BooksOfTheMoon

Paper Girls, Volume 6

By Brian K. Vaughan

Rating: 4 stars

Well, that was weird. Volume six finally wraps up the series, as our papergirls are separated and scattered in time by the somewhat unhinged Erin clone. But they get back together, helped by more clones, and help (somehow, I’m still not really sure how) to bring the time war to a close. Frankly, I’m still not sure why the papergirls needed to be involved, and why the truce that was eventually obtained couldn’t have just happened anyway, but it was a wild ride that kept me entertained throughout.

It’s been lovely throughout getting to know each of the girls, and their distinctive voices. Mac can be a dick, but she has a kind heart, and the puppy romance with KJ that started in the previous volume gets a chance to breathe here. Erin is smart and calm under pressure, KJ gets to prod some serious buttock, and Tiff brings the whole lot together.

There’s some clever simultaneous storytelling in the third issue of this volume, as the stories for all four girls go on at once, with one long, strip each, across each double-page spread, making four panels in total. It took a bit of getting used to, but it was very effective.

I didn’t have a clue how Vaughan was going to end this, but when it eventually came about, I did enjoy it. It was quiet, but hopeful. It really worked. There’s loose ends and unexplained bit – like what were those 4D blobs and what was their agenda? But the main story gets pretty much wrapped up.

I started this series because I’d heard there was going to be a TV series and wanted to experience the original first. Now that I’ve read it, will I watch the Amazon series? Yes, I think I will. It’s been fun spending time with the papergirls, and I want to see how other people imagine them.

Book details

ISBN: 9781534313248
Publisher: Image Comics
Year of publication: 2019

Paper Girls, Volume 5

By Brian K. Vaughan

Rating: 4 stars

I really wish I had kept the first few volumes of this series, rather than returning them to the library as soon as I finished them. Things are starting to make sense, and it’s all a bit wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey, and I really want to go back and reread the earlier stuff in this context. The papergirls are now in the 22nd century, trying to hide from the old timers and still all just looking for a way home. They find some unexpected old friends (and enemies), and we, the readers, start to get, not exactly answers, but we start feeling out the shape of what’s going on.

Chiang’s art has been consistently good throughout, and remains so here. I was unsure of it to start with, but now I can’t imagine anyone else helping to tell this story.

Roll on the final volume. Please let it all make sense!

Book details

ISBN: 9781534308671
Publisher: Image Comics
Year of publication: 2018

Paper Girls, Volume 4

By Brian K. Vaughan

Rating: 4 stars

The papergirls’ intrepid adventure through time continues, now in the year 2000, where millennium bug has turned out to be worse than it did in our timeline [1] and this time the girls find themselves separated from Tiffany, who eventually finds her older self (after dodging a whole load of giant robots that nobody else can see). And… that is a whole thing. If Young Erin was surprised by how similar she was to Old Erin, Young Tiffany, well, doesn’t have that experience! In their quest to find Tiffany, the rest of the papergirls find an older lady who finally offers a bit of infodump explanation for what’s been going on.

This was a lot of fun. Mac continues to be called out on her homophobic crap, and it’s the fact that it’s her peers, not elders, who do so that is so great. There’s a bunch of really interesting new characters and we finally get a clue as to who “Grand Father” is, although it took me ages to remember where I had heard the name before (a problem with library books is that you have to give them back and can’t look them up when you want to find a reference).

Chiang’s visuals are inventive and really help carry the story. The giant robots help with that to some degree, and I must admit that as much as I hate cliffhangers, Vaughan is good at them. I can’t wait to see when the girls have ended up now.

[1] personal peeve here – there’s a narrative that’s developed since the 2010s that the millennium bug was a hoax or wasn’t actually a problem. This is categorically false. The only reason it was a damp squib is because hundreds of programmers spent thousands of person-hours finding all the serious issues and fixing them in the years leading up to the year 2000

Book details

ISBN: 9781534305106
Publisher: Image Comics
Year of publication: 2018

Paper Girls, Volume 3

By Brian K. Vaughan

Rating: 4 stars

Having fallen out of 2016 (literally), the papergirls find themselves in the distant past and have to do what they can to stay alive, stay together and get home. There’s some self-realisation and reflection, and a funny scene as KJ gets her first period, much to MacKenzie’s confusion and disgust.

There’s still not much in the way of answers to what’s going on in the wider story, but I’m (relatively) confident in Vaughan’s storytelling and expecting it all to come together towards the end of the series.

The art remains very pretty. Chiang’s style isn’t usually something that I would enjoy (I’m much fonder of Vaughan’s artist partner for Saga, Fiona Staples), but it really works in this context. There’s lots of oversized panels and splash pages, but the smaller-scale stuff also works really well.

So still very pretty, and with an intriguing story. I look forward to reading the rest of it (although that will have to wait until I can get the other volumes from the library).

Book details

ISBN: 9781534302235
Publisher: Image Comics
Year of publication: 2017

Paper Girls, Volume 2

By Brian K. Vaughan

Rating: 4 stars

The second volume of Paper Girls shoots our intrepid heroines (well, three of them anyway) nearly thirty years into the future, to the incomprehensible year 2016 where they encounter multiple kinds of water, giant TVs and tiny cars. Oh, and more dinosaur-riding time travellers, telepathic future iPhones, and more Erins than you can shake a stick at. Nor forgetting the giant tardigrades. As a famous archaeologist once didn’t quite say: tardigrades. Why’d it have to be tardigrades?

It’s really nice to see how young Erin and old Erin interact. Young Erin is incredulous that she still lives in the same town and works for the same paper, while old Erin doesn’t remember any of what’s currently going, but is jealous of the potential that her younger counterpart has. But despite this, they work well together, as they go off, leaving MacKenzie and Tiffany to search for their own future-selves and they all try to find the missing KJ.

At one point, someone says “Like most people over thirty, they’re monsters”. Ouch! But I guess when you’re young, that’s what it feels like – the grown-ups, who are supposed to be in charge are incomprehensible, and very often seem monstrous.

The art continues to be very engaging. Chiang seems to be having a lot of fun, and there’s loads of wonderful splash pages and oversized panels that let the story flow organically, while still highlighting high notes.

There’s not much in the way of answers here, but it seems that both groups of time travellers want to get their hands on the papergirls. Is there anyone they can trust? The story does keep me engaged, and there’s enough answers and hints of answers to make me want to read more. I just hope that it eventually pays off!

Book details

ISBN: 9781632158956
Publisher: Image Comics
Year of publication: 2016

Paper Girls, Volume 1

By Brian K. Vaughan

Rating: 4 stars

I only very vaguely knew about this series. I’ve had mixed luck with Brian K. Vaughan, having loved Saga, but not really been that impressed by Y: The Last Man. But the fact that Paper Girls is being adapted for Amazon Prime made me think that I should look into it, and then I discovered that my library had the whole series, so there was really no excuse not to try it.

This first volume certainly opens with a punch. The image of Erin on her knees, holding an apple and with the Earth in the background is a striking one, and the following dream sequence is suitably surreal. Then there’s some really nice visual storytelling as we have several pages of Erin getting ready for her paper round without any text. Lots of kudos to Chiang for that.

The ’80s setting is really nice and once Erin meets the other three papergirls, the story starts to really pick up. Of the other three, MacKenzie gets fleshed out a fair bit, but neither Tiffany nor KJ get an awful lot. Hopefully we’ll get to spend more time with them later.

One nice touch that I liked was when MacKenzie uses a homophobic slur, her friends calls her out on it, something that will recur later in the volume. It’s a nice reminder that despite the time that it’s set, it was still Not Okay.

The wider story is still really confusing, but time travel seems to be involved, with (at least) two groups involved in some sort of temporal, and possibly inter-generational, war. Involving dinosaurs. There’s a nice cliffhanger at the end and I’m left desperately wanting to know more of the story. It’s the sort of thing that could be really frustrating, but it’s handled well enough that it just works.

Book details

ISBN: 9781632156747
Publisher: Image Comics
Year of publication: 2016

Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen

By James Goss

Rating: 2 stars

This is based on a Douglas Adams unmade script treatment, which Adams himself then recycled into the third Hitch-hikers’ book, book: Life, The Universe and Everything. The plot involves killer robots, xenophobic aliens, cosmic plots and cricket. I didn’t particularly enjoy the book, mostly because it felt very much like fanfic of The Hitch-hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy. It doesn’t really feel like a Who story, and the characterisation of both the Doctor and Romana feels off, particularly their internal monologues. There are loads of asides that felt much more like some of Adams’ wild asides in Hitch-hikers’ than anything that fits into the Doctor Who universe.

There are several sections that deal with invasions, massacres and tyrants, and they all have a jolly, slightly ironic tone to them which doesn’t really sit well with me at all. There’s also references to another unmade Douglas Adams story, Shada, which seems like a lot for the casual reader to take in (although I’m not sure how many casual readers would pick this up).

Not awful – there were bits that made me laugh out loud, almost despite myself – but definitely not one that I’d recommend to anyone except completists.

Book details

ISBN: 9781785941054
Publisher: BBC Books
Year of publication: 2018

Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks

By Ben Aaronovitch

Rating: 5 stars

Remembrance is one of my favourite Doctor Who stories thanks, in no small part, to this novelisation, which I read many years before I ever saw the TV serial. It was on the strength of the memory of this book that many years later, I started reading Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London books, which are thoroughly enjoyable reads.

This novelisation manages to add extra depth to the story that couldn’t be conveyed on TV, and makes it feel more epic – especially the battle scene between the two Dalek factions. We also get flashbacks to Omega, Rassilon and The Other doing their work with the Hand of Omega back on Gallifrey, which makes it feel more epic. It also fleshes out Mike Smith and George Ratcliffe, and gives them back-stories tied to the War, and makes the Fascist connections that were implicit in the serial explicit. This is neatly compared to Ace, who grew up in the multicultural London of the 1980s.

Not exactly what I might have expected from a Doctor Who novelisation, but welcome nonetheless. A great novelisation of a cracking Doctor Who story.

Book details

ISBN: 9780426203377
Publisher: Target Books, Carol Publishing Corporation
Year of publication: 1990

Doctor Who: At Childhood’s End

By Sophie Aldred

Rating: 4 stars

Ace was probably my favourite companion of the Classic Who era (nothing to do with me being a growing boy on the first approach to adolescence, no siree). She was no-nonsense, and rather than screaming, made her own explosives and attacked Daleks with baseball bats. It was only later, on rewatches as an adult, that I saw how the writers had been carefully crafting her story arc. This is something we take for granted now, but in that period, companions mostly just stood around to let the Doctor spout exposition, look pretty, and scream on demand.

This novel, (co-)written by Ace actress Sophie Aldred, has us catch up with Ace, sorry, Dorothy, thirty years after her travels with the Doctor ended. She’s now a middle-aged lady, who throws herself into her work directing a disaster aid charity, when she gets wind of others who have been having the same sorts of nightmares that she does: of being irresistibly drawn towards a strange structure, menaced by something that she never quite manages to see. Then an alien spaceship appears in orbit around the moon, and Dorothy wangles her way up there, only to run into the Thirteenth Doctor, with Yaz, Graham and Ryan in tow.

I was really impressed with how much this felt like a Doctor Who story. The structure and pacing felt just right. Aldred is obviously comfortable with Ace, even after so many years and her voice feels right, a combination of that teenager from thirty years ago, tempered with age, and maybe wisdom. Not that that stops her from still making her own home-made explosives.

She gets the Doctor’s voice right too, both the Thirteenth, and the Seventh, who we encounter in flashbacks, when Ace still travelled with him. The current companions don’t get a huge amount to do, other than run around and sometimes get kidnapped (some things never change), but she does hone in on Yaz, and how she feels, finding this possibly older version of herself – someone who loved travelling with the Doctor as much as she, but gave it up. There’s something of the meeting between Rose and Sarah Jane around it, but neither of them are willing to talk about it properly.

There are centaur-like aliens, rat-people and more. The plot, involving kidnapping the young and disenfranchised, people that probably won’t be missed is mostly secondary to Ace getting catharsis for the way that she and the Doctor parted. There’s loads of Easter eggs too, mostly to Old Who, but I suspect you’d enjoy it just as much without getting them.

A fun story with a good heart that captures the essence of Doctor Who very well.

Book details

The Revisionists

By Thomas Mullen

Rating: 2 stars

Zed, going by the alias Troy Jones, is a time traveller, sent back to ensure that dissidents from his own time don’t save civilisation now, thereby preventing his own “Perfect Present” from being formed. But what is Zed keeping from himself, and how are a corporate lawyer, a washed-out spook and a foreign diplomat’s maid involved?

While the book zipped along at a reasonable pace, I’m afraid that I didn’t enjoy reading it very much. I didn’t like either Zed or Leo, the former spy. The former doesn’t question either his society or his mission until very late in the book, and the later seems to just get off on leveraging what little power he has left against people who are just trying to make a stand against corruption.

Neither the lawyer, Tasha, nor the maid, Sari, have much in the way of power, and they’re manipulated, threatened and attacked by others, primarily men. It’s ugly but the book seems to just shrug its shoulders and say that that’s the way of things. It made me pretty angry at times, it wasn’t hugely subtle, well, about anything, really. The parallels between the present and the (really obviously dystopian) future were pretty clear from the get-go.

Towards the end of the book, when the book really starts pushing the idea of Zed as an unreliable narrator it gets a bit more interesting, especially as the threads start to come together a bit, but for me it wasn’t worth the effort.

Book details

ISBN: 9781444727654
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Year of publication: 2011

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