The Diary of A Simple Man

The Last Days of Krypton
By Kevin J. Anderson

One out of ten stars (assuming zero isn't an option)
Shelves: Library, science fiction

The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson was disappointing and lame - so lame that I only got about 130 pages into it before returning it to the library.

Okay, I'm being a little harsh here. Actually, as modern SF goes, I've certainly seen worse (see the execrable Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, which was co-authored by Anderson. Or rather, DON'T see it if you value your sanity, as it may be the worst book ever written. But reading it gave me an insight into why I hate the vast majority of modern science fiction so passionately: it's stupid.

It seems to me that the current generation of SF editors and publishers came into the field after the Golden Age - in most cases, post-1970s. Lots of people working in the business now wouldn't know Roger Zelazny or Fredric Brown if they leaped out of their graves and bit them on the ass.

And I believe they think of science fiction as "childish" literature, for immature, adolescent minds.

Which, of course, it has often been from the very first. But there were always exceptional authors - the cream that rose to the top - who wrote truly intelligent, imaginative, and adult science fiction (and fantasy, of course; I'm not making a distinction between the two right now).

The problem is that back then, there were at least some editors and publishers who could recognize greatness. Now, those perceptive and mature people in the SF publishing industry seem to be gone - probably, I suspect, because the whole industry is far more commercialized than it used to be, far more integrated into the craptastic Hollywood culture that dominates American society. They're all looking so hard for the next Harry Potter that they would not only MISS the next Cordwainer Smith - he wouldn't even be able to get in their door.

I fear that the same must be said for fans. It may be that the vast majority of younger fans simply don't know what good writing is, because they've never seen it.

There are still a few good writers out there, of course, but they're the exception rather than the rule.

Like Hercule Poirot, I'm not going to pretend that I'm stupid. I'm more intelligent than the average reader (I have other flaws, but I'm not stupid). So maybe that makes me more sensitive to having my intelligence insulted. I can tell when I'm reading something written by someone who is dumber than I am, to put it crudely, and I'd say that 97% of everything new being published these days is either written by a relatively dim person, or deliberately slanted for an audience that the producers of the product consider to be - there's no other word for it - idiots.

And even so, the people producing this crap are not bright. If they were, even their dumbed-down writing would show it - and it doesn't. Typos, logical failures, unbelievable characters, the same tired old cliches again and again and again...lord! I'm so sick of it!

Anderson is a really awful writer, and should never be allowed near a keyboard again. Perhaps he could take up some useful trade, like shovelling raw sewage.

Okay, that's not fair. He's not quite that bad. He'd probably be a very adequate ditch-digger. Just keep him away from a keyboard!

Note: A comment on the original post of this review (elsewhere) asserted that it was unfair of me to criticize a work based on a comic book, by comparing it to high art. The comment also questioned my criticism because I am not a published author. Here's my reply, editing out the quotes from the original comment:

I do see your point. In the same vein, since I have never been a professional chef, I should never criticize any meal served to me at a restaurant, not even if they hand me a dog turd on a plate. Why didn't I see that before?

Okay. Sarcasm aside, although I have never been a professional author - I did make one sale, but the magazine folded before they paid me or published the story - I have indeed written a lot of stuff over the years, and have published both online and in several different amateur press associations. I have one of the older continuously-operating websites still in existence, and have received plenty of feedback, both positive and negative. I don't see why any of this is necessary to justify my low opinion of "The Last Days of Krypton", but there it is. More to the point is that I've *read* a lot.

If my review gave you the impression that I had expected "The Last Days of Krypton" to be high art, you can chalk that up to my lack of professional credentials as an author. I have strong feelings about the decay of modern science fiction and publishing, and inserted those views into the review because that's when those thoughts happened to come into my mind.

However, the fact remains that it is possible to judge quality even when dealing with a genre or class of works which are of generally low caliber. You can taste the burgers of McDonald's and those of Burger King or Wendy's and make perfectly valid comparisons and judgements between them; there are degrees of quality both in swill and the sublime. Merely mentioning that the sublime exists does not invalidate criticism of swill when it fails *even as swill*.

And even as swill, "The Last Days of Krypton" is abysmal. I've read my share of comic books, both crappy ones and those that transcended the former limitations of the genre; I grew up reading comics in the 1960s and 70s, and directly experienced the renaissance of the field in the 1980s and 90s. So I have some experience from a reader's point of view. And from that vantage point, I still maintain: "The Last Days of Krypton" is pure and utter *crap*, an absolute waste of time, and an insult to the intelligence of any reader who actually possesses a mind to be insulted.

To put it as simply as possible, it's a bad book. Really astonishingly bad, which at this point is pretty much par for the course for Mr. Anderson. That there are some who apparently admire it and him baffles me, but there's not much I can do to help such unfortunate souls; all I can do is post my opinion of his shoddy and idiotic work as a warning to others.

This have I done. If your opinion varies, go and do likewise!

Iron Man vs. Doctor Doom: Doomquest by David Michelinie

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Unbelievably putrid. Over and over I sat in stunned amazement, asking myself "Did they really publish stuff this bad back in 1981?"

There are two kinds of stories in comics. One tries to say something meaningful, or at least to present some sort of concept that the reader can be entertained by. The other is the visual equivalent of two three-year-olds trying to one-up each other. "My hero is a million times stronger than yours!" "Oh yeah? Well MY hero is a JILLION times stronger!" Over and over and over. There's no sense to it, and no point.

Which pretty much describes this "book".

Oh, and the authors completely abuse the Arthurian legend. In an incredibly lame "future Arthur" sequence, Merlin is "cool", saying things like - and I am NOT making this up - "Okee doke: One 'Return to Sender' spell, comin' right up!"

Merlin as Jar-Jar Binks. It made me want to beat the author with a club.

So to sum up, the only reason to read this thing is if you want to take a look back to see just how incredibly awful some comic books were, even as recently as 1981 (the art is pretty bad, too). And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to do something - anything - to drive the memory of that unbelievably idiotic writing out of my brain.


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I've been looking for this online for a long time. It's from Critters #50. I have the original in a box in the basement somewhere, but I never got around to digging it out.

Warning, it's not for the faint of heart! It's really funny, but doesn't hold back at all. It will try to turn you into a life-long vegetarian.

Without further ado, here's The Story of Beef!

Found a PDF collection of the old Fineous Fingers comics online. They're as funny as ever!

Batman: Dark Victory by Jeph Loeb


My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I thought long and hard before giving two stars to this one. It's possible that I should have given it three.

It was long, and a decent enough read. In many ways it resembles Frank Miller's acclaimed Batman: Year One miniseries. Much of the art closely resembles David Mazzucchelli's subdued, semi-realistic and oddly crumpled-looking style in Year One. That's not a style I particularly like, but I don't hate it either.

Many of the secondary characters from Year One appear in Dark Victory. But the storytelling style diverges more from Miller's, particularly in the latter half of the book.

In fact, that's the reason I ended up giving Dark Victory only two stars; it starts well, with a promising mystery that seems as if it might be a mystery - that is, that it might be a mystery which the reader could actually have a chance to figure out, rather than simply read and wait for a deus ex machina. The characters are interesting. But as the book progresses, it goes downhill.

I don't like the way that the various supervillains are drawn, for one thing. Semi-realism goes out the window for them, and the effect doesn't work. Two-Face looks as if he's half Mafioso, and half Red Skull - but with a strange-looking nose that manages to be both weirdly long and pug at the same time (and not just on one side, which might make sense, but on both). The Joker is drawn so unrealistically that he might as well be from another universe; his head is twice the size of anyone else's, and half of his face is giant teeth. Again, the effect doesn't work. Robin looks as if he's drifting towards an anime look, of the typical "cute/frightened little kid with a tiny mouth" type.

The writing goes downhill even faster than the art. A major plotline involving betrayal is resolved in an unsatisfying, off-hand manner. The mystery, which began with such promise, sputters out with a whimper; no matter how I try to connect the interesting clues to the resolution, I can't make sense of it. Batman makes more stupid mistakes than he should, throughout; this is NOT a character who should often miss the obvious, and it's annoying when an author plays that tired old card to extend the story.

The addition of Robin to the story doesn't work at all. This is the "dark" Batman, or purports to be, and adding a cutesy/spunky sidekick to that character is a tricky proposition at best. I don't consider Frank Miller to be infallible, but at least he handled the same issue far more skillfully in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. In this book, Robin is just annoying. I can see what the author was going for, an attempt to make the sidekick issue work with the "dark lone avenger" theme, but he simply fails to carry it off successfully.

I think I might have given this book three stars if it hadn't resembled a far superior work so closely in the beginning, and then failed so completely to fulfil its promise.

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Sam & Max Surfin the Highway Anniversary Edition by Steve Purcell

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars

There are two possibilities when you first encounter Sam & Max. One possibility is that you won't get it; at best, it will seem odd and mildly amusing.

The other possibility is that your jaw will drop in amazement that someone out there speaks your secret language - the language of a style of humor that you didn't realize anyone else knew, apart from you and perhaps a few close friends. You'll feel as if you've been reading Sam & Max all your life, saying the same quirky lines back and forth with your friends. And you'll be laughing like crazy.

Sam & Max are freelance police, a six-foot-tall dog who dresses like a 1940s gumshoe, and a white rabbity thing with serious self-control issues. Both carry very large guns, and they're not afraid to use them on anyone or anything.

They live in a world that is completely insane, filled with volcano cults, frightening clowns, criminal rats, giant Moon roaches, ghosts that haunt Stucky's roadside restaurants, and accountants turned pirate - along with uncounted other oddities from the incredible imagination of Steve Purcell.

The violence is not extreme. Well...okay, there's a lot of shooting. A typewriter may have been hurled through an upper-story window. There may have been a disintegration or two. Perhaps an attempted human (dog? rabbit?) sacrifice. Children too young to understand irony probably won't get Sam & Max, but anyone over the age of ten or so would probably be ready.

Sam & Max have been published in many formats over the years. There have been a few comic books from different companies, a guest appearance here and there, some webcomics, a few animated computer games, a TV series with somewhat toned-down versions of the characters, and most recently a Wii game.

This book collects most of the print versions and many of the webcomics. Pick it up, give it a try! If you're one of the people who gets it, you'll be thanking me.

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Hercules amongst the North Americans by Mark Marek

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a f^&*ing funny book. It's also incredibly rare these days. If you're lucky enough to get your hands on a copy, grab it!

It chronicles the adventures of Hercules in modern-day America, circa the mid-1980s. Much of the modern world is confusing to the mighty Hercules; he mistakes a subway train for a monster and battles it to the death. Victory goes to the son of Zeus, of course! The many passengers who are casualties of the affair are an unfortunate side-note.

Hercules also works as a bike-messenger in New York, kills his psychiatrist and carries off his lovely receptionist, discovers the wonder of the Heavy Metal Gods (blasphemy!), and reviews several Greek restaurants.

These comic strips originally appeared in National Lampoon (back when it was funny) and High Times. They're drawn in a deliberately crude style that sets the perfect tone for the book. The whole book, in fact, is packed with good stuff; this is a gem that will have you laughing uncontrollably more than once.

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Marvel 1602 TPB by Neil Gaiman

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars

Neil Gaiman ventures into Alan Moore territory for Marvel. Oddly, it's not a very exciting expedition.

Gaiman may be the victim of expectations. I was a huge fan of Sandman and The Books of Magic. Frankly, nothing he's done since has impressed me half as much.

In 1602, he takes a clever idea - what if all the Marvel superheroes were alive in the time of Queen Elizabeth? - and does less with it than I would have expected.

But I'll admit that in part, that's because Alan Moore has done so much remarkable work with historical comics and heroes that Gaiman suffers by comparison. I'm used to incredibly dense, clever, brilliant stories - books that make you think, references to other works and historical events that are so complex and interwoven that it takes another book (probably by Jess Nevins) to annotate them all.

Gaiman has approached that level of cleverness in the past, with Shakespeare in Sandman. That's universally agreed to be a classic of the genre. But 1602...was just a comic book.

Oh, it's not a bad comic book. It was just surprisingly unimaginative. And oddly enough Gaiman's strongest suit, his sense of mystery and atmosphere, wasn't particularly notable here.

At one point I had to wonder if some editor at Marvel had interfered with the book! Because to my surprise the mystery of the book was killed dead with a somewhat laborious explanation.

Let me see if I can explain.

The book features many classic Marvel characters as they would be if they had been born and grew up in the late 1500s. I'll admit it: this is a neat idea. But it didn't need to be explained. Making the whole point of the story an explanation of why modern characters were somehow re-born in the past (the explanation provided via a certain deus ex machina character) really killed much of the fun out of the story! It took away the atmosphere and mystery.

It was fun the way it was. Why ruin it with a rationalization? Why kill the sense of magic?

There were a few clever and amusing points which I won't spoil, but they certainly didn't make up for the essentially leaden and unmagical tone of the book.

On the plus side, it was well-illustrated. And at nearly 250 pages, it was longer than most graphic novels; a decent way to kill a couple of hours. In a fractional system, I'd have given it a 2.5.

I just expected more from Neil Gaiman, that's all.

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Daredevil Vol. 11: Golden Age by Brian Michael Bendis

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

Expectations.

Sometimes, it's all about expectations. A mediocre book by one of my favorite authors is a greater disappointment than a poor book from a writer who's new to me. And a great book by a new author can be a greater thrill than an equally great book from an author that I know.

Which isn't to say that Daredevil: Golden Age is great, mind you. It's just that Marvel and DC have churned out so many steaming piles of dung in the form of graphic novels, that a relatively good one comes as a positive shock.

As this one was. To my amazement, it was actually well-written, funny, and even pretty intelligent. It managed to avoid the many cliches of the genre. I was - I'll admit it - even a bit impressed! And that's all the more surprising to me because I've never been much of a fan of Daredevil as a character.

To the specifics: the book deals with some of the history of Daredevil and Hell's Kitchen, the area that he...protects, I guess you'd call it. The art style is very reminiscent of the style used in Frank Miller's Batman: Year One; I call it it the prune face school of art, because most characters look like an implosion of wrinkles like the villain Pruneface in the old Dick Tracy comics. The exception is the hero(es) and their romantic interests; they're relatively smooth and cleanly-drawn. As you might guess, I'm not a huge fan of that particular art style.

The storyline itself has been put through what I like to call the Ronco Plot Disjoint-O-Matic. That is, the plot jumps back and forth between relatively ancient history (many years ago), less-ancient history (some years ago), recent history, and "now". The art style changes to reflect the era that's being represented, which is actually a nice touch; I liked it. Ancient history was black and white, and it worked well for me.

But while I understand the use of flashback and telling the story out of chronological sequence, I think that tool was overused here.

That was the bad side of the book from my perspective, neither complaint being particularly damning. The good side? The dialog never insulted my intelligence. The "ancient history" segments were actually refreshing; instead of battling each other, the heroes actually battled crime - organized crime. And yet Bendis was able to make that interesting. The whole thing had more of a "real" feeling to it than 97% of the comics that I've read (leaving out Alan Moore, that is).

Now that I think of it, there was a bit of a hero-vs-hero battle - but it's impressive that I didn't realize it until this moment. Even so, it was very well handled. In fact, it was part of the best sequence in the book: a delightfully terse and convincing explanation of why some people put on tights and fight crime.

It may be worth mentioning that Spiderman make a short appearance, and adds a very nice touch of humor to the book.

All in all, if you're tired of the cliches of the superhero genre (or of poorly handled cliches), I'd say that Daredevil: Golden Age is well worth checking out. It's not utterly self-contained; clearly it's part of a continuing story. But even though I'm relatively ignorant about the character, I found it easy to follow the plot and very enjoyable. I plan to check out other books in the series.

In a fractional system I'd have given this a 3.5. To be honest, it might even deserve a 4.0...but I'm trying not to be swept away in reaction to my original low expectations.

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Origin: The True Story of Wolverine by Bill Jemas

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars

Forgettable.

If you're going to try to create an origin for one of your most iconic characters, that origin had better be (*@#ing memorable. Look at Batman, for example. Or look at what Alan Moore did for the Joker in The Killing Joke. The origin should resonate for the reader.

In Origin, the story kind of lands with a dull thump.

Oh, it's not terrible. The authors clearly tried. They just weren't up to the task, that's all. And so they've created an utterly forgettable, inconsequential, run-of-the-mill...

I'm sorry, what were we talking about again?

Oh yeah. Origin. Sorry, I nodded off.

In a fractional system, Origin would get a 1.8 from me. At best, it was kind of cheesy. I mean, when you've got your character running and howling with wolves, it's a pretty good sign that you're in way over your head...unless you're a really, really good writer. Which these guys aren't. And maybe it was a warning sign that there were three writers on this turkey.

Hmm...if they'd had Wolverine running and gobbling with turkeys...now, that would have been memorable! :D

PS - the claws looked stupid to me. Claws should look like claws, not unicorn horns!

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