his home. One of the things I look for in my reading is that otherness of time and place; it's one reason I enjoy fantasy and science fiction so much. The dream logic on display in most stories is also intriguing, such as the character who can't see objects in his dream, only letters that fill in the outline of the objects, or the character who dreams only of an endless hall of mirrors. It reminds me somewhat of Neil Gaiman's Sandman stories, the first comics I ever read, though that series is a classic and I wouldn't give the same title to this one.

This turned into a much longer post than I expected. Overall, Nightmare Inspector is an interesting manga, and I do want to read the rest of the volumes. I'd recommend it to fans of horror and dream logic, and it would be a good one to read in bursts rather than as a marathon.

Vacation Buys

As promised, I'm back from the wedding trip. It was hectic and not at all a relaxing trip, but Sedona and Flagstaff are lovely, and The Boyfriend and I did manage to do some fun, just-for-us things while we weren't scrambling to set up candles in our fancy clothes. One of these fun things, as mentioned in my last post, was a trip to Bookman's during our very brief time in Flagstaff. We don't get up to Flagstaff very often, but I always try to take in this store when we do, especially since our local chain bookstore, a Hastings, went under about a year ago.

Bookman's is a used book store, though they carry other secondhand media as well, and this one has a good comics and manga section that always manages to carve a slice out of my budget. I even went in with a list this time, to see if they had cheap copies of anything I'd been eyeing. Here's what I came home with:

• Tsubasa: Those with Wings (Natsuki Takaya), volume one. This is billed as a fantasy adventure on the back cover, with an ex-thief and "a legendary object that grants its beholder any wish". Could be fun?
• Threads of Time (Mi Young Noh), volumes one and two. This is the only title I found that was on my list. It's about a modern student who lives a parallel life in the thirteenth century, according to the cover copy. We'll see!
• Tales of Zestiria (Shirahime), volume one. This is based on a fantasy video game that, not being a gamer, I've never heard of. But I like fantasy, and I liked .hack, which is also based on a game, so I thought I'd give it a shot.
• Silent Möbius Complete Edition (Kia Asamiya), volume one. The cover copy describes a far future scifi story with an all-female force fighting inter-dimensional invaders, which sounds totally awesome. It's also a nice edition with some color pages.
• Hinges Book 3: Mechanical Men (Meredith McClaren). I broke some personal shopping rules with this one. I never buy later volumes of series unless I've read the earlier volumes, and I never buy books with no cover copy. Rarely I will break these rules if I'm very familiar with the author or if it's an unbelievable bargain. This book meets none of those criteria. But I read the first few pages, where a character (I assume the protagonist?) is sitting on a beach mourning someone who has just died. I don't know anyone's names, but it felt like such a real and present grief that I bought the book just on the strength of those pages. I'm going to wait to read it while I find the earlier two volumes, but I have some high hopes.

I did some other shopping, but that's it for comics! I've also done some reading, both over the trip and in the two days since I got back, and I'll be reporting on that in a day or two. Have you read any of these? What did you think of them? Have I made a blunder or found a gem?

Two Weeks' Reading

It seems I'm not very good at posting consistently. This was a problem last time I tried blogging, several years ago, and I really truly meant for this time to be different. But this is a really long post, so maybe that makes up for it? Or not. As you will.

I have been reading the many many comics listed in my last post, though I'm far from done with them, and another library trip was made in the meantime. That second trip was intended as a simple expedition to pick up first volumes of things I'd already rented, but as I'm sure my fellow bibliophiles know, it's never that simple. I came home with much more than I expected.

Here's what I've read in the last couple of weeks, with my short (or not so short, really) thoughts about them.

Valerian: The Complete Collection (Jean-Claude Mezieres and Pierre Christin), volumes one and two
I admit that I only picked these up because the trailers for the movie were so pretty. I must say, though, that it was a terrible movie. Fortunately the original comics are much more interesting while only being slightly less pretty. I waited a long time for the first volume to come in at the library, and I rather regret that for two reasons: the plot is highly episodic, so I wouldn't have lost anything by reading them out of order, and the first volume really isn't that good. The art and storytelling are both still finding their feet for much of that volume, and if I'd had only the first few chapters to go on I'd likely not have continued. Also, Valerian may have top billing, but Laureline is an awesome lady. This is an older work, but I wish there were more like her even in modern comics. The male characters try to manipulate her or take advantage somehow, and she makes their system mean what she wants it to mean. Totally awesome. I still have volume three waiting to be read.

A Bride's Story (Kaoru Mori), volumes one, two, and three
Another good read with awesome ladies, though these ones aren't warriors. The plot follows twenty-year-old Amir through the early days of her arranged marriage to Karluk, a twelve-year-old boy from another clan. It's set in the mid to late 1800s in the area around the Caspian Sea. When I'm reading it I really feel like I'm seeing into the world these people live in, especially the women, and how different it is from the one I inhabit. This is something I love to feel in stories, a sense of other lives lived that are outside what I will ever know. I get a sense of the life of the clans, including one nomadic family. Marriage to these people is an economic and political arrangement, it isn't a tragedy that people have arranged marriages, and there's still room for affection to develop. I'll definitely be continuing this series as soon as I can get my hands on more volumes. Also the art is beautiful, especially the highly detailed patterns on clothing and other textiles. Gorgeous.

Garden (Yuichi Yokoyama)
I'm including this for the sake of completeness, because I did check it out from the library and I tried to read it. However, it was evident from the get-go that this is not the type of story for me. It's just too abstract, I really don't care for the art style, and I don't have the patience to parse out the meaning. It reminds me of the time I had to read Waiting for Godot in college. It sounded like such an interesting premise, but I gave up after only a few pages.

Meteor Men (Jeff Parker, Sandy Jarrell, and Kevin Yolo)
This is another one that I just didn't care for. It was in the library's teen section, so I'm not the target audience, and that may have something to do with it, but the characters didn't resonate with me. The story uses a lot of science fiction and especially first contact tropes, but I didn't feel it did anything particularly interesting with them, and the ending left me unsatisfied. Not bad, exactly, and I did read through to the end, but not memorable either.

Princess Knight (Osamu Tezuka), part one
I might be speaking prematurely here, because I haven't actually finished this volume, but it's just not doing it for me. This happened with the last Tezuka work I tried, Buddha. I think he may just not be for me. Here's the plot: a mischievous cherub accidentally causes the title character, Sapphire, to be born with two hearts, one male and one female. Sapphire then has to reconcile the two halves of her identity: her parents raise her as a boy and the prince of the kingdom, and she's very good at that role, but she also longs for traditionally feminine things like romance and pretty dresses. She has to hide these desires from the world because, by the kingdom's laws, a princess can't inherit. Great premise, right? I don't know why it's not been working for me, but I'm going to finish the volume before I pass a final judgment.

Eden: It's an Endless World! (Hiroki Endo), volumes one and two
This is a rather grim post-apocalyptic story, with the bulk of it set a couple of decades after a man-made virus wiped out most of the world's population. The survivors are either people with natural immunity, their children, or cyborgs that have undergone extensive body modifications in order to survive. It's a bloody story and I don't expect it will have a happy ending. The characters are as yet not well-defined, but you do see glimpses of more complex relationships sometimes, and one of the women, Helen, is a total badass. I have the next three volumes out as well, so I might keep reading just for her. I'll give a more in-depth discussion if and when I try the others.

That's it for now! I'm going to be away from home the next few days, attending the wedding of a close family member, so I probably won't have time to read or post until at least Thursday. I am going to make a trip to Bookman's in Flagstaff, though, so there will undoubtedly be new comics acquisitions when I return!

Library Haul

As I mentioned in my first post, I take a lot of my graphic novel reading out of the library. I live on the border between Arizona and Nevada, and because of the way the rules are written I'm allowed to have two library cards, one in Mohave County (AZ) and one in Clark County (NV). For those who might not know, Clark County is where Las Vegas is, so it's a very big system serving a diverse population. This is relevant because it means the district as a whole has a kickass graphic novel collection. My branch is one of the smaller ones in the system, but a few days ago I was in Las Vegas and stopped by one of the larger branches. Here's what I brought home:

• Eden: It's an Endless World by Hiroki Endo, volumes one and two
• Bizenghast by M. Alice LeGrow, volumes one and two
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex by Yu Kinutani, volume one
• 20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa, volume one
• Princess Knight Part 1 by Osamu Tezuka
• Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi, volumes one and two
• Chocolat by Shin JiSang, volume one
• Terra Formers by Yu Sasuga and Ken-ichi Tachibana, volumes one and two
• Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi
• Meteor Men by Jeff Parker and Sandy Jarrell
• Norigami: Stray God by Adachitoka, volume three
• Yumekui Kenbun: Nightmare Inspector by Shin Mashiba, volume two
• Vinland Saga by Makoto Yukimura, volume two
• A Bride's Story by Kaoru Mori, volume two
• Yona of the Dawn by Mizuho Kusanagi, volume seven
• Valerian: The Complete Collection by Christin Mezieres, volumes two and three

Phew! I have no self-control in libraries, and they made heavy carrying by the time I left. Some very famous names in there, I know, but except for Yona of the Dawn they're all new to me. I even managed to miss the Sailor Moon anime as a kid. Still not sure how I managed that. Anyway, even the wonderful collection in the city was short a few volumes, or someone else has them checked out, so I have to wait to start some of these until the first volumes arrive. Somehow I think I'll be okay.

Experiments in Blogging

Does anybody actually read first posts? I mean, I do, but am I the only one? Not sure. Maybe it doesn't matter what I put here and I should stop wasting brain space on it. I just have to start somewhere, and it doesn't matter what the start looks like, or sounds like.

I read comics. Sort of. I actually read lots of kinds of books, but comics are the point of this blog. Well, really it's graphic novels, but "Amber Reads Graphic Novels" just didn't have the same ring to it. Anyway, I read a lot of them, and sometimes it's hard to keep track of what I've read and what I haven't, and what I thought of things along the way. That's where the blog comes in--it's essentially a reading journal. I'm planning to use it to keep a record of thoughts as I read things, hoping that it will help me codify my thoughts and not forget titles or accidentally repeat titles. Because, as no doubt my fellow readers know, that's annoying, and fewer annoyances is a good thing.

What do I read? More manga than western or English comics, though there are of course many fabulous stories in both areas. More omnibuses and trade paperbacks than individual issues or magazines, because I like a more continuous story flow. Many library books and used copies, because  I'm not wealthy. No ebooks, because I'm stubborn and I just like paper better. Lots of fantasy and science fiction and just odd narratives, but I'm far from exclusive to these genres. A mix of older and newer works, because I came to the medium late (about a year and a half ago, at age 25) and they're all new to me. A mix of YA and adult titles, because good stories know no boundaries. And (this is the odd one) no superheroes. I don't know why, but those just don't do much for me. I'd love for some spectacular story to come my way and prove me wrong, but it hasn't happened yet.

At some point I'll figure out a regular structure and post patterns and stuff. In all likelihood, this will be me talking to the void till I run out of things to say, but that void can be a damn good listener. And if there are people in it reading along, cool. Let's do this.