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Competition: Win a copy of The Children of the Lost AND The Midnight Charter

*** COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED ***

Congratulations to Pete Savage of London who will receive a free copy of both The Midnight Charter and The Children of the Lost

MARK AND LILY HAVE BEEN BANISHED from Agora, the ancient city-state where everything is for sale – memories, emotions – even children. Lost and alone they discover Giseth, a seemingly perfect land where everyone is equal, possessions are unknown, and Lily believes they will find the secret of their entwined destiny. But paradise comes at a price. Why are their new friends so scared? What hides deep in the forest? And who is the mysterious woman who appears in their dreams, urging them to find the Children of the Lost?

David Whitley is an author that we like a great deal here at Fantasy Book Review, a real talent that has written two innovative novels in The Midnight Charter and The Children of the Lost. The latter was published earlier this month (read the review here) and the folks over at Puffin have very kindly offered both books to be used as a giveaway prize in our latest competition.

To win this great prize, simply email thechildrenofthelost@fantasybookreview.co.uk with the answer to the following question, including your name and full UK mailing address (the competition is open to UK residents only). Please enter “The Children of the Lost Competition” as the email subject. The winners will be chosen at random on August 20, 2010 and notified by email.

Question: In 2005 David Whitley beat all competitors to become a winner of which general knowledge quiz show?

1. Fifteen to One
2. Blockbusters
3. University Challenge
4. Going for Gold

Good luck! To read more on Mark and his books, visit his biography page here.

Posted: August 8th, 2010
Author: Lee
Categories: Competitions

Alden Bell interview (August 2010)

Alden Bell lives in New York and has, for the past ten years, taught high school English there. He graduated from Berkeley with a degree in English and a minor in creative writing and, in 2000, received his Master’s and Ph.D. in English from New York University (specialising in twentieth-century American and British literature).

September 3, 2010 will see the publication of The Reapers are the Angels (Book of the Month – August 2010), Bell’s debut novel and a poetic and haunting look at life in a post-apocalyptic world.

Alden kindly spoke to Fantasy Book Review in August 2010, shortly before the book’s UK publication.

We loved The Reapers are the Angels, so did Speculative Horizons (1), Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review (2), Steve’s Fantasy Book Reviews (3) and goodreads.com (4). It is not often that a debut novel receives such an overwhelmingly positive response – have you been pleased with the novel’s (very) early reception?

Pleased isn’t the word. Ecstatic is more like it. As a writer you spend a lot of time creating and inhabiting a world that is deeply personal and completely insular. By the time you finish a book, you’re just so close to it that you have no idea how other people will respond. I know that Reapers was a labour of love for me, but I was trying to manage my expectations when it came to reviews. What’s most remarkable is that readers seem to be liking the book for the same reasons that I like it myself—which is deeply gratifying.

Many of the best authors are – or have been – teachers. Why do you think this is and what skills and knowledge has teaching given you that you have been able to transfer over into your writing?

That’s a fascinating question; I never really thought about it before. Maybe it has something to do with performing. Even though it’s not staged, writing is a kind of performance: you create a story, deck it out with all kinds of ornamentation, try to get the characters to do what you want them to do, and then put it on display for an audience. And teaching is a kind of performance, too. Teachers (good teachers, at least) have to be natural storytellers. They have to sell ideas to an audience—usually a very tough audience. I know that when I’m teaching a particularly difficult book, say Heart of Darkness or To the Lighthouse, it requires an extra effort of storytelling on my part. I have to participate with Joseph Conrad and Virginia Woolf to create that world and make the students see how beautiful a world it is after all.

When your characters speak there are no quotation marks to signify a beginning and end, nor do you take the opportunity to suggest to the reader the manner in which sentences have been delivered. I have never seen this before but I thought it worked amazingly well. Can you tell us why you chose this approach to the dialogue?

I wish I could take credit for it as an innovation, but actually this style of dialogue is common to Southern Gothic literature. If you look at some of the great contemporary authors of the genre (Cormac McCarthy, Tom Franklin, William Gay, Davis Grubb), they almost never use quotation marks. Because I see my book as being even more a part of the Southern Gothic genre than the zombie genre, I tipped my hat to those other writers stylistically. But also, what I like most about the no-quotation-mark style is this: it elevates dialogue to the level of exposition. Too many times we feel like dialogue is ghettoized in those little marks (and we excuse its lack of elegance in favour of its accuracy to mundane life)—but when I read a book without quotations marks, it frequently feels as though the writer is crafting the dialogue with the same fine attention to artifice that he/she uses for the narrative proper.

Why is it that a post-apocalyptic setting appeals so much to so many? The Stand and I am Legend are loved by millions – what do you think this says about the human psyche?

I think the cultural fascination of post-apocalyptic literature has a lot to do, interestingly enough, with a longing for freedom and potential. Even though these stories are filled with landscapes of barren despair, nonetheless there’s always a subtext of starting over with a fresh slate. The stories are always much more about building than falling apart: so you get movies like Dawn of the Dead, which is a kind of wish-fulfilment fantasy of being the only person in a massive shopping mall. I think that to a lot of people beset by a world in which they feel oppressed, commonplace or simply unnoticed, the idea of being a survivor of apocalypse gives them the hope of self-reinvention. As a reader of such stories, you begin to imagine all the things you could do in that vast emptiness. That’s why I spend so much time on Temple’s appreciation of the beauty of the devastated world around her: I think she understands better than most the silver lining of the apocalypse.

The Reapers are the Angels had a very singular and final feel to it. This stands out in a publishing world awash with the franchise, the trilogy and the series that never-ends. Did the final page mark the complete closure of this story?

Honestly, I would love to come back to this place and these characters. But, you’re right—this particular story is done, and I wouldn’t want to attenuate it by writing more of the same. It’s heartbreaking for me to leave it behind. Then again, I think sometimes heartbreak is the point: I’m not one of those readers who believes that all of my wishes should be granted by the author as though he/she were a genie. I like an author to withhold certain things from me—so I try to carry that over to my writing. I’m not saying that I’ll never revisit this particular mythology—but rather than I’m not so interested in creating a franchise out of it. Even the term “franchise” makes it seem like fast food, doesn’t it?

Many authors say that they either write to music or have certain popular songs or classical music playing in their heads as they write. Did you find that The Reapers are the Angles had its own personal soundtrack?

I find it difficult to write with music in the background—but, yes, there were certain songs that echoed through my head as I wrote the book. It’s rather obvious, but I couldn’t get that Cranberries song “Zombie” out of my head. But the true aural background I imagine is a very quiet, minimalistic one. Wim Wenders’s movie Paris, Texas is one of my favourites, and it has a fantastic, simple guitar soundtrack by Ry Cooder. That’s the kind of music I imagine in the background of Temple’s journey across the southern states.

The book’s ending is sombre, yet perfect. Was it the only possible end (in your opinion) and is this how you like the books you read to end?

I do think that every page of the book, in one way or another, leads to the ending—so it’s hard for me to picture it ending differently. Personally, as a reader, I’m partial to endings featuring anti-climaxes. I love it when a narrative builds toward an expected conclusion and then subverts it at the very end—which gives you, the reader, a feeling of thrilling weightlessness, as though a rug has just been pulled out from underneath you and you are suspended at the moment of falling. I like a book that builds to an epic climax, that forces you to widen your perspective to take in the entire world—and then shows you, at the last minute, how small everything actually is. I adore that diminishment from the epic to the miniscule. I won’t venture to say how my book compares on this scale, but those are the kinds of endings I like when I’m reading.

What does the remainder of 2010 hold for Alden Bell?

I’m currently working toward the conclusion of my next novel, Frontierland, which is about suburban living in 1975 California. It features a 12-year-old tomboy and an aging beauty queen who get tumbled together in an attempt to escape from the confines of sub-suburbia. While it won’t have any zombies in it, the book will certainly feature my on-going preoccupation with frontiers of various sorts: marginal cultures, lawless living on the edge of society, the creation of one’s own identity in a constantly changing world.

Links to reviews mentioned in first question.

1. http://speculativehorizons.blogspot.com/2010/05/book-review-reapers-are-angels.html
2. http://www.graemesfantasybookreview.com/2010/04/reapers-are-angels-alden-bell-tor-uk.html
3. http://stevesfantasybookreviews.blogspot.com/2010/05/reapers-are-angels-by-alden-bell.html
4. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8051458-the-reapers-are-the-angels

Alden Bell biography
The Reapers are the Angels book review

Posted: August 5th, 2010
Author: Lee
Categories: Interviews

Audio-book review: Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman, read by Sean Barrett

"Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie for there is no redemption that goes on there and less sanctuary."

The Sanctuary of the Redeemers is a vast and desolate place – a place without joy or hope. Most of its occupants were taken there as boys and for years have endured the brutal regime of the Lord Redeemers whose cruelty and violence have one singular purpose – to serve in the name of the One True Faith.

In one of the Sanctuary’s vast and twisting maze of corridors stands a boy. He is perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old – he is not sure and neither is anyone else. He has long-forgotten his real name, but now they call him Thomas Cale. He is strange and secretive, witty and charming, violent and profoundly bloody-minded. He is so used to the cruelty that he seems immune, but soon he will open the wrong door at the wrong time and witness an act so terrible that he will have to leave this place, or die.

His only hope of survival is to escape across the arid Scablands to Memphis, a city the opposite of the Sanctuary in every way: breathtakingly beautiful, infinitely Godless, and deeply corrupt.

But the Redeemers want Cale back at any price… not because of the secret he now knows but because of a much more terrifying secret he does not.

Paul Hoffman’s The Left Hand of God is a well-written book and makes for a highly enjoyable listen, particularly when narrated by a reader as good as Sean Barrett. Barrett’s tone, delivery and pacing are perfect and he has worked wonders in making the – not-insignificant number of – cast members all sound unique and authentic.

Hoffman’s book is not a masterpiece, it is good solid fantasy, its strength lies in its appeal that has crossed over into mainstream literature. It is not just fantasy fans that have enjoyed reading it but it has also managed to find favour in circles that would not usually read within the genre. No small achievement.

The telling of this story encompasses the listener in a warm and cosy feeling and the author and narrator immediately gain the listener’s trust. There is a vibrancy and life to the tale that provides great entertainment and that compels you to listen to the very end.

The good news is that there will be a sequel and, fingers crossed, Mr Hoffman and Mr Barrett will once again team up to record it. The audio-book version of The Left Hand of Darkness is an example of storyteller and narrator in perfect harmony. Great fun – one of the best fantasy audio-books.

The Left Hand of God
Paul Hoffman
Unabridged
Narrator: Sean Barrett
Length: 12 hours and 30 min

Posted: August 4th, 2010
Author: Lee
Categories: Audio-books

Spielberg’s War Horse adaptation begins shooting as its sequel makes it stage debut

Director Steven Spielberg began shooting his big-screen adaptation of the Michael Morpurgo book War Horse this week. The movie’s script has been written by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis, with Jeremy Irvine set to play Albert and Emily Watson and David Thewlis his parents.

War horse tells the touching story of a farm boy, Albert, who sells his horse, Joey, for service in World War 1. Joey decides to travel to France to retrieve his horse.

The book was first published in 1982 and what’s astonishing is that War Horse made it this far at all. Morpurgo admits it did nothing spectacular for years.

"It nearly won a prize but failed. It was translated into three or four languages. It was published in America and didn’t succeed. It stayed in print – just about – for about 25 years. It simply was not a book that anyone really knew about or cared about," he told the BBC.

All that changed when it came to the attention of the National Theatre, which was on the look-out for an animal-centric drama. The show opened in 2007 to widespread acclaim since when Michael Morpurgo has seen it more than a dozen times. When it ended its run at the National Theatre prior to the West End, his wife Clare arranged a special treat. The National allowed the author of the book and former Children’s Laureate to have a part in the play.

And then Steven Spielberg came knocking on the stable door.

"Steven Spielberg was wonderfully engaging and inquisitive about the whole history of it," Morpurgo recalls. "It was the most spellbinding thing to sit across the table from one of the world’s great storytellers."

And then, in 2009, came the continuation of the story in Farm Boy, a book which Morpurgo was partly urged to do by children, who kept writing to him wanting to know what happened to Joey, the requisitioned horse, after the war was over.

Farm Boy provides the answer.

The book has now been adapted for stage by Daniel Buckroyd of New Perspectives; a small Nottingham-based travelling company of the sort Morpurgo thinks is England’s true theatrical glory. It’s a 65-minute show for slightly younger children than War Horse – the seven to 87 age bracket. Its theme is a partly a somewhat Soviet boy-meets-tractor love affair.

Its real star, however, is not Joey the horse but a rusty Fordson, a regular pin-up in Classic Tractor magazine. The mock-up vehicle and a cast of two, grandfather and boy, are poised to chug into the Edinburgh Festival, telling the story of Joey’s farm days once safely back from the Western Front. The story is set in the same Devon parish where Morpurgo lives. “I’m passionately fond if it. Actually I think it may be my favourite book,” he says.

Farm Boy is on at the Edinburgh Suite, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, from 5 – 30 Aug prior to an autumn UK tour.

• Michael Morpurgo biography
• War Horse book review

Posted: August 4th, 2010
Author: Lee
Categories: Michael Morpurgo

Audio book review: Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb, read by Saskia Butler

Guided by the great blue dragon Tintaglia, they came from the sea: a Tangle of serpents fighting their way up the Rain Wilds River, the first to make the perilous journey to the cocooning grounds in generations. Many have died along the way. With its acid waters and impenetrable forest, it is a hard place for any to survive. People are changed by the Rain Wilds, subtly or otherwise. One such is Thymara. Born with black claws and other aberrations, she should have been exposed at birth. But her father saved her and her mother has never forgiven him. Like everyone else, Thymara is fascinated by the return of dragons: it is as if they symbolise the return of hope to their war-torn world. Leftrin, captain of the liveship Tarman, also has an interest in the hatching; as does Bingtown newlywed, Alise Finbok, who has made it her life’s work to study all there is to know of dragons. But the creatures which emerge from the cocoons are a travesty of the powerful, shining dragons of old. Stunted and deformed, they cannot fly; some seem witless and bestial. Soon, they become a danger and a burden to the Rain Wilders: something must be done. The dragons claim an ancestral memory of a fabled Elderling city far upriver: perhaps there the dragons will find their true home. But Kelsingra appears on no maps and they cannot get there on their own: a band of dragon keepers, hunters and chroniclers must attend them. To be a dragon keeper is a dangerous job: their charges are vicious and unpredictable, and there are many unknown perils on the journey to a city which may not even exist…

The Liveship Traders was a brilliant trilogy of books, amongst the best that the fantasy genre has ever seen. So when author Robin Hobb decided to return to the Rain Wild River to write a stand-alone adventure the news was greeted with great joy from her legions of fans around the world. Hobb had originally intended the new work to be just one volume but her publishers thought it wiser to split it into two books, Dragon Keeper and Dragon Haven.

Dragon Keeper is better suited to a female narrator and in Saskia Butler they chose well. Her youthful tone is well-matched to the two young female protagonists, Alise and Thymara, and her delivery is very entertaining and professional. The story itself is VERY character-driven; those familiar with Robin Hobb’s work will expect this but those new to her work should be aware that Robin Hobb does not write non-stop action-packed rollercoaster rides – the characters, and their deepest thought and feelings are paramount to her tales.

The Dragon Keeper audio-book is perfect for those desperate to know more of the dragons and Elderlings that feature in the Farseer, Liveship and Tawny Man books. It does in particular shine greater light on the Elderlings: who they were, how they came to be and – on this part I’m just guessing, and hoping – what became of them.

Dragon Keeper is an intriguing look at human nature and interaction that forms the introductory part of the whole that is The Rain Wild Chronicle. Dragon Haven promises to be even better…

Dragon Keeper: The Rain Wild Chronicles, Book 1
Robin Hobb
Unabridged
Narrator: Saskia Butler
Length: 17 hours and 3 min

Posted: August 3rd, 2010
Author: Lee
Categories: Audio-books, Robin Hobb

Atlantis Complex to be Artemis’s penultimate adventure, says Eoin Colfer

Eoin Colfer has revealed to the Guardian that Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex will be his teenage mastermind’s penultimate adventure.

"One more book, and then that’ll be the end of that," he said. "He will be faced with a choice where he can be kind to somebody and he won’t gain anything, or he can be unkind and he will find a million dollars in a suitcase, and he will choose the nice way, and that will be the end," he explained. "That’s how I’m going to finish it, on a very simple choice."

Read our review of Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex

ARTEMIS FOWL’S CRIMINAL WAYS HAVE FINALLY GOT THE BETTER OF HIM . . .

Young Artemis has frequently used high-tech fairy magic to mastermind the most devious criminal activity of the new century. Now, at a conference in Iceland, Artemis has gathered the fairies to present his latest idea to save the world from global warming. But Artemis is behaving strangely – he seems different. Something terrible has happened to him . . . Artemis Fowl has become nice. The fairies diagnose Atlantis Complex (that’s obsessive compulsive disorder to you and I) – it seems dabbling in magic has damaged Artemis’ main weapon: his mind. Fairy ally Captain Holly Short doesn’t know what to do. The subterranean volcanoes are under attack from vicious robots and Artemis cannot fight them. Can Holly get the real Artemis back ­­­before the robot probes destroy every human and life form?

Posted: August 3rd, 2010
Author: Lee
Categories: Eoin Colfer

Reigniting the love of creative writing in the UK

The Brit Writers’ Awards were set up last year to reignite a love of creative writing in the UK. Endorsed by Arts Council England and The Reading Agency, they have rapidly become a writing and publishing phenomenon. This year, the award attracted 21,000 entries across its 8 categories and offered the largest prize ever for unpublished writers, £10,000.

This years winner was Catherine Cooper for her children’s fantasy tale The Golden Acorn (The Adventures of Jack Brenin). She was presented with her award at a glittering ceremony at London’s O2 Arena.

In The Golden Acorn Jack Brenin finds a golden acorn lying in the grass but little does he know that it is the beginning of a thrilling and magical adventure. Jack has been chosen for a hugely important task and soon he is entering a world he believed only existed in legend.

Fantasy Book Review will soon be receiving a copy of The Golden Acorn (published by Infinite Ideas in paperback on August 12, 2010, £7.99) and a review will appear shortly afterwards.

Born in Wellington, Shropshire, Catherine Cooper was a primary school teacher for 29 years before retiring and deciding she’d love to write for children. Catherine draws on her love of history, myths and legends and the Shropshire countryside to create books for children which are already set to become classics of the future.

For more information on the Brit Writers’ Award, visit www.britwriters.co.uk

Posted: August 2nd, 2010
Author: Lee
Categories: Awards

Fantasy news round-up, August 2, 2010

Dawn Treader: new movie poster and trailer 
Dawn Treader, the film based on the CS Lewis book from the Narnia Chronicles, is being directed by British filmmaker Michael Apted and has been written by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely and Michael Petroni. It will be appearing in cinemas around the world from December 10, 2010 onwards.

There has also been a trailer available for the past month:

Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, along with their pesky cousin Eustace Scrubb – find themselves swallowed into a painting and on to a fantastic Narnian ship headed for the very edges of the world. Joining forces once again with their royal friend Prince Caspian and the warrior mouse Reepicheep, they are whisked away on a mysterious mission to the Lone Islands, and beyond. On this bewitching voyage that will test their hearts and spirits the trio will face magical Dufflepuds, sinister slave traders, roaring dragons and enchanted merfolk. Only an entirely uncharted journey to Aslan’s Country – a voyage of destiny and transformation for each of those aboard the Dawn Treader – can save Narnia, and all the astonishing creatures in it, from an unfathomable fate.

German fantasy authors boast worldwide reach
Children’s books by German authors such as Cornelia Funke and Michael Ende are proving extremely popular worldwide. Books lover in the US, Korea and China love reading, amongst many others, Inkheart and The Neverending Story and since the 1960s German children’s books has slowly but surely conquered the international book market.

"I think that many countries experienced this social shift where people began to take kids more seriously and included them more in the conversation. In that sense, German children’s books were on the cutting edge, and that’s what made them a success abroad," says Regina Pantos, chair of the Association for Children’s and Youth Literature.

Daniel Radcliffe turns 21
Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who plays Harry Potter in the film franchise, turned 21 on July 23. Born in Fulham, England in 1989, he had only just turned 11 when he was chosen to play the role of the boy wizard from the books by JK Rowling.

Forbes Magazine names JK Rowling as one of the world’s 30 most inspiring women
After seeking input from ForbesWoman followers on Facebook and Twitter, a list was compiled of the 30 Utterly Inspiring Role Models, and JK Rowling was chosen as one of the 30 women who “make the world a better place”. She’s in good company, with Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie, Danica Patrick, Betty White, Elizabeth Glazer, Condoleezza Rice and Hilary Clinton also included in the list.

Ursula Le Guin allows British students to make one of her short stories into a film
Budding producer Rob Watson (Beaconsfield’s National Film and Television School) wrote a letter to Ursula Le Guin in April asking her for film rights to one of her books, and was shocked by its response. The author immediately wrote back and agreed that they could go ahead with the film without paying a penny for the rights. Now Watson is making one of the biggest student films ever. The 20 minute graduation film The Fleet of Vision is to cost £12,000 and will use sets first used in sci-fi epics like Sunshine and Thunderbirds.

“She doesn’t usually give away the rights to her material but she let us have it for free – it was amazing when we got the reply. Most student films are shot on location but we’re doing pretty much all of this on specially-built sets. There’s even professionally-made spacesuits being used,” said Watson.

Penguin Group see spike in First Half Sales and Profit
Sales at Penguin for the first half of the year rose 9 percent, breaking 493 million pounds. Sales at Pearson, Penguin’s parent, also rose 9 percent in the first half of 2010, with adjusted operating profit increasing by 79% to 178m. Overall, the operating profit at the book publisher more than doubled, hitting 44 million pounds (up from 21 million pounds a year ago). Penguin is one of the most famous brands in book publishing, known around the world for the quality of its publishing and its consistent record of innovation. Over the past five years, Penguin’s sales have increased at an annual average rate of 2% and profits at 5%. In the early part of 2010 Penguin grew well ahead of industry in its major markets and produced a substantial profit improvement. Additionally, Penguin continues to extend their reach to new audiences, most recently with the launch of Apple’s iBookstore and iPad where, in the US, Penguin’s Winnie-the-Pooh was the only book pre-loaded onto the device.

Posted: August 2nd, 2010
Author: Lee
Categories: AA Milne, CS Lewis, Cornelia Funke, JK Rowling, Ursula Le Guin

Marvel Masterworks: The Incredible Hulk, Volume 1 By Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

Marvel Masterworks have brought readers deluxe hardcover collections of Marvel’s classics from the Golden Age, Atlas Era, and the mighty Marvel Age, and now you can join in the Masterworks excitement with Marvel’s new Marvel Masterworks trade paperbacks. In this volume, witness the birth of the green goliath himself in The Incredible Hulk Volume 1! Caught in the heart of a nuclear explosion, victim of gamma radiation gone wild, Dr. Robert Bruce Banner now finds himself transformed during times of stress into the dark personification of his repressed rage and fury: The Incredible Hulk!

Review by Sandra Scholes

As part of the Marvel Masterworks series, the inseparable duo of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby bring us The Hulk, Volume 1: The Coming of the Hulk.

In this debut Doctor Bruce Banner is busy working on the G-Bomb, or Gamma bomb and a series of tests proves how dangerous it is, as his right-hand man keeps telling him. General Ross is the pushy type who wants instant results for the military, while Betty Ross, his daughter acts as the worried girlfriend. His right-hand man, Igor is not too happy that Bruce has all the documents for the bomb hidden away from prying eyes, and seeks to cause his death where the test is being undertaken. As a couple drive to the test zone, Bruce runs to get them out of the danger zone and ends up being fired at by Igor, using the very Gamma rays he created as he wants to take over his project, and in doing so take all the credit. What Igor doesn’t know is the Gamma rays he fires into his body cause him to change into a huge monster. Once transformed, Bruce is on the rampage around the streets, a new name is given him, The Hulk, and a new identity, a monster everyone will fear if they ever have the misfortune to meet him.

Everyone knows and remembers the comic, the movies, even the old TV series with Banner played by the late Bill Bixby, but few know of his origins. Stan Lee originally envisaged it as based on their need for a new super hero and his idea of The Hulk resembling Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein monster, one who was always getting into fights and all kinds of trouble, but who was also misunderstood by others, ones who feared him. He still had only a brief idea of what kind of character he would create, and remembers Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and from that had the perfect character in mind – a man who was a brilliant scientist by day, mild mannered, and kind, but would become The Hulk, a dangerous monster.

The original print run of the comic had his skin drawn as a grey colour, not in keeping with the look of the character. Stan decided to have Jack Kirby change his skin to a rich looking green – and instantly the perfect character was born. For ardent fans of the Jolly Green Giant this will be a book to read and marvel at the history behind the story, the early work, comic book covers, and a few pages from the author about the character and its origins. For those growing up The Hulk was a good way of dealing with bullying at school back in the 80′s as one could imagine themselves as the character, and that attachment to the character, his drives, and reason for being.

For others it was a comic about a – some could say anti-hero – who secretly hates the research he does, changes into a character that shows what he really thinks about those he works with.

Posted: July 29th, 2010
Author: Lee
Categories: Graphic Novels

Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told, Volume 2 reviewed on Fantasy Book Review

Since 1939, in Gotham City, one man has ruled the night, striking fear into the hearts of the venal, the superstitious, the cowardly – the Batman! This all-new collection of action-packed tales, spanning the Dark Knight’s sixty-plus years and some of the finest creative teams ever to write his adventures, is a must for all Bat-fans! Featuring Robin and Batgirl, as well as many of the Gotham City hero’s most famous and fearsome foes, you’ll thrill to the tales of detection, daring and deadly danger! Ideal both for readers unfamiliar with Batman’s many years of adventures and Bat-aficionados, these truly are some of the greatest Batman stories ever told!

Review by Sandra Scholes

As most of us know, Batman has been the main superhero in comics since the nineteen-forties, and he is still going strong today with books, movies and TV series created in his honour. This particular graphic novel has ten separate comic stories from 1940 to 2003 showing how the legacy of Batman has lasted over the years and how comic art colouring has progressed with the new and sophisticated use of computer software to give it more of a professional look.

Starting with ‘Secret Origins Starring the Golden Age Batman’ by Roy Thomas, pencilled by Marshall Rogers and Inked by Terry Austin, they tell the story of a Bruce Wayne in-between his parents being murdered and before he dies at the hands of a ruthless criminal. A young Bruce copes with his life without his loving, socialite parents and with uncle Philip looking after him plans his revenge against all criminals for when he gets older. He finds love, when he plays a stint on the stage, but knows he is meant for bigger things when he studies criminology and becomes detective.

In ‘All My Enemies Against Me,’ by Gerry Gavas, Don Newton and Alfredo Alcala, Batman’s greatest foes arrive at a pre-selected meeting place wondering why they have been brought there until a certain villain shows up unannounced to say he’s the one who organised it all, the one criminal who has become the most infamous of all.

In ‘Citizen Wayne,’ by Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Gaydos, Jamie Chiang and Patricia Mulvihill is a six-page noir of the dark days when Bruce Wayne finally dies and at his deathbed has only one word to say – Rosebud, yet no one who knew him knows what it actually means.

These stories have most of the main characters from the original comics in it including The Penguin, The Joker, The Riddler and Cat -Woman. From an old looking detective series to science-fiction these stories are true to the legend that is Batman and though it is an old graphic novel by today’s standards it still has all the ingredients to be read by teens and adults alike. Batman remains one of the best crime-fighters in the business. There are others not mentioned here that are noteworthy stories and those that aren’t but those that stand out drag you into the thick of the atmosphere, and everyone will have their favourites. Some stories don’t stand out as good due to the story being poor, yet the comic art is always interesting to see over the years and as the quality improves as the sequential art proves.

Posted: July 29th, 2010
Author: Lee
Categories: Graphic Novels