Order of the Stick books, Rich Burlew

Title:		Order of the Stick (see below)
Author:		Rich Burlew
Rating:

If you play D&D, you need to read Order of the Stick.  If you don't play D&D, but like character driven graphic novels, then Order of the Stick is for you too.  And finally, what the author is doing is telling a good - and funny - story.  If that appeals, then you'll enjoy it as well.  You'll miss a bit of D&D related humor, particularly early on in the story, but the rest holds together well and will appeal.

Here's a link.  Get started:  http://www.giantitp.com/Comics.html

That may keep you occupied for days.  There are years of the story to read out there, for free.  Knock yourself out.

In fact, in book form, there are now 7 volumes.  They are named and numbered thusly:

• D: OOTS: Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tails
• -1: OOTS: Start of Darkness
• 0: OOTS: On The Origin of PCs
• 1: OOTS: Dungeon Crawlin' Fools
• 2: OOTS: No Cure For The Paladin Blues
• 3: OOTS: War And XPs
• 4: OOTS: Don't Split The Party

Burlew published these books one at a time, and the older ones gradually went out of print, but he got a lot of funding via a famous Kickstarter, and now they are all back in print and available from his distributor.

There is a lot of fun wrapped up in these books, and some very good story telling.  Six main characters drive the plot, with numerous supporting characters and quite a few villains as well.  The story arc is large and complicated, involving dragons and magic and quests and, well... it's a D&D campaign told in pictures featuring stick figures.  That might sound lame, but it really isn't.  (The Kickstarter campaign was supposed to raise about $58K.  Instead it raised $1.2 million.  Yes, really.  It's not lame at all, and the proof is in over 14,000 backers of that campaign who love with Burlew does.)

As I write this, Burlew is recovering from a hand injury, so he isn't updating the web site with new content right now.  I am guessing he will start back up again sometime after the beginning of the year, and I will be thrilled to see how the story continues.  I'll also be buying new books as they come out.  This is great stuff.

Give it a shot on the website, from the link above.  If you like it, the books are definitely worth owning, and now you can.

Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale, Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Chris Samnee

Title:		Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale
Authors:		Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Chris Samnee
Rating:

The Shepherd's Tale is a short graphic novel given much of the back story behind Shepherd Book, one of the characters from Firefly and Serenity. I enjoyed it greatly, but I am a fan. In truth it's a quick read, but it seems important back story for the series. I wish it could have been fleshed out in the original medium, though, rather than in book form.

An interesting device is the telling of the shepherd's story in reverse, starting at the Haven Mining Colony and working back through his life, linking formative incidents and events in a chain.

Recommended for fans. Those who don't know Firefly and Serenity need not bother until they do know them.

Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Title:		Watchmen
Authors:		Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
Rating:

Watchmen is a graphic novel originally published as twelve comic books in 1986 and 1987. It is also the source material for the 2009 movie of the same name.

This is a dark and disturbing story set in the recent past of a world very similar to our own. Costumed crime fighters - superheroes of one sort or another - exist and were mostly forced out of the business by law some time before the story opens. Those who work for the government or ignore the law continue what they were doing while the others retired and aged. As we join the story someone starts killing them off, and the plot grows from there.

Every character in here has a difficult back story of one sort or another, and their psychological challenges are on stage just as much as the plot itself. That's somewhat to be expected. After all, just how likely is a normal person to put on a costume and personally fight crime? No, it takes someone special - or disturbed - to do that.

I found the story engaging, but the methods used by the villain - particularly at the very end - seemed a bit over the top, even for this world. The characters were pretty good, but some suffered from a lack of believability. I bought into Rorshach, and the Comedian, found both Dr. Manhattan and Veidt too far fetched, and Nite Owl didn't resonate. I won't call out the whole list but you ge the idea.

Overall I thought it was a good read, but not outstanding. My copy says it won a Hugo award and is on Time Magazine's list of the 100 best novels. I don't think I can agree with the latter, but it's good in any case.

Recommended with some minor reservations.

Serenity: Better Days, Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad

Title:		Serenity: Better Days
Authors:		Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad
Rating:

This is my last review in 2008. Several things wiped out my time at the end of the year and slowed me way down. But I'm still trying to read, even if things keep getting in the way.

Serenity: Better Days is a short comic book about the crew of the space ship Firefly, who were featured on the TV show of the same name. If you don't know the setting, this review isn't going to help much, I'm afraid.

As usually happens with tales of this crew, it's the story of a "job" gone wrong. Our heroes are minor criminals, living on the edge of a corrupt society. We applaud their willingness to go it alone and do the right thing in the face of adversity, even if it violates the law, simply because that law is so obviously overbearing and unjust. (You know, simply writing that sentence makes me stop and think about the state of America in a new way, but I digress.)

Amusingly, this story actually starts with a job going well, but then things turn. I won't give away any more than that.

What I can say is that it was a bit disjoint. There were a few places - in a very short book - that I had to back up and reread to try and figure out what had happened. I suspect the authors actually had more material but lacked the page space to include it, so it was cut to fit. The result is OK, but not as easy to follow as I'd like.

I enjoy the Serenity series, and I hope it continues. But I also hope the next one is a bit better edited than this one, so the story flows a bit better.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Lynn Varley

Title:		Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Authors:		Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Lynn Varley
Rating:

This is only the third graphic novel I've reviewed here, but I really like it. It's isn't great literature in the classic sense, but it tells a good story, and it kept me interested and entertained.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is a set of four stories, originally published separately, I believe. Collectively they tell of an older Batman, one who had retired but has to come back to defend Gotham City, a Batman driven by his inner demon.

This follows the real point of Batman in my mind: he's dark, tormented, and borders on doing evil while fighting evil. His history is revisited here again: the street corner where Bruce Wayne's parents were killed is present, and a couple of the classic villains make their appearance too. But here Batman also faces a new kind of evil, one with less restraint and more random in nature than he's faced before. He thinks of them as the decedents of the one that murdered his parents. "These are his children. A purer breed... and this world is theirs."

Originally published in 1986 - before the fall of the Soviet Union - these stories tell of a superhero coming out of retirement with a different twist than the much latter movie The Incredibles. Why Batman retired - vanished actually - isn't made clear. Perhaps I'd know that if I followed comic books, but I don't, and it adds a layer of mystery I actually like.

Also present is a long standing conflict between Batman and at least one of the other famous superheros. I won't say who - no need to spoil it for you if you don't already know - but that conflict is built right into the psyche of the two characters in question. If Batman represents the dark side of doing good, you can probably guess who's on the opposite side of things, so good he's hard to stomach for someone like Bruce Wayne.

The art here is well done, stylized but not so much as to be silly. And the story is more interesting than someone who doesn't read comic books might expect. Batman is always conflicted over what he does - what he has to do - and the philosophical issues there are deep. Not that this is a textbook from a college class on ethics, but you will ponder the limits of power, the role of vengeance vs. justice, and even simple aging. As I grow older these things all get to be more interesting to me, and they are well presented here.

This is highly recommended. I got my copy through paperbackswap.com, but I won't be passing it on. This one I'll keep and reread every so often. This Batman deserves no less.

Thanks to Patguy for recommending this one. It's definitely worth it.

Serenity: Those Left Behind, Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad

Title:		Serenity: Those Left Behind
Authors:		Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad
Rating:

Get out your email clients and send me all the "you're a total fanboy" messages you want, but I will contend it isn't entirely true. Yes, I like Firefly and Serenity, and yes I've purchased some of the related extra material available. But that doesn't make me a total dweeb. Or so I will continue to claim.

Here's a way to divide people into four groups:

1. People who don't know about Firefly and Serenity. If you're a part of this group and like science fiction at all, you owe it to yourself to borrow or Netflix the Firefly and Serenity DVDs (in that order) and catch up.
2. People who don't 't like Firefly and Serenity. I can't help you. Sorry.
3. People who caught on early and saw Firefly when it was being broadcast.
4. People (like me) who found out about these things too late, when the show had been canceled. In my case it was even after the movie had come and gone. But I live under a very large rock that keeps out most of the popular media.

If you were in group 3 and never saw the DVD release of the TV show for some reason, you might have seen the movie and said something like: "Wait a minute. Why are Inara and Book not on the crew anymore? What happened to them?"

Those of you who've seen the DVDs of Firefly will know the beginning of the answer to that question, but not all of it. This short, graphic novel provides more of the answer, and goes beyond that to introduce the opponent that features so strongly in the movie Serenity.

It amounts to another episode of Firefly in comic book form. And it's nice, with good art and a typical story line that could never have happened in Star Trek. We see Badger again, and former agent Dobson. (Yes, I thought he was dead too. Apparently not, as you'll see if you read it.)

If I have a gripe it's that there's not enough here. I can't compare this format to a TV script, so I don't know if what's here could have made another hour long episode of the show, but it's probably close. And that's part of what made Firefly so much fun. It's well written and believable (within the world it creates), so an episode never lasts long enough. I always finish an episode wanting more. (I feel the same way about Red Dwarf and Monty Python's Flying Circus, by the way.)

I won't call this great literature. It's science fiction, and it's fun, but it's not likely to change someone's life in any particularly critical way. If the genre appeals to you, particularly if you've seen the TV show or the movie and wanted more, then this book needs to get added to your collection. It won't end world hunger. It won't even explain all the loose ends in the series, but it will give you another dose of Firefly and that's a good thing.

DK2, Frank Miller and Lynn Varley

Title:		DK2
Authors:		Frank Miller and Lynn Varley
Rating:

I'm slogging through something else and had to take a break. That break consisted of this and at least one other book, so there will be additional reviews before I get to the thing I'm supposed to be reading for real.

Now, what the heck is DK2? I suspect that some of those reading Doug's book review forum will know. The rest of us, well...

I found DK2 via paperbackswap.com and ordered it on a lark. It's a comic book, or perhaps - more technically - a graphic novel, albeit a short one. And since "DK" stands for Dark Knight, those in the know will figure out it's a Batman story.

OK. I have to admit right now that by reading this I was way out of my depth. I've never read comic books on a regular basis. And starting now - in my 40's - seems unlikely. But that being said, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Batman. I've always felt that superheroes who start out as normal people are better than those born with mysterious - and possibly unexplained - powers. But that's just me. I'm told there is a major argument over that very thing in the comic world, with some fans preferring their heroes born with powers while others prefer them self made, or something like that.

Anyway, don't ask me how, but despite growing up watching reruns of the old, campy Adam West Batman, I've known for years that it's supposed to be dark and serious. I also know that Batman / Bruce Wayne is tormented and has trouble with not crossing the line into crime (or at least simple vigilante justice) himself. The movie Batman Begins was pretty close to the way I think it's supposed to feel, and it seemed visually right to me as well.

So when I saw DK2 wander past on a list of recently posted books on paperbackswap.com I added it to my wish list and waited. Eventually, it arrived.

For those of you not terminally stupid (like I am) it should be obvious that with a name like DK2 there is a previous volume. I've never seen it. Yes, I am that dumb, but I thought that it would be a separate graphic novel and this would be an entirely new story. Reading the back cover of DK2 I learned that the previous volume was called The Dark Knight Returns, and that Batman apparently died in that story. DK2 is the follow on, written 15 years later and taking place 3 years after the events in The Dark Knight Returns.

So what's the story here? Well, it's... hmmm... Unfortunately, if I start telling you about the plot, I'll give it away. And that would be bad because there isn't much of it here. This is a really quick read, and there isn't a lot of depth to it. I found that a bit problematic. But I can tell you that Batman isn't dead, but you can pretty much assume that from the name, right? I can also tell you that it features aging superheroes and a disagreement between a couple of factions thereof. It's also serious in tone, and tries to discuss a major social/political issue as well. There. That's the best I can do.

I've already said I thought it too short. My other issue is that the art was not appealing. I know (or at least I assume, which may be a mistake) that various comic books go for different artistic styles. That may be driven by the material or by the artist, I suppose. What I found here was a much-less-than realistic style that didn't resonate with me. Not that comic book art needs to be realistic, but this particular implementation just didn't grab me.

Still, it's not a total failure. I read it all and it was amusing trying to figure out how the various characters had wound up in their current predicaments. And if this were just one or two chapters out of a larger story I'd be very interested in the whole thing. And maybe that is the case. Someday I might go looking for more.