The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: PROF Andrew Martin of Cambridge University, one of the great mathematical geniuses of our time, has just discovered the secret of prime numbers, thereby finding the key that will unlock the mysteries of the universe, guarantee a giant technological leap for mankind and put an end to illness and death. Alerted to this amazing breakthrough on the other side of the universe, and convinced that the secret of primes cannot be entrusted to such a violent and backward species as humans, the super-advanced Vonnadorians dispatch an emissary to erase Martin and all traces of his discovery. That's the backstory to a book that opens with our alien narrator finding himself in the body of the professor, whom he has just assassinated. But the instantaneous intergalactic travel hasn't turned out quite as expected. Instead of finding himself in Martin's office, our nameless Vonnadorian has arrived in the middle of the M11 motorway in south-east England, with no understanding of human culture and wearing his victim's body but not a stitch of clothing. Promptly run over, the naked alien hero regenerates, escapes from the shocked ambulance crew and heads to the nearest building – a weirdly rectangular and bizarrely static refuelling station labelled Texaco. Having flicked through a copy of Cosmopolitan to pick up the local language, he then makes his way to Cambridge. Here he continues to inspire much shouting and pointing until he reaches the ex-professor's college, where he is arrested. These initial attempts to fit into human society may not have been completely successful, but they improve a little, thanks not only to his superior Vonnadorian intelligence but also to the fact that the late Prof Martin was evidently the kind of mathematical genius who could quite conceivably have had a breakdown that would leave him running around Corpus Christi college in the nude. Stilted and strange though the alien's speech and behaviour continue to be, Martin's wife and teenage son spot hardly any difference from the original, save for some hilarious efforts to match the son's swearing and the suspicious way he bothers to put his used crockery in the dishwasher. Actually, the Vonnadorian seems to offer an improved version of the human husband and father. The alien in turn, at first baffled and disgusted by humans, grows increasingly attached to his Earth family. This presents a real problem, given that the mission is to kill them both. As this story develops, the narrator and his narration change. Much of the first half of the novel is taken up by his puzzled analyses of primitive human ways: the nightly news, he reckons, should be renamed The War And Money Show; getting drunk is how humans forget they are mortal, while hangovers are how they remember. The conceit may not be original, but Haig uses it superbly. As our alien's emotional attachment grows, so too do his reflections on the odd appeal of our short and brutish lives, and especially on our gift for love. He goes on about this, often and at some length, culminating in a letter of advice he bequeaths to the son – a 97-point list, six and a half pages long. It would be very difficult to raise such reflections ("80. Language is euphemism. Love is truth") above the level of the Desiderata poster or the sort of wry and twinkly conclusions about what it means to be human that Spock was often subjected to at the end of a Star Trek episode. However, it's a mark of how funny and clever the rest of his novel is that Haig just about gets away with the love-is-truth guff. For all its later outbreaks of Vonnadorian mawkishness, The Humans still deserves to live long and prosper. |
| Posted: IT takes a lot of guts to mess with an established tale, to add on to an existing mythology – especially when the original work you're messing with belongs to H.G. Wells. The Madman's Daughter is built around Wells' The Island Of Dr Moreau but told from the viewpoint of the famous surgeon's daughter, Juliet. After her father's disappearance following a scandal in her native London, she becomes a maid at a university. Sixteen-year-old Juliet is haunted by disturbing memories and plagued by rumours of her father's gruesome experiments, the discovery of which led to him leaving. In the original 1896 novel, Dr Moreau is an out-and-out madman who creates humanoid beings from animals using vivisection. Shepherd does not stray from this, and includes characters from the novel in her re-telling. She remains mostly loyal to the tale – except for the ending, which is a twist that manages to not be tired. In The Madman's Daughter, Juliet discovers her father is alive and well and living on a remote tropical island – and continuing his terrifying work. She convinces her former servant, Montgomery James, to take her back to the island with him, as she has nothing left in London following her mother's death. On the island, Juliet struggles to acclimatise to the strange creatures that populate the place – animal hybrids that her father has created on the operating table. She worries constantly his madness is in her too, and that she is less than human. To further complicate matters, the mysterious shipwrecked Edward Prince stirs romantic feelings in Juliet – but so does childhood friend Montgomery. As a spate of mysterious deaths occur – first rabbits, then worse – Juliet becomes embroiled in a whodunit murder mystery as she and Montgomery try to figure out who is responsible for the deaths. You could do much worse than The Madman's Daughter, which, despite taking some liberties with the original storyline, remains mostly true to the source. Although it's quite difficult to really connect with Juliet at the start, I was surprised by my reaction to the ending: sympathy and mild sorrow at her lot. The pacing is excellent, save for the ending; The Madman's Daughter seems to be written for TV (and not in a good way): a long introduction, a solid middle, but a hurried ending (you'd imagine it would all culminate within the last 30 minutes of a two-hour film). Particularly enjoyable in this novel is the relationship between Dr Moreau and Juliet – it's cold, the connection of two scientists. Contrasted with the intense heat between her and Montgomery, it's clear Shepherd is pretty good at yanking the heartstrings with mere dialogue. That said, the constant fraughtness of Juliet's life is a little tiring; she vacillates between useless damsel and supposed independent genius, but we see little of either (frankly, Juliet's a bit thick and shrill). What does sell the character is her very real, very not-Disney reaction to the animal hybrids: revulsion, reluctant compassion, fear. While many would have been tempted to write Juliet as a caring, loving character who champions the hybrids, Shepherd keeps it honest, a welcome relief that cuts through the usual young adult (YA) fiction fluff well. The book is intended as the first in a trilogy, and the sequel, Her Dark Curiosity, is based on Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (1886). The as-yet unnamed third will be based on Mary Shelley'sFrankenstein (1818). Although it's a bit wearing that YA fiction writers seem to be at a loss for original ideas, Shepherd seems to weave her secondhand stories handily enough, providing an amusing – if not very gripping – read. |
| Posted: THE term "femme fatale" literally means "fatal woman" in French, and apparently means "a seductive woman who lures men into dangerous or compromising situations". Well, Josephine, the femme fatale in Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' ongoing Fatale series, certainly fits that description. Blessed (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with eternal life, she has the power to ensnare any man in her charms and make him powerless to resist her. As one of the characters in the book describes her: "Men will lie, cheat and steal for her; they will kill and die for her, without ever knowing why". Told mostly from the perspective of the men Josephine meets and gets intimate with, Fatale is an intriguing look at the stereotypical femme fatale character so common in film noir stories. You know, the mysterious, sexy woman who walks into a private investigator's office to offer him a case at the beginning of the story, and with whom the PI usually ends up falling in love, even though she drags him into more trouble than he has ever been in. Brubaker takes this common cliché and turns it on its head – what if the woman in question is not just some random broad, but someone who is cursed with that sort of power, to seduce men into doing anything? But how did she get this power? This is where Brubaker's story excels. Fatale is more than just another crime noir comic book, it's a horror crime noir, in which he mixes the familiar noir elements with an intriguing web of the occult and supernatural, with a range of villains ranging from the usual hard-boiled gangsters to tentacled demon things that make life difficult for Josephine and her numerous, hapless suitors. Brubaker is no stranger to these mean streets, of course – he has built a career on great comic crime fiction, co-writing the stellar, criminally underrated Gotham Central, as well as the fabulous Batman: Gotham Noiramong others. In Fatale, his grasp of the genre is solid enough that even when he gets into the more supernatural elements, it doesn't interrupt the overall flow of the story. Sean Philips' artwork and Dave Stewart's colouring also work in tandem to give the book a very noir-ish feeling, which combined with the supernatural elements making Fatale somewhat surreal to read. My brain wanted to think that I was reading a proper crime noir story, but it kept getting distracted by the tentacle-faced demons wearing 1930s gangster suits. That's not a bad thing, mind you, but it does make for a somewhat odd reading experience. The series was initially going to be a 12-issue miniseries, but proved to be so popular that Image made it an ongoing series. It has been collected into three volumes, the first of which is set in the 1930s, and the second in the 1970s. The third volume is probably the most intriguing one, and expands Brubaker's mythology beyond Josephine. You see, there is a long history of "fatales" stretching all the way back to 13th-century France and the Old West, and this third volume collects four standalone stories, two of which feature fatales from the past and two others about Josephine that are set before the first and second story arcs. It's a testament to the quality of the series that Fatale has been nominated for so many Eisner Awards this year. The series is in the running for Best Ongoing Series and Best New Series, Best Writer for Brubaker, as well as Best Penciller/Inker and Best Cover Artist for Phillips. Stewart is also nominated for Best Colouring based on his work on the title (as well as on other titles likeBatwoman, BPRD, Conan The Barbarian, Hellboy In Hell, Lobster Johnson, and The Massive). Overall, this is a brilliantly written, beautifully drawn piece of storytelling, and should appeal not just to fans of crime noir, but of horror as well. Fatale Volumes 1-3 are available at Kinokuniya, Suria KLCC. |
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