Stuff I’ve Been Reading
I’ve ploughed through quite a few books lately, thanks mostly to the power of Libby and being able to download book after book for free, and Comixology sales and being able to download comic after comic for less money. There are too many to cover in one go here, but these are the recent highlights. If you’re looking for something to read, I thoroughly recommend all of them.
I’ll do my best to avoid spoiling anything significant, but some minor bits might slip into the summaries.
Mister Miracle (2017-19) – Tom King & Mitch Gerads
I went into this book expecting to have a fun time reading about a minor superhero I’d vaguely come across in some old Justice League books. I did not expect a journey through the psyche of a depressed escape artist as he grapples with mental illness, family life, and leading an army of gods and aliens in a war against the embodiment of evil.
Mister Miracle is not ok, and his family know it, but he’s a minor god and when you’ve got to go to war, you’ve got to go to war. The narrative switches seamlessly between the domestic narrative of Miracle and his wife Big Barda trying to make family life work, to their efforts to defeat Darkseid in terrible battles across the cosmos. Sometimes both halves are happening at the same time. If, of course, either half is really happening at all. There’s not a single issue of this book that goes exactly where you’re expecting it to, and it’s fantastic.
The art is gorgeous, the writing is brilliant. This run won the Eisner Award. King and Gerads definitely earned it. If you like superhero comics, read this for a fantastic change of pace. If you don’t like superhero comics, read this anyway, because it’s bloody good.
The Black Locomotive – Rian Hughes
London railway engineers have found something underneath Westminster that definitely shouldn’t be there – or exist at all. An artist wanders the city and delivers evocative monologues on the development of urban spaces and the future of architecture. There’s a secret cabal of trainspotters who run Britain. Normally this would probably be too many plotlines for a single book, but Rian Hughes makes it work and makes it work beautifully.
Multiple viewpoints are neatly woven together into the wider narrative – and very neatly presented too. This is one of the most visually interesting novels I’ve read in ages; every character has a different font, and typefaces are used to great effect in the sections where it all gets a bit weird. And there are illustrations – dozens of beautifully-done architectural diagrams that bring new dimensions to the plot itself.
It’s a slightly bewildering book but it picks you up and sweeps you along for the ride, and what a ride it is. My only real complaint is the fact that it ends – suddenly, at the very moment when all the subplots come together and we glimpse the real story lurking underneath it all. Hughes had better write a bloody sequel.
Sharpe -Bernard Cornwell
Ok, so listing 21 books is cheating a bit, but thanks to Libby I devoured the entire series in the space of a couple of months, and I loved it. Cornwell is one of the best historical fiction writers there is: not only is his research meticulous and his actual history accurate, but the actual story of Sharpe, as he rises from lowly dog-soldier to command of his own regiment, is incredibly engaging.
Though Cornwell wrote the books in a somewhat eclectic order, chronological order is probably your friend unless you’re already a Napoleonic history buff. From Sharpe’s early years in India, the series covers the entire Peninsular War and the Hundred Days War that finished Napoleon off – and a little bit past them too. Cornwell expertly places Sharpe at pretty much every significant battle of the conflict – including, slightly incongruously, Trafalgar – occasionally borrowing glory from real historical figures but never failing to acknowledge his minor deviations from history in each afterword.
It’s a little bit pulpy, but it’s a proper rollicking adventure across Portugal, Spain and beyond, in a period of history where modern military tactics were just starting to be born. It’s fascinating, and it’s entertaining to boot.
And if you don’t fancy reading all those books, there’s an alternative that’s so good Cornwell actually rewrote Sharpe’s past so that he grew up in Yorkshire – because Sean Bean is that perfect a bit of casting. The ITV Sharpe series is a brilliant bit of classic British telly. It might have been shot on a shoestring, but it’s a fantastic watch. Keep an eye out for some actors in the background who you might recognise from slightly bigger roles today…
Now that’s soldiering.
