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<![CDATA[Ailsa added 'The Looking Glass Wars']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/41026068
to: The Looking Glass Wars (Book 1)byFrank Beddor
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<![CDATA[Ailsa added 'Joker']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/37069322
to: Joker (Hardcover)byBrian Azzarello
This is great for someone (like me) who really enjoys seeing personalized artistic takes on older characters and premises. Bermejo and Azzarello's Joker is pure poker psychosis mixed with bloody breath and dirty fingernails tore-up with glass. Excellent madness. I know that the work on this has gone on for years now, long before The Dark Knight, but there is a Heath Ledger feel to the character. It isn't as heavy as you might expect, so people who want to read it purely for the similarities to the Ledger/Nolanverse Joker will probably be disappointed. Personally I like these interesting "logical conclusion" representations of The Joker in a world that's less supernatural and more real-life crime terror.
Aside from that, it's just straight up fun. I had to give it five stars. It's bloody and makes you kinda squeamish, but I feel like they could have gone a lot further with the violence and I appreciate that they reigned it in to what I consider to be just the right level of disgusting.
The unique take on the Riddler was the most surprising goody for me. I really liked it a lot after the initial shock of 'what... ?' Batman's part is subdued in this particular story, but he shows up when it's really important. Also, how cool did Croc come off? Pretty awesome.
I was worried when I read Bermejo's honestly quite chauvinistic comments about Harley's character, but you know what? He's pretty much right about her, and it works, so I find it hard to be an angry feminist about it. He totally gets away with this portrayal of her. She doesn't say a single word, she poses as a stripper for one scene and she's just generally a thug/slag, but it actually works. Didn't make me at all angry, and I was prepared to be angry. You can tell that Bermejo had a fun time drawing everyone and Azzarello's story is boss. Nothing significant happens to change the universe or Gotham, but it's like seeing the same old thing through fresh eyes. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
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<![CDATA[Ailsa added 'Eragon']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/26582331
to: Eragon (Inheritance, #1)byChristopher Paolini
I have to give Christopher Paolini his due. Writing a book at fifteen is no easy task… alright, never mind. I take that back. I wrote a book when I was fifteen and it wasn’t actually that hard—-but that book was Awful! And so is this one. If I had known him personally I would have said this “That’s great that you finished the book, now how about you wait like ten--maybe fifteen years and then rewrite it, once you’ve really developed some skill as a writer?”
I forced myself to finish it just because I had heard from so many very misguided people that it was genius. It’s not. It has some good ideas that are never fully realised within the story, an incredibly annoying whiny bitch of a main character and very lame fight scenes. I can’t stand a fantasy novel with lame fight scenes. It was predictable—-which isn’t always the worst thing ever, but in the case of this novel is was just another problem at the top of a very long list. I do remember thinking at one point that it wouldn’t be too difficult to take the novel, chop it up into a couple of bite-sized pieces and then make a script for a movie that wouldn’t be utterly terrible—-but then the movie came out and it was utterly terrible, so never mind.
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<![CDATA[Ailsa added 'Stardust']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/26580771
to: Stardust (Paperback)byNeil Gaiman
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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<![CDATA[Ailsa added 'Ketjak']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/38616951
to: Ketjak (Paperback)byRon Silliman
The experience of reading this is comparable to being force fed large quantities of pudding.
Stylized summary between the stars.
*
Start with.
Start with. Just a couple of words and then it grows and has this creepy effect of mitosis. Or is it meiosis. The one that you watch under microscopes. We ate them.
Start with. But you don't ever really start or finished, because where is the beginning and is this really the end. Just a couple of words and then is grows and has this creepy effect of mitosis. Or is it meiosis. The one that you watch under microscopes. The cells divide in half and then in half again and one becomes millions in mere seconds. We ate them.
*
So, it's a bit torturous. But infinitely fascinating. I found myself getting really excited whenever I noticed a mistake that he'd made while copying the same lines again. So, so fun.
Don't read this when you have a headache.
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<![CDATA[Ailsa added 'Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/38616989
to: Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (Paperback)byAriel Levy
I had to leave off that last star because of some historical negligence towards a small number of feminist themes, but overall this book is spot on! In our society, sex is no longer even about pleasure, it's just about power and status and yes, money. It's a cop out on the part of our people as a whole that we don't examine the complexity of sexuality like we should and instead simplify the subject by representing it with these gross caricatures of sexual identity. It's an issue that's too complex and too confusing to bother with, and as a result we're becoming a damaged society.