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‘Life is a set of rules. If those rules break, life ends. Here is our first rule: Any life you create is yours, and must be cared for. No matter how humble or small, it is still yours, and you must answer for it. Do you understand?’
I don't remember which one of my friends said, "Hey! You need to read this. It is like Harry Potter for grown ups." When I remember, I will have my revenge. Yes there is fantasy, magic, etc. But there is bondage, abuse, rape fantasy, sex, sex, sex...Oh, and there is sex.
So I have read two stories from this book (for which I once again paid $4.99) - "Pale realms of shade" and "The parliament of Beasts and Birds". The Hugo nominated crap, because there was no way I would read a word more out of his pen than absolutely necessary.
The book contains ten gems. Let me quote some of the Table of Contents for you.
New Year's Day: The Meaning of Life as Told me by Inebriated Science fiction Writer in New Jersey.
Epiphany: Queen of the Tyrant Lizards. (hey apparently this is the response to "If you were a dinosaur my love"). Boy Puppy crowd is obsessed with this story. Yeah, after reading it I was not sure what it was doing on Hugo Ballot either because calling it scifi is way stretching it IMO, but it was a *beautiful story* and guess what? It did not win a Hugo. Anyway, moving on.
Annunciation: (name of the story because I am too lazy to type it out)
Good Friday: Sheathed Paw of the Lion
Easter Sunday: Pale Reams of the Shade.
Ascention: The Ideal Machine.
You guys get the idea, yeah? This is the writer whose messages in the story are secondary to actual story. That is certainly the case here, starting with the Table of Contents.
"Pale realms of shade" started interestingly enough - the guy is murdered and his ghost meets his wife somewhere? He hints at who murdered him, he knows or he does not know (hint - his wife did), but then it goes straight into angels, remembering your Sin and begging for forgiveness or else, Hell awaits you (no, really it does). I am sorry can't be bothered.
Be rest assured I finished the story though and yeah, I am going to finish reading Novella category, but I can't see anything but No award going number one.
Oh my.
"The Parliament of Beast and Birds"
Can I give negative stars for special hatefulness?
So, remember last Narnia how only those worthy will go into Heaven?
So we have talking animals here who gathered around City of Man to figure out where Man went, because it is empty. well, Man is gone to the better world, apparently and Cat agreed to check it out ( she was deemed worthy to be in front of Special Eyes (or was it Mouth?) not sure, which speaks only Truth.
Anyways, some animals accept the gift and become like Man - walking on two legs and they get the City to govern (Angels came and told them to do that).
Some are not and wisdom is not available to them no more. Black Raven is amongst them and some others which look, well, you know...
Modesty Blaise: Green Cobra by Titan Publishers collects three stories: Green cobra, Eve and Adam and Brethren of Blaise, which are story numbers 42,43 and 44 respectively of the total of 92 stories of Modesty.
Modesty Blaise strip has had several artists over the course of its decades, the most famous of them being Jim Holdaway, Romero and Neville Colvin. This volume collects the works of two much lesser known (for modesty fans) artists, John Burns and Pat Wright. As explained in the foreword, after Romero left, these artists were employed one after the other and neither lasted long and to this day, no one knows why. However different their styles might have been, these two had one thing in common, they were booted even before they got well adjusted to the strip. While John Burns illustrated two and a half stories, Pat Wright wasn’t even around that long. Having had read Modesty stories which had been illustrated by either Holdaway or Romero, this volume was quite interesting to me. The fact that the stories weren’t as bad as the “The girl in the Iron mask” volume was helpful too.
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Image credits : http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2008/...
The first story in the volume, Green Cobra is drawn by John Burns and it is about a private espionage group (Salamander Four) that abducts British Secret Service Chief Sir Tarrant’s assistant Fraser and tries to turn him into a double agent. When Tarrant comes to know of the abduction, well after a month, he asks Modesty and Willie to save their mutual friend and they agree. Having identified the group, Modesty and Willie pursue and abduct one of its chief executives which only leads them into a con. The rest of the story is about them escaping the con and freeing Fraser. The story’s main antagonist is a woman, Pandora, a lethal fighter who is so spitefully jealous of Modesty’s fame, she wants to kill Modesty so that the world would notice her. Although Pandora is shown to be much faster, stronger and better in combat than Modesty, she never quite develops into a character at all. But the pace of the story is good enough for you to not notice any of that. The story picks up right from the beginning with Fraser being interrogated till its explosive end. The style of John Burns needed some getting used to, but only I was able to, I could notice it resembling Holdaway’s style to some extent.
Burn’s style gets better as the story goes on and I noticed that it was much better in the following “Eve and Adam”, in which Modesty and Garvin are tricked by a kooky billionaire, who is convinced that the world is gonna end, decides to make Modesty and Garvin to be the new Eve and Adam by placing them in an oasis in the middle of an African desert. Needless to say, Modesty and Garvin soon find friends and foes in the middle of the desert while trying to figure out getting out of the desert without getting killed. The story has an interesting concept to it, considering the eccentric relationship of Willie and Modesty. They highly respect each other, love each other, rely on each other and would risk their lives for each other. But it never gets physical or romantic. Most of the times, it is shown to be a safe measure to not muddle the respectful relationship they have. The story would have been much more interesting if it had explored the psychology of this aspect more, but it doesn’t go into it more than a page which is immediately followed by trouble. The story then becomes a standard Modesty fare albeit being entertaining. This is also the story where John Burns gets fired midway and is replaced by Pat Wright and so, the story has the illustrations of the both and the transition isn’t smooth at all. They have very distinguishing styles and it might even be quite jarring when the sudden transition takes place. But just like Burns, you get used to the style of Wright and one thing I noticed about his style is that it does not resemble any style of the other Modesty artists and had a slight resemblance to William Vance’s XIII. As I got used to it, I found myself liking it more than Burns' style, especially his close-up shots.
As an aside, I noticed a peculiar thing about the illustrations of John Burns. In most of the illustrations of the other artists, even with the presence of a considerable amount of nude scenes, it is never really nude. Burns is not reluctant in showing nipple and “Eve and Adam” gives him some opportunity to do so too. This could have been a factor in him getting fired, especially considering that it was a daily strip in a British newspaper.
The last story in the volume is “Brethren of Blaise”, illustrated by Pat Wright. Just like Burns, I felt that Wright’s style was better in this story than it was in his previous one. The illustrations are more defined and the characters have a distinct look that was not just unique but also beautiful. Modesty and Willie find themselves in a small village to celebrate Christmas and come across a group calling themselves “The Brethren of Blaise” trying to revive Merlin (Blaise is Merlin’s tutor). When Willie is attacked, the couple sense something beneath the surface going on. Add in an old acquaintance under trouble and you can easily guess what Modesty and Willie ends up doing. “Brethren of Blaise” is the most Modesty-est story of the lot. It has every hallmarks of an intriguing and entertaining Modesty story even if it is predictable. All in all, this volume was much better than the “Girl with the iron mask” volume (maybe because all the stories in it were from the later run of Modesty) and can be quite entertaining if you are accustomed to Modesty stories.
Rating: 4/5.
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A side by side comparison of Pat Wright and John Burns (respectively) as shown in the foreword of this volume. This strip marks the immediate switch of the artists. The right one was discarded and Pat Wright took on from there. It is to be noted that this isn’t a particularly flattering show of either artists’ talents. Wright gets much better in “Brethren of Blaise” and Burns has done better in the same story.
Disclaimer: All the images are taken from the net.
I'm being generous with the three stars, because it definitely suffered on the reread. I still like the basic concept: Phaeton is investigating himself because he has large chunks of his memory missing, and he's trying to figure out why he's done this to himself and how this affects his sense of self. The book and its world are hamstrung by the author's worldview, however, and the talking exposition wears on you after a while. At least his editor stuck with the book till the end this time instead of giving up halfway through.
