Susan Hated Literature

Dec 29 2005

I’ve always wanted to do one of those classic animal stories that make people cry, so this is like that…Disney with fangs

Published by Fence under Books

Yesterday^[1] I did my top films of 2005, today I guess it is time for my top reads of the year.

Iron Council by China Mieville - This is just a great read. I’ve enjoyed his other books, but they normally take a while to get through. I flew through this one. Loved the golems, and while I didn’t have any characters to love, I was interested in them all. I’m still undecided about the ending.
We3 a graphic novel by Grant Morrison & Frank Quietly - You’ll have to read this for yourself to get it because telling you that it is a sort of Homeward Bound meets Robocop would probably put you off. Not too sure about the proposed film adaption though.
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett - Another great addition to the Discworld ‘verse, this book introduces the character of Moist Von Lipwig. Hi-larious reading.

Only three books because I’m often harder on books than films, but also because I haven’t really been doing a lot of reading this year.

Linknotes:

actually it wasn’t yestarday at all, it was today, but not the today that you are reading this. This is a post from the past. A time traveling post, if you will. Or not, whatever, its all good. ↩

Tags: favbooks2005, Favourite books, Going Postal, Iron Council, We3

3 responses so far

Jul 06 2005

We3

Published by Fence under Books

ISBN: 1401204953
Author: Frank Quitely & Grant Morrison
DDC: 741.5973

I heard about this comic over at The Woolamaloo Gazette, and when I took a look on the forbiddenplanet site it was quite cheap around nine euro I think, so I impulse purchased.

The plot is sort of Homeward Bound meets violence, death and the army. Three animals have been modified, equipped with armour, guns and taught how to speak, and are employed by the USAF as assassins. But the time has come for them to be decomissioned.

The rest of the book is their attempt to escape, and in the words of 1 we3 home now.

Sounds a bit Disney-esque, and it could easily have been quite “ah, purty animals go home.” But it isn’t. The animals don’t really say all that much. How much conversation can you expect from a dog, a cat and rabbit? So a lot of the book lets the artwork do the story-telling. And very effectively, imo.

I mentioned in my review of The Astonishing X-Men that I’m not a huge comic book/graphic novel reader, but that’ll change if I find more like this.

This is a very sad, moving book, and almost every other review I’ve read of it mentions how affecting it is. So I won’t say “enjoy”, but I do think it is worth picking up.

10/10, comic, graphic novel, sci fi