In First Mother’s Fire, the first book of the series titled The Soulstealer War; W. L. Hoffman has created an engaging quest/save the world/good vs. evil fantasy epic. There are, however, several flaws with the text as it is and I will go into those a bit later. Ken McNary is a law student that has just graduated and has yet to decide where to move on to from there. To aid in his decision making, Ken goes on an extended hiking tour along the Appalachian Trail. Along the way he is confronted by a being who offers him the choice of staying where he is or going to another world and helping to save it. Ken of course decides to take the challenge on and the being confers a sort of ‘blessing’ on him before he leaves. As Ken moves around this new world, wondering what is truly expected of him he discovers two things, first, humans are slaves and considered to be unclean and inferior and second, the ‘blessing’ bestowed upon him by the being allows him to not only communicate with the environment around him but confers upon him additional strength and other powers. Ken's goal is to stop the corruption of this new land, restore it’s magic and while he is there, to cease the enslavement of humans. Easy right? How he is supposed to do that with the little bit of knowledge he is given is what the reader is determined to find out.

While the story itself is very good, as well as the writing, there are several minor improvements that should have been made before publication. The first is to have had an editor read through the manuscript for spelling, grammar and word use issues. There are several places where there are clear spell check errors like the sentence where ‘succulence’ is used instead of ‘succor’. Additionally, there are some odd turns of phrase as when the weather is described as ‘ice cube-sized snow’. Now, I’m not sure about the rest of the world, but I know of many differing types and sizes of ice cubes from tiny and round to large and square which makes this phrase mostly useless. The reader gets the idea that the snowflakes are probably large but perhaps a better analogy should have been used to avoid the flow destroying eye-roll from the reader. Additionally, there were some strange things that just did not ring true within the story. The main character, an experienced hiker, was hiking in his jeans. For anyone who knows anything about backpacking, hiking or camping and being in the outdoors in general, that is rather odd, especially since the author took care to note the importance of weight and proper packing and care when hiking. Jeans are heavy, hot and take a long time to dry and they are not at all conducive to backpacking or hiking. Most hikers, depending upon where they are going, wear lighter weight cotton or canvas (or these days, some man-made high performance fabric).

Those are all minor issues that would not in themselves denigrate a good story. The two issues that I found to be more destructive in terms of pushing the reader out of the story and losing those who might have otherwise gone on to read the later volumes are these: first, the main character spends so much time debating scientific theories with himself in an internal dialogue that often spans pages of text that the reader loses the flow of the story, and second, the story seems to move too quickly for realistic believability. The main character spends little over a week in this strange new world and has won over nearly everyone he meets – tackling cultural issues like slavery with a speed that seems too easy. I would have liked to have seen this develop more over time, with Ken learning to utilize his newfound abilities and working to combat the enslavement of humans.

All in all, it was a good story that just needed some issues hammered out before publication. I will most likely try and get my hands on the second in the series for two reasons – to find out what happens to Ken and to see if the second book gets a much more thorough editing before being published. For good ideas that were relatively well executed and for endorsing the cause of environmentalism I give this one a 7.

Virgin comics has attempted to revive the character Dan Dare. In issue five of the comic, Dare confronts the evil Mekon. Mostly, this issue is a bridger for the story arc. Dan Dare has been captured and brought before the Mekon and the Prime Minister attempting to bargin with the alien.

Revivals usually involve a reinterpretation of a nostalgia character. Dan Dare, however, is left in all his perfect, stilted 1950's glory, which could be played for comic effect. Instead, the comic has stayed in the 1950s, right along with Dare. It feels as stale and dated as a bag of Lays potato chips that's been open and forgotten in the back of a cabinet for at least a year. His dialog is, of course, every bit as perfect as his manners. He is polite and unyieldingly drawn towards always doing the right thing. Readers know that, in the end, Dan Dare is good personified and that he will always triumph, no matter how sticky any situation gets.

The world, though, has (to quote Steven King's "Dark Tower") moved on, and comics have matured, as have the readers. "Dan Dare" reads more as adventure fluff with a very black and white view of the world. The bad guys are bad, the good guys are good, and cheaters never win. Many readers require more complex characters and far more complex worldviews.

So, was "Dan Dare" unreadable? Hardly. While personally, I did not find the issue to be a good read, that may have been largely due to the fact that I have not read the previous issues (and the Free Comic Book Day preview was hardly adequate to offer enough storyline to help decipher issue #5). I can see the appeal to fans of campy adventure-based sci-fi serials like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. This comic also serves as a very comforting nostalgia piece, as it is a dependable, predictable storyline.

"Dan Dare" does benefit from a great art team. The coloring and inking for the book are superb and the artwork itself is far beyond typical artwork from the 50s. Virgin has spared no expense for good paper and quality printing, which I'm sure hard-core fans will definitely appreciate.

While I, personally, did not enjoy "Dan Dare" the quality of the comic has encouraged me to look into other books Virgin Comics offers which seem as though they will be a far better fit for my sensibilities. I would recommend "Dan Dare" for anyone who might be searching for a kinder, gentler, much more likeable Indiana Jones.

For those who didn't have cable television when "Alien Nation" was being broadcast, the wonderful world of TV-on-DVD releases has made it possible to catch this series in its entirety.

The "Alien Nation: Ultimate Movie Collection" 3 DVD set has all five of the made-for-TV movies that were done after the series was canceled. For those who missed out, "Alien Nation" is about a slave ship that had 250,000 Tenctonese aboard, almost all of whom were slaves that crash landed in the Mojave Desert. Since these aliens were not able to return home, they were introduced into LA and allowed to assimilate as best they could. The main focus is Detective George Francisco and his family. George is an officer partnered with a human, Matt Sikes, and together they work mostly homicide cases.

The series has a focus on tolerance, which is pretty evident in the movies, as the aliens, known as Newcomers face human prejuidice. Some of the Newcomers become concerned about their own racial purity and so they have to come to terms with being a minority in a world filled with what they feel is an inferorior species. There are cultural clashes and serious faux pas galore throughout the movies as the two cultures do their best to adjust. What is nice is that the creators of the show definitely put a great deal of attention into the Tenctonese language and into their cultural representations. It's easy to incorporate explanations (which remain remarkably consistent) into the general fabric of the dialog and plot. Sometimes the "people are people" spiel does get a little tiresome, but then, I watched all of these movies in a single sitting, rather than spaced out over the three years they were made, so it's acceptable within the framework of a show finishing its story arc through multiple movies that aren't going to get shown consecutively.

The series is still highly enjoyable, especially since the Tenctonese go far beyond just being a sort of Bizarro World class of humans, despite being very humaniod in appearance. Of course, more humanoid aliens would be far more likely to survive in a human world, since their might be hesitance on the part of humanity to just go ahead and shoot them and be done with it. It really is a (forgive me Mr. Roddenberry and Mr. Spock) highly logical show.

The look is also a bit surprising, due mostly to the fact that "Alien Nation" is both brightly light and very colorful. These movies were aired during the mid-nineties, before the "X-files" effect really came into vogue, and it's a bit of a shock seeing a show that is a cross between science-fiction and police procedural that actually has color and lighting that isn't pale, washed-out, and shades of blue or green. The make-up effects still hold up, especially in an era obsessed with what computers can do for the movie and television industry, and while some of the special effects now look like they'd be more at home in an old, unretouched "Star Wars" movie, the show is all about the characters and is therefore not completely effects driven. So many shows lose sight of what well-designed sets and costumes can do for a production and completely forget about what green-screen shots really look like when they're done. Sure, some of it looks really good, but a whole lot of it just sort of ends up looking-well-animted. "Alien Nation" is certainly a series that people could look at to get an idea of what things could be.

The movies also have very interesting scores. Rather than just hammering home the idea that the Tenctonese have keener senses, the scoring in the show really tries to portray the Tenctonese aesthetic. The music is multi-layered, with startling, almost heart-beat like tribal drums and rich complex harmonies that would probably make Bach weep for joy. It's very unusual, uplifting music that emphasises and forwards every scene where it's used. There are human songs, but there are also human songs which have been reworked with lyrics in Tenctonese which is both surprising and highly satisfying. It's amazing, exciting, and inspiring to see that kind of dedication to a project

There is so much to like about these DVDs, mostly just on the basis of the movies themselves. Sure, they're really just hugely extended episodes of a series and they're made-for-TV movies with all the commercial break interruptions that implies, but they have great stories that add a little humor and a really good point about tolerating others who aren't quite as different as one might think.

The set is relatively low priced, usually averaging around $25, and it has been on sale for even less on a few isolated occasions. The Special Features are kind of standard, consisting mostly of commentary, making of featurettes, and gag reels, but for fans of the show and for those who might be highly interested in the nuts and bolts of creating their own sci-fi show one day they offer some pretty valuable insight into the television process.

What isn't so great is the fact that four of the five movies are on double-sided DVDs. The show is packaged in two slim-line cases, but I've seen four-disc sets released before this that could fit in a case the size of a single DVD case. Those double-sided discs seem an awful lot like a very cheap cop-out, especially considering the middle part meant to hold the discs in place doesn't seem fantastically sturdy. The probability of these DVDs getting scratched or smeared with finger prints, unfortunately, seems very, very high.

So, is this set worth it? If you like sci-fi that doesn't take itself too seriously and fish-out-of-water comedy with frequent wordplay jokes, then yes, this set ought to keep you very happily entertained for a while. If you're a fan of the show, it's definitely worth the money to purchase these. If you're a newbie whose curious, these movies are also a very good introduction to the show, though I highly recommend you watch the movies in order. It's easy to tell what sequence the should be watched in by the package, alas, the DVDs are not so obviously labeled. It was still a fun way to spend a very rainy, very cold afternoon.

The Galactic Star Force Battle Fleet is a cobbled together remnant of human society that is trapped in a system filled with hostile aliens. Some of the humans are kept as a foodstuff by one alien race, while the group that managed to escape and desperately wanted to free them is being maniacally attacked by another alien race that simply wants to see humans completely oblitereated.

The author obviously knows a great deal about fighting techniques and strategy. It's obvious in each battle scene that this is a guy who knows exactly what he's plotting. Most of the time, it's easy for the reader to get a very clear idea of exactly what is happening with both the enemy and the heroes. The battle scenes did flat-out work in terms of consistency and strategy. There were nearly transparent rules that were followed strictly for tactical abilities with both groups as well as equipment performance. The physics in this book neither get ignored nor do they disappear conveniently.
There are also some very helpful definitions and specifications at the front of the book, especially if the reader is starting the series with the second volume.

However, this book suffered greatly from an overabundance of repitition. Everything that happens is explained at least twice and it's usually from the same perspective. If the reader missed something important in the plot the first time, they have no need to fear, they'll get a chance for a recap in the not-too distant future.

The author's martial arts discipline also left a stamp all over this book. That isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but in this one, the stamp was at least page-sized and the letters were bright red. His heroes were very strictly honor and duty-bound to the point that there isn't even the flicker of doubt that they will always do the right thing and they will always do their absolute best to save their fallen comrades. The solidarity and hope that the humans show in this book is a beautiful dream, but the problem is that humans tend to get more complex than that. People have doubts, lose their convictions, or get scared on a regular basis and those things often get in the way of the principals that just about everyone wishes they could live by.

As for the aliens, well, both races are terrible, evil creatures. The aliens are impulsive and ruled by their greed and pride, which is what tends to get them into trouble when battles against humans are concerned. Sometimes, the aliens are so completely stupid that it's laughable. Certainly, everyone makes dumb mistakes now and then, but it's hard to believe that an alien race with such a glaringly obvious species-wide character flaw would become a conquering force of any sort of threat level.

The world of this book is very sharply delineated. Those who live by honor and adhere to duty, common sense, and careful plans of action are bound to succeed, whereas those who heed their impulses and their individual pride are doomed to fail. The bad guys are very, very bad and the good guys are very, very good.

So where does that leave this book? On a pure science fiction level, it tends to dissolve into specifications, statistics, and jargon and the story is set up and knocked down so succinctly that there's nothing to get really excited about. However, if applied as a sort of philisophical allegory, it might work as a very nice thought experiment for a class. The book holds little margin for error or misinterpretation within its pages and so could be used to help illustrate differences in Eastern and Western thought as well as helping to get people thinking about what it would actually take to get people to stop fighting amongst each other for silly, petty reasons. The book is certainly a call for peace and for that, it's very difficult to fault the author. He's just trying to show a better humanity striving its way towards a utopian existence.

Some mention should be made for the diagrams and illustrations in the book. They're very well-done pencil sketches by artist Dion Hammil and while it might have been nice to see them as full pages in the book the fact that they were included was a very nice bonus.

This book is one that I would recommend to a middle-school or junior high-school aged boy, especially one who hasn't got a great deal of time for reading. The repetitiveness of the book would serve him well if he has to put the book down for a length of time before he gets a chance to read it again. It could be the kind of book that would get boys to read more, especially if they prefer to have far more action sequences in their entertainment and it offers enough in the way of ethical and moral questions that it could probably get him thinking beyond the confines of this fictional world.

Since the folks at EOS were kind enough to send me a copy of The Undead Kama Sutra, I felt that I should extend them the same courtesy and read this book. This is the third book in Mario Acevedo's Felix Gomez detective series, but I don't believe that it is necessary to have had read the first two books (something I haven't done yet).

Perhaps a plot summary is in order, because god knows after you finish reading my review, the summary may be all you want to know of the book. Vampire PI, Felix Gomez, is charged with finding out more information about the near mythical underground sex-tome, The Undead Kama Sutra. It’s held in such regard within the vampire community because it can “realign the chakra” causing vampires to “reverse psychic damage and heal mental and emotional wounds.” Hmm, how philosophical?

But wait, let’s not just stop there: positions in the erotic tome come with such hysterically knee slapping names as “Monkey Laughs at Moon” and “Feeding the Melon.” Can’t stop laughing at how ingenious the names are? Yeah, me neither—so funny! I kept waiting for the “Hidden Trap Door from Behind” position.

Sadly, the position names are the high point of this book. Honestly, I’d rather watch people perform Tai Chi in the park for the rest of my life than want to hear anymore about chakras and The Undead Kama Sutra. I’d rather Tae Bo around the US with Billy Blanks than watch anyone acting out the things found in this sex-tome.

Okay you may be saying, “We get it, but that can’t be all this book is about right?” Fair enough. I guess I forgot to mention that Felix Gomez has also been tasked with the dying wish of his alien buddy to “save the Earth women.” From what you may ask? Well that would be giving things away. Let’s just say, I envy you for not knowing.

Enough negatives, on to the positives—it’s fairly short. It’s also self-contained which is nice I guess. The story ended when the pages ran out. The cover was pretty nice. It was free. Is that enough?

I'm not entirely sure who this series is marketed towards, but it sure isn't me. I feel that the target audience for these books is the 14-17 year-old adolescent boy demographic. The demographic that love The Hardy Boys but always wished there were more soft-core titillation and blood in the stories. The same demographic that watches scrambled porn on cable, enjoys the spice channel, and laughs when they stumble upon their father’s hidden stash of Playboy magazines. I mean many of the characters walk around naked most of the time for no other reason than to be naked. If I have to hear another descriptive of, "she had a bikini that was too small for her breasts and she knew it", I'm going to weep—I’m talking about openly weeping without any regard to shame.

Also Mr. Acevedo's writing is extremely clichéd and weak. Characters go from point A-B with expository that seem almost ridiculously simple.

i.e.: I need to go there- So I get in a car and drive- Here I am driving- Still driving- I pull up to where I was driving towards- I get out of the car and here I am.

Basically, that’s how the descriptives go in this book. Take this "fine" writing and throw plot ideas in a hat and pull things out at random and you have what passes for a story here. I'm not giving this a lower score because like I said, I don't believe I'm the target readership and perhaps 14-17 year-old boys will love the cheesy "is that a pen in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me" dialogue. And besides, it knows it has its fair share of faults and doesn't take itself too seriously, unlike a lot of so called “literary” books out there. Now excuse me while I cry over the wasted hours spent reading this book that I'll never get back.

Not recommended for anyone who is old enough to buy a lotto ticket.

If you liked this also check out: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Supercharged Kama Sutra Illustrated, the always heart numbingly fun “danger stranger” (if you don’t know what that means Google it!), any American Pie movie, and the absurd yet enticing Hardy Boys and the Rainbow Party.

Aliens are living among us. Not the freaky, slimy type of aliens depicted in Men in Black but humanoid beings with abilities beyond us. Each faction, the Greens and the Grays, are refugees from the same world and believe the other group was destroyed. They sought asylum in New York along with millions of other refugees that flooded Ellis Island during the early 20th century. The fragile peace that existed when each thought they were alone while hiding among the human population is now threatened when the Greens stumble upon the Grays.

Roger and Caroline Whittier, a run-of-the-mill human couple, find themselves thrust into the midst of this conflict when they stumble upon young Melanthe Green running for her life. Factions working for peace between the two groups have decided on a strategy to appease everyone. Unfortunately for Melanthe, this strategy is that a Peace Child will be sacrificed - her. The Whittier’s efforts to help her bring each of them out of their self-imposed yuppiedom and challenge their beliefs about each other.

This is not a story about aliens, per se, nor is it the usual space opera that I have come to associate with Timothy Zahn. The focus is really on diplomacy and groups of different types of people getting along with each other. (Although a little twist is thrown in at the end, which I refuse to go into as it would be a spoiler.) Regardless, there are plenty of explosions and shootings, conspiracy and cloak-and-dagger, to reassure me that Mr. Zahn didn’t stray too far afield.

While there are many characters in this book, almost too many, Mr. Zahn still finds time to develop the main ones. I like that Roger Whittier is completely normal yet finds this tremendous strength in himself to do amazing things, even so far as to attempt to broker a peace deal with all the grace and dignity of a UN diplomat (think Jimmy Stuart, here). I admire Caroline for trusting herself, pushing to do the right thing and daring to care for someone who is very different from herself. Most of all, I enjoyed how the two of them are thrust out of the doldrums of their relationship and learn to understand how the other one thinks. In fact, of all the books I have read lately, this one strikes me as having the potential to make a very good movie.

I enjoyed this book because it is different from anything I have read lately. Mr. Zahn has an ability to keep the pace of the story climbing throughout, making it difficult to set the book down until you are finished. I really thought his concept about the Greens and the Grays being . . . Oops, almost forgot - can’t give anything away! I know I will read this book again. Well done, Mr. Zahn.

Some may know I’m a big fan of VALIANT comics and as I of late I have been rereading the early VALIANT titles, which is not to say - at least not limited to - that I am just enjoying the individual origins and exploits of great characters. No, the creative goal of most companies is only half of the obligation, only a portion of the mandate cast upon a Pre-Unity title. With VALIANT, every title, every arc, every issue has significance and relevance. How do we gauge this? The answer to this question is muddled by how we have come to gauge what is important in comics. Presently, companies view the success of a comics on the complex formula of initial kewlness - if it works when it’s thrown out there and purchased, it’s worthwhile. This, again, is only halfway to optimal storytelling. You see VALIANT is not just an umbrella brand, it is more than a unifying selling point for otherwise an in cohesive product - VALIANT is a true comic universe. Certainly such a product demands more of the readers, and investment, or invitation to walk a world full of lives, not just in one; where one can brush up against others and the effect will still be applicable not just a month after. It is not the history dissected into runs or creative teams - it is the history of the entirety of the universe and the footsteps left by characters.

Stranger in a strange land…

So when we read X-O Manowar#1, part one of Retribution, you, even if unknowingly, are not only introduced, but become a participant not in a single life, but a world through his eyes. What shouldn’t be lost is this: it’s about an ass kicking Visigoth barbarian living in our time with who happens to have sweet, semi-sentient, alien suit of armor that makes one Aric Dacia one of the most powerful men on earth that forgot him. It - like the universe it inhabits - is a measured mixture of reality and pulp sensibilities. The first page looks to be something that could have been discussed at a meeting with the Lovecraft Circle or seen in the pages of 1920’s Weird Tales, something Edgar Rice Burroughs may have enjoyed flipping through; a splash of a single man going toe to toe with spider-like monsters, some of which who carry guns in backdrop from a technological level feels much too advanced for either and has you asking who is being invaded who? You come to find out that the man is a displaced barbarian, abducted from his time by a technologically advanced alien race that are a fixture in the VALIANT universe, present in some fashion for thousands of years in the continuity. Aric Dacia spends several years as a slave most of which in a stasis and when we join him in his attempt at escape, a rush to an alien weapon, an armor and a ring, that he has been told will grant him the ability to leave the prison. The X-O Manowar armor is the pride of the Spider Alien’s military development and thus when taken by the enemy become their greatest fear. It leaves, now in the possession of a man who has a history of violence and upholding vendettas. How long a history would surprise even Aric, as he plummets home, to earth, where it’s now 1992.

These opening issues show us a man trapped out of his time, yet the keeper of an armor that’s technology that is before its time. Aric has gone from a warrior amongst many in the 5th century to arguably one of the most powerful individuals on the planet and that’s before via hostile take over, he achieves controlling interest in a powerful corporation. There is a simplistic quality or plainness to the narrative that in some regard may be overdone, I’d like to think humanity didn’t have a personal train of thought of a retard even in the 5th century, but I think for the most part conveys, before you are even told that his is not you or me - yet he is - in true VALIANT fashion we are thrust into a story that not only has more to come, but is already the culmination of an as of yet untold story. We assimilate the new environment with Aric; to him he is in a foreign land of wizards and magic, where he as if a member of Arthur’s court visited Hank Morgan instead. Aric becomes a target, even as he always perceives himself as the ultimate predator, he is the true wolf, and indeed in wolf's clothing, yet still a perceived sheep in a world that has passed him by. The Aliens on earth - able to disguise themselves - want their armor back and perhaps even more of a threat he garners the attention of other powers in the world.

“What men won’t do for power"

I have said this before but the VALIANT Universe’s continuity - the portion of which that took place in our time - is chronicled in real ‘time’. Toyo Harada, the head of the Harbinger Foundation and one of the most powerful men in the world even if he wasn’t an Omega Harbinger first perceives Aric as a threat then see’s the possibilities of being his ally, we see the cast from the Harbinger title - a group dedicated to stopping Harada also take an interest in Aric due to his communication with Toyo. Solar appears; VALIANT’s most powerful character leaving a warning in true hero fashion. In short we witness convergence of powers, a reaction to another extraordinary element added to the world - X-O Manowar. What must be understood is that the VALIANT Universe is meant to be our own world, where its inhabitants may be reading DC and Marvel comics. What is also a rather unique VALIANT technique, and illustrated in this issue span (issue#4) is the unheralded first appearance of a future major player in the universe. In an era associated with the speculative boom, and certainly VALIANT practiced in some of the more undesirables flair associated with it, this was the best gimmick: When I say unheralded, I mean no crazy banners, no audacious or obnoxious billboard covers advertising it - they give you a reason to read their books, and in the future, the promises revealed occur in-page, not on the cover or final page, and be it days or months later it affords the reader that special, almost now unheard of opportunity to think, "Oh shit, the books I read before really matter", and it was planned, not a retcon, it was creative not clever manipulation. In the case in this issue you literally just have to sit back and enjoy the ambiance and just listen to the music.

Now do not mistake me, these issue don't force you to buy other titles to get a complete story to then decide whether the first one was worthwhile or not - it instead genuinely makes you want to explore the other titles, other corners, to follow that glimpse. It appeals to our curiosity. Who were those crazy kids in taht ugly green careand why did they jump me? If I want to find out I can go read Harbinger - but for now Aric has more important things to do like getting his pimp on at Mardi Gras. It's so not superhero-comic like yet completely rational to us, we don't question it, we just love it.

"House…Broken.."

We also see that Aric is not a ‘hero’ at this point, he certainly has a moral compass and belief system, but it is from his time. Aric may go out and bring back somebody’s head - without the body - you see him make gaffs and his frustration as he assimilates our language and modern customs but he draws apt parallels; muggers are bandits, and again we see those instances that keep us grounded.: In true comic fashion he foils an ambush and promises vengeance but what does he do next? He has to rest - the tranquility of the moment exhibits that this is what Aric has done his whole life - X-O Armor or not. You are able to use panels to showcases this when you are committed to the atmosphere by expressing it in the pages. His rite of passage, his understanding will take him where many of us thought to go in our own youth, in our own exploration of a brave new world, where stage names are given to performers on stage not to men or women in spandex.

The zero issue was actually released around the same time as the 19th issue yet can be read prior to the regular series. Personally, I prefer reading it after the first 6 issues I this case as it takes us to the activities just prior to the first page of the first issue and offers Aric in his own time, the birth of his rage, where in a short turbulent time span, Aric will change faiths, witness Roman demons, and find himself the prisoner of Aliens. It does not answer all the questions, but it attempts to, even finally telling us the fate of the King.

There is this semi-prevalent comparison between Iron Man and X-O Manowar, and I guess the comparison would have some veracity on a very superficial level. X-O Manowar done badly, could have been a catchpenny pastiche of Iron Man, a thought that may have been perpetuated by a crossover between the two characters in 1996. This hypothetical concern, at least in VALIANT’s early years was averted. Creative direction is not all about pushing boundaries and just seeing what can be done, it’s also about knowing what shouldn’t be done - and acknowledging the key word ‘direction’ is as important as the preceding word. On top of that, ‘creative’ doesn’t imply originality, the man lost in time, the man given something beyond him, a suit of kick ass armor, alien invasions, the rise of powerful Global Corporations exerting influence in our world, a barbarian warrior, these are elements any functional semi-aware person has seen or experienced in fiction or in the real world, but much in the way they took two, storied, pre-existing characters in Magnus and Solar to be the foundation of their new Universe, it is the application and the editorial sensibilities that make it work. There is a distinct ‘real science’ flavor to the universe that one would comically think and is contradicted by being ran amok by a mixture of iconic pulp facsimiles’, Conan finding Robotechnology, yet what occurs is this fascinating place - our own world, and the exploration of it from as many diverse perspectives as possible. I feel like the first family on Yancy Street in 1964, stalking down familiar but fictionalized roads, I know where I am, but something else is out there, watching, fighting, and drawing the same breath as me.

I’m holding mine for the hope for more, not just looking up in the sky, but in the corporate board room, the Jazz filled bar, the strip club, central park, N'awlins, stories can come from anywhere, and with the early issue of X-O Manowar, VALIANT tried to take us there.

Jay Tomio
The Bodhisattva

*Just a note: As I noted before VALIANT Entertainment apparently has plans to offer hardcover edition reprinting the early issues of X-O Manowar that will also include a new story by Bob Layton and cover by Sean Chen much in the way they released Harbinger: The Beginning earlier this year. I will next be reviewing Harbinger: The Beginning and for those interested in a recent VALIANT review please check out my thoughts on the RAI TPB that I reviewed earlier this year.

The Wannoshay came to Earth from their far-distant planet - a planet that has become increasingly uninhabitable as the sun begins to burn out. They landed their ships across the Midwestern US and Canada, amongst a populace that has been increasingly divided by domestic terrorism, religious fanaticism and ineffectual attempts by the government to preserve order.

Their arrival was initially greeted with fear and uncertainty, but with the aid of the government, they have begun assimiliating into the human population - learning to speak English, taking up jobs and living in human dwellings. Once the initial fear of the Wannoshay was overcome - the alien visitors naturally have fascinated the human population. A handful of humans are drawn by irresistible curiosity to learn more about the Wannoshay: Father Joshua - a human priest, Ally Trang - a young Blur addict, Shontera - a single mother, Tim "Skin" Blair - a young hunter and his erstwhile companion Shermie, an eccentric Native American.

However, assimilation into human society has its pitfalls - the Wannoshay are soon plagued by outbreaks of violence and addiction to the insidious new drug Blur, which has already claimed its fair share of human victims. After a series of mysterious explosions occur, the government rounds the Wannoshay up and places them in camps "for their own protection", but the alien's problems are far from over as a mysterious sickness begins to take a toll.

Jasper draws some interesting parallels to our own history - the struggle for civil rights, the forcing of Native Americans into reservations, etc. In addition, the examination of what happens when two totally disparate cultures collide poses some thought-provoking questions. Do we have the right as humans to impose our authority on aliens from another world? How would we handle Wannoshay landing in our present time and place?

The book does leave something to be desired though - I would have liked to see more detail on the government's dealings with the Wannoshay, in particular the "first contact" after their landing. There are some brief chapters from the perspective of one of the Wannoshay and they do relate some of their history in the course of the book, but the story has a narrow focus on the human protagonists. The pacing is abrupt at times and there isn't much of a "big picture" view of how the events have affected humanity.

As such, the story feels a bit one-sided without the Wannoshay perspective on the major events occuring throughout - their first encounters with humans, the assimilation process, being forced into camps, etc.

However, Jasper does effectively convey the Wannoshay's utterly alien nature from the perspective of humans, even after the barriers to communication have been broken down. The human characterizations are also particularly well drawn (Ally, Joshua and Shontera especially), though Skin and Shermie aren't quite as well developed. Some of the best moments in the book center around the often awkward but at the same time touching interactions between the Wannoshay and the humans as they struggle to understand and connect with one another.

In the end, The Wannoshay Cycle evokes a scenario of the near future that has the ring of plausibility.

My latest review is “Paraworld Zero” by Matthew Peterson. This is a young adult story. Simon Kent is an orphan. He’s never known his parents. He’s a 7th grader in a New York City secondary school that teaches grades 7-12. Small for his age, he gets picked on regularly by the high schoolers, especially by a fellow orphan named Butch. Simon tries to avoid the bullying, for example, by wearing glasses he doesn’t need because “nobody hits a kid with glasses.” It doesn’t work and video games are his only friend.

Simon’s life takes a turn when he learns about his mother and the amulet that she left for him. The next day his high school bullying turns violent. As Simon is running for his life, he meets Tonya, and his life is changed forever. Together they go on an adventure that he never could have imagined, as he learns of parallel universes, magic, other races, and the mysteries of other worlds.

This book follows the Harry Potter template of wizards and magic, the discovery of great wizardly power, and likely a secret destiny to be fulfilled. It combines Star Wars aspects as well, as we see space ships, laser guns, and a group that wishes to bend the ‘paraverse’ to their worldview. These are definitely all elements that a young adult would find very exciting, along with the camaraderie among Simon and the new friends me makes, some teenage crushes, and some funny scenes within the story. It’s a face-paced story with lots of action and character interaction among the kids. Tonya has hair that changes color with her moods, which is an element that I think can really draw in a child reader’s imagination. It has plenty to offer to make it an exciting page-turner for its young adult audience of around 12 or so.

This story is definitely targeted for the young adults though. While I definitely recommend it for that audience it’s not a book that is going to cross over with the adult crowd. The book is 251 pages. The plot develops very quickly without any subtlety that is going to draw in an adult reader. The story could have used at least a few more pages at the beginning to develop Simon the bullied orphan and regular kid before diving headfirst into adventure.

The plot progresses predictably. The good people seem very nice in the story, the bad people very bad, and the moral lessons of the story are painted in sharp black and white. That works well for the kids audience in delivering the message of the story but it’s going to come across as one-dimensional for an adult. I don’t think that there’s any doubt though that the book is written specifically for the young adult audience, and is not attempting to duplicate the widespread multi-audience appeal of Harry Potter.

Paraworld Zero is billed as book one. It sets a solid base for books to come. Book one set the main plot on one particular parallel world, as Simon, Tonya, and friends spent time there and had a number of adventures. We then saw a secondary plot of the politics and goings on in the overall paraverse, involving other characters who will definitely be recurring and may also become major characters. I think this formula of a primary adventure in the nearly limitless number of parallel worlds intertwined with the growing threat to the government and social structure of the universal power structure would work very well. The two aspects came suddenly and a bit jarringly together at the end of the book. I’m not sure if this was done to move the entire series in a different direction or just to provide clarification for the young audience as to what characters were of continuing importance to the plot and how they all related to one another. My personal hope is that it was the latter. The routine travel among countless parallel universes is the most exciting part of the series, along with the development of Simon. Given the large number of parallel universes that were implied it would be a shame if that idea were not used to its potential.

For the young adult audience I rate Paraworld Zero a 7.

VALIANT as a universe began with the Solar: Man of the Atom and Magnus: Robot Fighter, two former Gold Key titles given new life and chosen to draw the first breath in a universe that would in its early years rival the creative height any other company – large or small – would reach. It is against our nostalgic sensibilities to makes such claims, but there is a magic to early VALIANT that I relate to in feeling – obviously not industry or social impact – but in terms at being in its bare roots gee-whiz science fiction and kindred to the magic of Ditko Spiderman, or Kirby and Lee Fantastic Four, or O’Neil and Adams Green Lantern; explorative works of wonder that still catered to our sense of the reality around us. With VALIANT it was a universe; and featured a not always linear manner of storytelling but fit with a tight continuity and if Magnus and Solar were the lungs that initiated breath in the setting with two era-essential storylines (Steel Nation and Alpha and Omega respectively) then RAI was its heart.

I wasn’t able to get these books when I was younger as when I became aware of the top-notch storytelling the prices of VALIANT back issues simply exceeded my weekly allowance. VALIANT was on fire, and caught in the speculator boom of the early 90’s when coupled with a miniscule print runs really priced these out of my range excluding reading about them in Wizard Magazine, cementing spots in their Top Ten hottest comics (this was when Wizard was a comic book magazine and practiced some form of journalism in its pages) feature.

This TPB collects and chronicles the first four issues of Rai, the first major original VALIANT character, as well as the pivotal issue #0. These do not account for his first appearance as they would occur in the pages of Magnus as the secondary story in a flip-book format in that title. It is there where the story of Magnus and Rai joining forces to defeat an alien invasion was chronicled, a victory that’s ramifications would include the country of Japan to be cast into the atmosphere orbiting the earth and its god-like patron to depart for love. Japan now floating above the rest of the world, not cut off but instead just serving a Tokugawa-like, symbolic and active isolationism but also has the more immediate impact on the central character. One cannot even pretend there has been no change, you live in the same place but the horizon seems different – it is gone – and you cannot run from it, there is no place to go and Rai would not want to but the comfort of knowing you can is a unknown presence you are not alerted to until it is no longer an option.

Rai is the traditional guardian of Japan, a responsibility of blood that served Grandmother – the robot that effectively maintained and managed the country. Their robo-obachan lost, Japan enters a scared new world and the symbol of the old world is going through personal crisis, he finds himself without a master, a ronin, and left without someone to dictate his cause he is forced to confront his identity not just a role. He struggles to find his place in a civil war, in his family, in the world he helped save. The people of Japan are shown to be in two rival social-political camps during this transition period and the country is in involved in a civil war between what could be considered the legitimate government, a government of the people, ran by humanity for humanity and that of those who yearn and try to facilitate the return of their mechanical god. It is all however, not so simplistic – yet certainly fundamentally – at the heart of it all are just individuals who seek power for themselves. What is left is a country that doesn’t know which to embrace more; its past, present, or future, a dilemma that is personified and magnified in Rai’s personal life by his father (the previous Rai), his wife, and his infant son. We see choices and not too subtle political and social options played out, we see the development of a drug culture and how one governs individual self and how to fit that into government. In the end you can’t help anyone or stand for anything until you are satisfied with doing either for yourself.

It is an interesting project for Micheline who probably has more quality runs on several glamour titles than anyone who is not more of a household name helming some classic Iron Man work with Bob Layton that’s probably the definitive run for many not to mention being the writer during Spiderman run that saw the creation of Venom that was also the mega-popular McFarlane Amazing Spiderman era. He offers an unfixed view of Rai, VALIANT readers had already been introduced to him, and while he is clearly a noble-hearted figure at his core he does not offer him to us on a pedestal, we make our choice, as Rai himself does. As a reader, it wouldn’t be an unfair observation to label Rai’s personal struggle to border on incessantly whiney and bordering on annoyance on par with the worse examples that occur currently in comics, you find yourself wanting him to take any advice just to give him a direction – we pity him, we are annoyed of him, we root for him, and before we know it, we care. In many ways he is Peter without Ben, with power and conscious of responsibility but not the direction or anchor mimicked by his free floating nation.

The art for the first four issues was supplied by Joe St. Pierre and the third issue sports one of the great covers of that decade, a traditional beast created with a future technology attempting to swallow Rai whole. While VALIANT certainly had high profile (or those that would become such) and even legendary figures working for them in various degrees like Steve Ditko, Barry Windsor-Smith, Frank Miller, Dave Lapham, Bob Layton, Dave Lapham, Rags Morales, Sean Chen, Bart Sears, Joe Quesada, Bart Sears, Paul Gulacy among others, their early accomplishment was a brand of storytelling that seems almost a vintage novelty in today’s market: that art and writing combined to make a greater whole – the story. The art tells a story, it’s not just splash art around dialogue; it’s a synergy between two skills to craft story, the very essence comic books and the first issues of Rai like the rest of the Pre-Unity VALIANT aren’t only worthwhile reads but also combines with the others to create a unique corner in the medium that represent the most impressive attempt at a superhero universe outside of the big two.

Forgive me a moment as I practice the very height of arrogance, I will quote what I said in May when I made this comment at my blog about VALIANT:

"People ask me about the television show: Heroes. I dig it, I really do - and the reason why is that it’s essentially Valiant-lite, they keep you in reality, revel in it, but understand wonder is a fundamental ingredient, it is not the escape it is the diving into the exploration of, and reestablishment of what can and cannot be real."

Which brings us to a weakness in the TPB. Understanding and applying it as a piece - a significant piece - of the tapestry, it’s a fundamental cog in a project that‘s whole is better than the parts. RAI#1-4 are real nice reads, but isn’t a brilliant example of comic book storytelling, it is part of a greater dream. The VALIANT fan cherishes the pieces with the benefit of the image of the whole picture, and no matter how nice some won’t be able to appreciate a piece of the frame completely especially how the fourth issue ends. What you get in Rai is not only the next piece in the grand scheme but you get the contrast with the Magnus character, two that are as close to being reflections of each other but are still opposites.

Holy blood, holy grail…

The VALIANT universe was rendered to readers via titles that were published simultaneously at two different parts of the timeline, present day (and in real time) and in the far future (4001). The blood of a future Rai is one of and perhaps the most significant binding element of the two threads, as the remnants of the nanotech that resided in a character of the present day VALIANT setting, a former mob hitman Bloodshot, through history will be over what wars were fought for and why revolutions would begin and affect entire generations of the VALIANT universe. It became a real sangreal and openly desired by one of the most powerful men on earth, Toyo Harada whose corporation would come to control the majority of the world and himself was an Omega Harbinger, a being of almost unsurpassed natural ability and power – and one of the two or three most potent minds not just in the world, but in its history. The last arc of the collection is Rai#0, a time jumping mosaic piece that tells the story of the Blood of Heroes and works in a manner much like Brad Meltzer’s zero issue for the recent JLA relaunch – it casts the possible and inevitable, creating different perspectives running in both directions of the timeline. We witness heroes fall and heroes born, of legacies earned and lost and of familial bonds that spanned centuries. It is a piece that is often the subject of differing opinions and represented a transition period for the company’s creative infrastructure, for myself however, it remains the fulcrum, an issue that echoes the greatness that was and a view – even if fractured and tainted – of what could have been, an issue on reflection that is a memorial of VALIANT’s rising sun in the process of burning out. Still hot – but not the light in the industry it once was.

Jay Tomio
The Bodhisattva

“Fleet of Worlds” is part of Larry Niven’s Known Space future history best known as the setting of the Ringworld books. However, while it utilizes characters and settings from other Known Space books, extensive knowledge of Known Space isn’t essential to understanding the book. The book does contain a number of other nods to other Known Space stories and events, however, so a previous knowledge of the setting will increase enjoyment of the book. It is also Niven’s first collaboration written in that setting.

In 2198, the human interstellar colonist ship “Long Pass” suffers a mishap in deep space, but is salvaged by a race of aliens who call themselves Citizens, but who are better known to most of humanity (and long-time Niven readers) as Puppeteers. “Long Pass’” crew does not survive, but the thousands of frozen human embryos aboard are taken by the Puppeteers, grown to adulthood, and given a place to live on one of the Puppeteers’ agricultural worlds, ignorant of their own origins.
The Puppeteers are an ancient and advanced race of tripedal herbivores with technology far surpassing that of humanity. Even the boldest Puppeteer is pathologically cowardly by human standards, and those few Puppeteer’s willing to risk themselves by traveling in deep space or dealing with outsiders are considered insane by their own kind.

Their home, the Fleet of Worlds, is a group of five planets, the Puppeteer homeworld and four agricultural planets, set adrift from their home stars and propelled through space by a reactionless drive to escape an approaching wave of deadly radiation from the galactic core, sustained by artificial suns and Puppeteer civilization’s staggering waste heat. On one of the agricultural worlds is Arcadia, the continent given to human habitation.

450 years after the demise of the “Long Pass,” The Puppeteer’s are faced with a problem: they need to scout ahead to ensure that the path of the Fleet of Worlds is safe, but Puppeteers capable of leaving the safety of the Fleet and braving the dangers of hyperspace travel are hard to come by. An innovative solution is reached: crew scout ships with humans, who are all insanely oblivious to risk by Puppeteer standards.

So, a crew of four humans is sent, guided by an insane Puppeteer named Nessus. They search solar systems along the route of the Fleet for potential threats, and in particular for any intelligent race that might develop the technology to harm the Puppeteers. Along the journey one of the human crew, Kirsten Quinn-Kovacs, begins to wonder about the lost history of her own race. Where did they come from? Just what caused the wreck of the “Long Pass?” Are her races’ benefactors, the Puppeteers, telling everything they know? Her attempts to discover the truth about her people will send her into dangerous conflict with both her fellow humans and powerful factions within the Puppeteer government.

“Fleet of Worlds” is an extremely satisfying science fiction story and a worthy addition to the Known Space universe. The central plot is exciting and suspenseful, and the alien setting allows Niven’s talent for bizarre aliens to come to the fore. The solution to the book’s central mystery was somewhat predictable, but the details surrounding it were interesting and the revelation is executed well.

Aliens figure prominently in the in the form of both the Puppeteers-whose society is shown in more detail than in previous Known Space books- and a new race, the aquatic and frighteningly intelligent Gw’oth. Several Puppeteers figure prominently as characters, and they are well-drawn and interesting. Much of what the readers see of Puppeteer society has already been revealed in other books, but this is the best close look we’ve had of them through their own eyes. Unfortunately, the human characters are somewhat less satisfying, and are not as memorable as their Puppeteer counterparts.
While the book stands alone reasonably well, it definitely rewards a prior knowledge of Niven’s work. There are lots of little bits- especially in the parts Puppeteers manipulation of Earth society- that tie into past books, giving new context to previously know details about Known Space and clearing up a mystery or two.

I would definitely recommend “Fleet of Worlds” for any fan of Larry Niven and Known Space. For those unfamiliar with Niven’s work, it may be better to start elsewhere- perhaps with “Tales of Known Space” or “Ringworld”- and then return to “Fleet of Worlds.” Either way, “Fleet of Worlds” is well worth your time.

Punktown, on the planet Oasis. In this sprawling metropolis, a Lovecraftian evil is stirring - spreading its shadowy tentacles through the city. When his girlfriend discovers a copy of the Necronomicon - an ancient text reputed to summon the Great Old Ones - Christopher Ruby is thrust into a nightmare as his girlfriend falls prey to the dark forces unleashed. Fleeing into Punktown's underground, he searches frantically for clues to what his girlfriend has brought into the universe...

I have to admit I had trouble rating Monstrocity. On the one hand, the setting of Punktown itself is intriguing. However, the mythos underpinning the story doesn't fare as well. I liked the ideas Thomas came up with, but in the end, it doesn't stray far from its inspiration and the story feels a bit rushed. Additionally, the writing is serviceable if rough at times.

It's unfortunate, because Thomas does have some great material to work with and an evidently fertile imagination. In the end, I'd like to rate it higher but I feel like there's potential here that was a bit wasted on a retread of Lovecraft's work. Perhaps if the book had been longer, allowing more time to build up tension and focus more on the "evil city" feeling, that could have helped.

In the end, it's a nice effort and I'm interested to read Thomas's other Punktown work to see how it compares.

Devil's Due is well known for their excellent comics including G.I. Joe, Hack/Slash, Voltron, Xombie, and others. They are one of the great smaller comic book publishers out there. This time they take their great creative energy and come up a new original series that is more than a simple comic bash, but a thought harvesting story in a world near annihilation.

Drafted's storyline follows a phenomenon happening across the world: emergency rooms are filling up with people that are having severe migraines. Then the story takes a leap in the direction of the War of the Worlds, while exploring cultural tensions and human rights. The story toys with the Israeli VS Palestinian conflict some and also hits home about how the US is relied on to come to the aid of the whole world. After the migraine phenomenon blows over another disaster hit: Earthquakes kill hundreds of thousands of people. If things couldn't be worse they are contacted by aliens who forecast impending doom.

The characters seem (at this point) very well thought out. Nasr & Ben are the odd couple; Nasr is Palestinian, while Ben is Jewish. Both are quarantined in Jerusalem following the migraine outbreak. President Walker and his staff are trying to manage the USA's response to the problem. Gabriel is the owner of a local corner store in New York, but we're not entirely sure what his role will be just yet. There are a bunch of characters that are spread all over the world, with no known role at this point. The cover gives us a hint that the people of earth might come into possession of some more futuristic weapons and equipment as well.

Drafted #1 does what only comic books can do: deliver a combination of current events blended with the exploration of the human condition. Throw in politics, cultural tension, aliens, and one hell of a cliffhanger and Devil's Due has a surefire thrilling read. Now I have to sit here hating the fact that I will have to wait for Drafted #2.

One of the things I find interesting about "hard" science fiction -- by way of introducing Peter Watts's Hugo-nominated novel Blindsight, the best example of the type that I have read in years -- is that it is probably the most legitimate heir to the original remit of story, a remit that has existed since humans first gained sufficient consciousness and intelligence both to create stories and to need to create stories. Looking at the earliest stories we have record of, we can always see several purposes at work: stories existed to inform; to entertain; and, from the start, stories have existed at the level of myth to theorize, to suggest and test possibilities about the unknown elements of the world that we see and experience. What are those odd looking animals, where did they come from; where did we come from; what are those flashes of light in the darkness?

I imagine that within any given movement, though, there comes a time when some sufficiently large number of people -- a majority in fact or at least in voice -- decides that they've carried things as far as they want to, that any further change, any further speculating, is as likely to impact them for the worse as for the better. And we can see this in modern Western fiction, as the new game of literature is "the human condition" -- showing what we know rather than grappling with what we don't know. There is the pressure to see literature according to a single aesthetic, to judge it based solely on how well it captures our humanist understanding of a fixed present. It's no surprise that such a static, unchanging view of the world would be anathema to a writer like Peter Watts, an evolution-minded marine biologist by training. Watts understands that life is not static, that we are part of a world, part of a universe, that is constantly evolving. At a high level, Watts is interested in how this evolution, our evolution, may play out; he is as interested in what we don't yet know about ourselves as what we do. It's easy to see why this type of speculative fiction has become gauche in many circles: we like to think we know everything.

That state of human self-satisfaction nicely sums up where Blindsight begins. It is 2082, and Earth is shaken out of its contemplation of the Fermi paradox by the sudden arrival of tens of thousands of alien probes. These "Fireflies" quickly appear in Earth orbit, take a snapshot of our world -- our technologies, communications and activities -- broadcast that captured data out into space, and then burn up in our atmosphere. Watts's description of the event is characteristic of the book as a whole: densely filled with detailed jargon, yet sleek and sharp because of that very precision of language; fast-paced and poetic.

In typical SF fashion, a swiftly-united Earth responds by assembling a small team of specialists to follow the probes' signal to its destination. There the team encounters the alien, the Other. Described thus, the surface-level plot of Blindsight is self-consciously pedestrian, a first contact/"big dumb object" melange that evokes such novels as Sagan's Contact, Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, Niven's Ringworld, and Lem's Solaris -- with a mix of the horrors found in films like 2001 and Alien. What becomes clear as the novel progresses, however, is that Watts is attempting a very dextrous piece of narrative sleight of hand, where the conventional SF setup gradually bleeds into the thesis and thought-experiment that is at the heart -- or rather, the mind -- of Blindsight. At issue is consciousness, viewed from an unsentimental, relentlessly biological perspective.

The composition of the team sent by Earth is one of our first clues as to what Watts is up to (if the book's title wasn't enough). Each character represents a different mix of, or perspective on, the interplay between consciousness and intelligence.

Siri Keeton is our narrator, and as presented he seems eminently qualified to be so. Childhood brain surgery to cure his epilepsy took with it Siri's ability to feel empathy; to compensate, he has developed a refined sense of information topology, the ability to model interior characteristics based solely on exterior appearances, surfaces. Siri's task is to observe and report back to Earth as the mission progresses, using his skills to translate the complexities of the alien into language and concepts that a general audience can understand.

Susan James is the group's linguist, four separate people (consciousnesses) residing in a single brain, timesharing a single intelligence to work out linguistic problems from four different angles. Amanda Bates is the military arm of the expedition, a woman whose single consciousness is a gatekeeper to the multiple intelligent battle drones she commands. Isaac Szpindel is the medical officer, a man who has expanded his conscious sensory perception outside of himself, into his medical tools and equipment. The Captain of the ship is a sophisticated artificial intelligence -- an intelligence without apparent sentience -- who communicates mainly with the mission leader, Jukka Sarasti. And Sarasti is a vampire.

Yes, I did just write "vampire," in a review of a book I have labeled "hard science fiction." This may admittedly stretch the definition a bit, and acceptance of this aspect may indeed be a litmus test for how well a reader will appreciate the book. Watts does present a thorough, biologically-grounded explanation for how vampires might have come to exist in 2082, down to a sensory glitch, an inability to parse intersecting horizontal and vertical lines, that explains their legendary aversion to crucifixes. What is most important though is what vampires symbolize within the book. A recurring theme in science fiction has always been -- since Frankenstein -- the idea of human augmentation, the use of technology to bolster human strength and/or intelligence; SF often investigates what happens when these augmented individuals turn on their normal human "masters." What Blindsight does so daringly (following in the footsteps of books like Paul McAuley's Fairyland and Gene Wolfe's essay "How Science Will Conquer the World for Fantasy" from Castle of Days) is co-opt a symbol of the fantastic, of horror, for these science fictional purposes. Vampires are not just faster, stronger, smarter; they think differently than humans, see the world differently. One of the excellences of Watts's book is the selection of vampires as the perfect symbol of our fears of the augmented human, the post-human: a human-like species whose superior level of fitness causes them to see normal humans as prey.

This is all rather alien, and we haven't even gotten to the aliens yet. Suffice to say that Watts's big dumb object turns out to be a big smart object; when communication with it is achieved it names itself Rorschach, a name that in the context of the story has several meanings, not least of which is a sign that humanity will be judged based on what they project onto it. The judgment itself is a foregone conclusion: Siri reveals very early in his narration that he is returning from the encounter alone. "Point of view matters," muses Siri: "I see that now, blind, talking to myself, trapped in a coffin falling past the edge of the solar system. I see it for the first time since some beaten bloody friend on a childhood battlefield convinced me to throw my own point of view away." It's how and why this outcome occurred, how Siri came to his realization, that are the core story, and argument, of the book.

Interspersed with Siri's story of the encounter with the alien Rorschach are flashback sequences where Siri shares some of his past -- which gives Watts a chance to flesh out several other perspectives in his argument. Siri's own mental state is explained through the story of the "beaten bloody friend on a childhood battlefield": it's the first of several echoes of Card's Ender's Game, although Watts proceeds to render that book rather, well, juvenile. Siri's mother, meanwhile, is a self-obsessed aesthete. She has largely forsaken biological life, instead choosing to live in a virtual realm whose chronobiological shapes and sounds trick her brain into thinking that her body's needs are being met. His father occupies the opposite side of the spectrum, being more other-focused, empathetic. Finally, Siri's ex-girlfriend, Chelsea, represents a modern psychological point of view, the idea that natural impulses can be overcome through therapy; she is "a woman whose professional machinery edited thought itself." It is in their relationship especially that we see the conflict within Siri, what his consciousness wants for himself versus what his intelligence has learned about others:

Blindsight is a challenging book in many ways. As a scientific argument it is difficult and unpalatable, a bitter pill to swallow; as a piece of writing it is dense with philosophical allusion and scientific detail, requiring the reader to either be familiar with the associated language, or confident enough to plow forward trusting Watts to explain the important bits of terminology (as he nearly always does). Not least of the challenges, though, is deciphering Siri. His surgery has rendered him rather impersonal and unlikable, and he is not always aware of how conflicted his own perspective is. Indeed, Siri is not always aware, period. As the book progresses we realize more and more that Siri is as unreliable as any of Gene Wolfe's famous narrators; not intentionally so, but unavoidably so, because he is human and thus necessarily has a narrow focus, a susceptibility to misdirection. Such is the argument that Watts is making and his skill in making it, however, that by the end of the book, when the narrative collapses and we, like Siri, are left experiencing effects without knowing causes, this can only feel right and necessary. It is after all the narrative limitation we all live with. And while aspects of the story are, from the beginning, rather grim and uncertain, balanced with these aspects is the change that we come to see has occurred in Siri, a sense that he has regained at least part of what he had lost as a child.

It is appropriate on several levels that the ship in Blindsight that the crew travels on is named Theseus, that the novel is a clash between Theseus and Rorschach. Out of the fiery collision between the mythic quest to explore and investigate the mysteries of the natural world, and the modern focus on human behavior in our world, Peter Watts has created something troubling but exhilarating: a sense that we're not yet done, that there is more yet to discover about being human. Hard science fiction at its best, as Watts makes clear, may well have a role in any such discovery. What hard SF does is allow us to ask questions, interrogate and assimilate theories about being human, both via rational examination of data and irrationally, as story, turning the intuitive part of our brain loose on ideas. As Blindsight suggests, that intuitive part may not only be smarter than we think, it may be smarter than we can think.

-- Matt Denault

On the surface, this is a story about and narrated by the main character - Emily, a 16 yr old daughter of divorced parents. She spends every summer at Cape Cod with her professor father and hanging out with friends at the beach. Her first order of business this summer was to find her best friend Reese and check out the boys. These plans are sidewinded by a couple of mysterious young men who turn out to not be young men at all but immortal aliens living at the bottom of the ocean. They desperately need the help of Emily and her friends and this is where the action takes off. Amid several unexplainable events, Emily and her friends face opportunities to stand for their convictions in the midst of crisis.

As you get further into the book, however, you see that we face the same crisis as the aliens. Interwoven in the story is a sense of helplessness regarding the fate of our world and the responsibility we have towards life here. Humanity is not portrayed as evil, but has possibilities. We could be reaching out to help, not to destroy. Yet, is it already too late?

The author shows a good grasp of the adolescent mind: someone who firmly believes the world revolves around self, yet paradoxically has an unlimited ability to accept the unexplainable and to give endlessly to it. I found myself buying into the storyline, even though it was reminiscent of the movie Cocoon. This was a great way to break down some very big ideas for young readers regarding stewardship of the Earth, the circle of life, and the importance of communication. As one of the aliens explained, “all creatures have language. Humans say the same thing. All the creatures say the same thing. I am here; where are you?”

Unfortunately, the ending was abrupt and reminded me of my own summer vacations as a teenager. At the beginning I was full of anticipation regarding the upcoming adventure. In the middle, desperation took over as I attempted to achieve all the intended activities. Finally, the end - where reality takes over and I realize the summer that promised so much had delivered so little. While this book might thoroughly satisfy young readers, I felt he could have done more with the characters in his wrap up. His ending carried a hint of potential, yet I was left feeling confused and deflated. In addition, the aliens become a bit redundant and overdo it as they lecture the kids on the reason for the existence of said aliens.

Like my summer vacations, I will carry a few good memories of They Came From Below. Regrettably, these few will be all I have gathered from this story.