Lovesick Dead (1998)

This is one of the longer stories by Ito, in which a small town and it’s people slowly go crazy because of a new kind of fortune telling. I always thought Ito’s longer works are his strongest, because those allow him to explore his outre ideas in detail and not just gloss over them. That said, it is not one of his strongest works due to the main concept not having much pull, or maybe Ito not having much of an idea what to do with it. Basically, people go to street intersections and try to divine their future by asking the next best person coming along. But there’s a supernatural boy going around infecting people with destructive obsessions through his answers.

The main character, who recently returned to town, is haunted by his own actions years ago. Not unlike the supernatural intersection boy, he once drove a young woman to suicide because of one thoughtless answer. To make amends he’s trying to solve the mystery of the intersection boy, but instead of helping others it looks like its him who needs help.

There are moments when Lovesick Dead seems to reach the heights of his best work. The mounting intensity of a city going crazy via supernatural strangeness, something that characterizes the allure of Ito’s Uzumaki. But where the latter managed to remain intriguing throughout by always presenting original and more extreme variations on the main concept, Lovesick Dead rarely manages the same. Most of the time it feels like the story is passing time until the finish has arrived. And the ending is pretty unsatisfying to, as if Ito lost interest and just needed a quick way to end it.

Flesh Coloured Horror (1997)

I’m not sure how often I can say the same thing without sounding like a broken record. But here we go again. It’s a collection of Junji Ito short stories. They often have interesting set-ups and starting points. But toward the end most of the stories fall apart. This can be extremely frustrating, as it seems like there’s so much potential, but the stories rarely reach a satisfying conclusion. Ito’s typical failure modes are: not knowing what to do beyond the initial set-up, instead going for cheap shock-tactics (Long Hair in the Attic, Beehive, Flesh-Colored Horror), gimmicky endings with long-winded explanations (Approval, Flesh-Colored Horror) or not finding the right point when to end (Dying Young).

The only story that really worked was Headless Sculptures. Although it too used shock tactics, pacing, length and ending were good. Not perfect, but overall better than all the other stories in the collection.

Template (2008)

Coming-of-age stories aren’t restricted to young characters. The hero of Template, Conn Labro, is already an adult and secure in his believes. But once he leaves his world to find out who wants to get his hands on his recently inherited fortune, he’s forced to question his entire world view. The truth, as Labro finds out, is a double-edged sword. It may set you free, but challenging deeply held convictions carries the threat of entirely losing sight of who you are.

Though, Template is not really a character-driven novel. While likable as a character, Labro is in many ways your typical adventure hero, not too complex or too driven, just a bit odd due to his background. Living on a world where libertarian believes are taken to its logical conclusion can do that to you. So, while he doesn’t start as a do-gooder, he grows into it. Even in his worst moments you never feel much despair on Labro’s part. Template has depth, but it doesn’t go too deep. Keeping it fun and entertaining is too much ingrained into its DNA.

Matthew Hughes novel combines elements from adventure, coming-of-age and travel fiction, all set in his Archonate setting. While starting out as a homage to Jack Vance’s Dying Earth, the Archonate has changed into its own thing along the way, though still inheriting some aspects of Vance’s work. Earth is place so old that our own time is merely a dim memory and the galactic meta-civilization seems a bit past its prime. But instead of despair and doom all-around, that some very far future settings invite, Hughes fictional creation is a fun place to visit. As is traveling around with Labro and finding out where he really came from.

Child of Fire (2009)

Harry Connolly recently wrote an interesting guest post on Charlie Stross’s blog about a way to sort thrillers into two categories, high and low. I bring that up, because his recent first novel Child of Fire, the first in the Twenty Palace series, is strongly in the category of the low category. Though I wouldn’t categorize the book as thriller, rather it’s part of the whole urban fantasy genre. If you think Harry Dresden, you’re pretty close in style. Although, since it’s written by a man, it’s nearly devoid of any romance elements (somehow only women writing in the genre bring these in, I’ve never seen such a obvious split in a genre along male/female lines like in the urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre).

The low distinction fits well, since the main character is easy to relate to, not because of his backstory, but because of his power level and his all-too human reactions to the events he partakes in. He’s capable, but not a superman. He gets exhausted, most of his enemies are deadlier than him and even normal humans can be a threat. It brought back why I so enjoyed the early Harry Dresden novels, which were also part of the low category, before Harry became a part of the higher power structure. There’s nothing inherently good or bad about either form, it’s just easier to relate to a character when he can’t solve any problem with superior fire power or magic and has to use his wits to survive and has to back down when he’s overpowered. When he’s still human enough to feel stressed out about surviving a knife fight and when he pukes his guts out because of the horrible events he has just witnessed.

First novels in a series often have a rawness and intensity that the Xth-part of a long-running series can’t provide. Everything feels new and fresh, even though the setting of the Twenty Palace series is far from original. The secret magic society trying to save the world from supernatural threats is a pretty common genre cliche. But Connolly still manages to evoke the feeling of danger, that anything can happen, since we don’t know the rules on which the fictional setting operates. There’s a strong if indirect infusion of Lovecraftian world-building. The threats aren’t evil magicians plotting to rule the world, it’s merely that our world represents a tasty snack for extremely powerful, supernatural predators. And there’s an diverse ecology of these things in the outer dark, all of them extremely deadly once brought into our world, each of them with the power to completely annihilate humanity. Not that this would stop all the idiots who think they can control them.

To counteract that kind of threat you need people who are just as ruthless, who don’t care about slaughtering a few innocent bystanders when they can stop the predators from the outer dark, or the idiots who bring them here. Shoot first, ask questions later. That’s the setup of the first novel of the Twenty Palace series, a former criminal working as a very expendable henchman for one of the hitman of the Twenty Palace society, trying to find out why a small-town toymaker is more successful than he should be. And then everything goes AWOL. Pretty intense read, far more than I expected from a typical urban fantasy novel, with a few really gut-wrenching scenes.

New Avengers/Transformers (2007)

Pretty average 4-part crossover between the New Avengers and Transformers that takes places after the initial New Avengers story arc Breakout. Megatron has incited a conflict between Latveria and one of its neighbors, with technology stolen from Doom. The rest of the story unfolds as expected. The New Avengers turn up, they meet the Transformers, stuff happens (Spider-Man gets hijacked to give the Decepticons a power-up), the New Avengers team-up with the Autobots after initially fighting with them to take out Megatron and his henchbots and so on.

Overall this was a pretty boring read with a plot that felt pretty stupid and gimmicky, but obviously nobody expects a good plot from a crossover. The appeal of crossovers is to see the interaction of characters from different fictional settings, but even in that regard the series was disappointing. It was handled in a much too mundane manner, nobody really freaking out, nobody really questioning why they never met before.

Maybe it’s just that the Transformers and the Marvel universe really don’t fit all that well together, and trying to mix them really strained the rules of the combined fictional setting. Or maybe it’s because Moore approached the comic like a typical hackjob, working down the list of typical crossover elements without really caring for the work itself. This is how it reads, like a tired and uninspired series where all characters come over as bland and perfunctory.

And if you think crossovers are always hack work, don’t look further than Ellis’s Planetary/Batman to see that they can be fun and deep and involving at the same time. And if you can’t do that, at least make them fun, even if not much brain is involved. But even there New Avengers/Transformer failed, even the action was boring.

Hero Core OST (2010)

The soundtrack for the truly excellent freeware game Hero Core by Brother Android is a just as good as the game itself. It’s typical chiptune music: blips and blops and noise and all the other elements you remember from old GameBoy games (or similar computers/ consoles from ages past). I’m often amazed at some of stuff that comes out of the chiptune scene, mostly because they manage to transcend the individual low-fi sound bites and create a unique and compelling whole.

What makes the OST to Hero Core stand out is that it manages to be just as compelling solo as in-game. Many game soundtracks suffer from the fact that they are excellent while you’re playing, but heard solo don’t work as well. And they rarely work well as an album, jumping between styles and moods. That’s where the Hero Core soundtrack succeeds admirably, it offers distinct and varied individual songs that still complement each other and that together create a consistent and unified soundscape.

Succubus Blues (2007)

There are seemingly a myriad variations on the basic paranormal romance setup, from common vampires and werewolves to more exotic stuff like djinns and in this case, succubi. Despite the variations, its plot and setting are nothing you haven’t seen in a similar form elsewhere. Mead’s Georgina Kindcaid universe follows the template of a cold war between heaven and hell, with the world of the paranormal hidden aside our typical modern world.

The angle of the main heroine is being a succubus and having to work for the hell side, while longing for some form of salvation from her fate. The plot in the first novel is informed by the overall setting: what happens when angels/demons do the dirty deed with humans and the results of these matings. Despite the lack of originality it’s a nice read with a character who is easy to connect to and the side-plot about her connection to the writer is pretty funny in a self-referential way. Sure, most plot developments in the book can be seen miles away, but it’s still a fun ride.

Agents of Atlas (2006-2010)

Agent of Atlas looked like a strange beast from the start: a book about good guys taking over a secret empire bent on world domination. The series has survived to date mostly through different mini-series, but so far it doesn’t seem to have caught on. That’s a shame, because it’s quite a fun read once you get into it. I must admit that this isn’t easy, as the premise of the whole series is a bit unusual and doesn’t (initially) seemed all that interesting, because it’s impossible in shared universe like Marvel to follow through with the concept to its logical conclusion.

But once I warmed up to it, I saw it for what it was, a team-book that so far hasn’t fallen prey to endless replacement of individual members or the group as a whole. In these times that’s actually refreshing to read, where most superhero team books can’t sustain the same line-up for five issues straight. And due to its unique concept it manages to offer slightly different stories than what you expect, though it doesn’t always avoid typical superhero stuff.

We Are All Legends (1981)

We Are All Legends is a fix-up that collects the stories of medieval knight who starts as a honest Christian and over the course of many fantastic adventure becomes increasingly disillusioned with his religion and the world at large. Each stories sees his believes diminished, often because of the things he has to witness, but also because of the things he does himself.

As his conviction in his own goodness as a human being is shattered again and again, he travels farther from his safe environment of western Europe to find a way to make things right or at least end them with dignity. His journey becomes a phantasmagorial tour de force through various mythologies, but salvation becomes evermore unattainable.

This is one of the few books were the genre descriptor dark fantasy fits perfectly. It’s not horror, if we discount the horror of learning more about the world and yourself than you ever wanted to. Neither is it a quest to vanquish evil or something similar. It’s really a man’s journey into the dark aspects of the human condition, however ridiculous or cliched that phrase may sound. Schweitzer style fits that perfectly. It manages an oppressive, despairing atmosphere, without being whiny or being dark in the sense some 14-years old declare themselves to be.

The main character’s self-realization that he really isn’t a good person, or at least not as good as he believed in the past and that his own survival will always comes first, is rare for a character in the fantasy genre. The ending (which is of a kind I normally dislike) fits perfectly too, offering no salvation, but an explanation for what is happening. It makes sense given the entire framework in which these stories operate.

New Voices in the Dark (2006)

Another collection of Ito material, which starts where part of the material from the first Voices in the Dark stopped off. The second story is part of the same universe (Soichi stories) and shows a young Soichi and how he deals with a pet his sister brought home. That story started pretty strong and the creatures the cat brought back from wherever it went were really fascinating, but like so often with Ito’s stories the ending was a let-down.

In The Valley of Mirrors has a very intriguing set-up and the story behind the mystery was quite interesting too, but the basic plot of the story itself was negligible. Despite there not being much of a story to speak about (backstory does not equals story IMHO) it works. The other entries include a guy trying to read too much (okay), a song that sticks in your head (pretty good) and the last one about slackers eating something they shouldn’t (pretty fun in a horrific kind of way). Your typical Ito collection, interesting even if most of the stories fall apart toward the end.