Down the Mysterly River by Bill Willingham

Fair warning: This review of Bill Willingham’s Down the Mysterly River will contain a bit of a spoiler. I usually try to avoid them, but in my mind the “spoiler” is telegraphed so clearly and so early (so much so, I’m not even sure it’s meant to be a surprise) that revealing it doesn’t do much harm. So don’t read past the second paragraph if you would prefer to avoid the spoiler. Down the Mysterly River opens with a young boy scout, Max the Wolf, waking up in a strange wood with no memory of how he got there. Using what he calls his “Five Most Important Rules of Detection” that stood him in good stead in earlier adventures such as the Mystery of the Gruesome Grizzly, Max tries to figure out where he is and how he got there. Things turn quickly stranger and darker, however, when he comes acro... Read More

A Flight of Angels   by Rebecca Guay (illustrator)
Stories by Holly Black, Louise Hawes, Bill Willingham, Alisa Kwitney and Todd Mitchell

An angel has fallen. Led by their insatiable curiosity, the hosts of fae have followed the descent of the white-winged creature and now gather around his still-breathing body to decide what to do with him. They decide to hold a trial, and present evidence in the form of stories about the deeds of angels to decide whether or not to let him live.

I am fairly new to reading graphic novels, so I do not know how original the conceit is of having multiple authors work on the same novel, but here it works splendidly. Each author is responsible for a different angel story, told by a different fae, which accounts for differences in tone. Holly Black is excellent as usual in creating the frame for the story,... Read More

Swords and Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders

As the title suggests, Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders have gathered seventeen new and original sword & sorcery tales in this anthology. The stories are written by a variety of successful authors, bringing to play a broad range of styles and themes. I’m a huge fan of sword & sorcery (it’s what got me into fantasy). So I was extremely eager to get my hands on this book.

I did find Swords and Dark Magic to be heavier on the “sorcery” than the “sword,” more so than is my preference. (Like the greatest S&S hero, Conan the Cimmerian, I subscribe to the belief that when the gods breathed life into mankind, we were gi... Read More

Masked edited by Lou Anders

Superheroes — and supervillains — have always been problematic. They are usually all but impossible to kill, but have a single vulnerability that everyone seems to know about, and to aim for, a tradition that goes all the way back to Achilles (who was invulnerable because he was dipped in the River Styx as a baby — except for the ankle by which his mother held him when doing the dipping). Even after death, they always seem to come back in some form or another; Superman, for instance, has been resurrected quite a few times (though losing him led nearly 20 years ago to one of the best graphic novels ever written, World Without a Superman). Because they are so superhumanly strong, they sometimes appear ludicrous, fighting off impossible task after incredible burden after outrageous situation. No wonder authors have sometimes taken their creations in odd directions, as Read More

Our contributor this week is another of those bloggers who needs little introduction - he is a sunny presence from Bulgaria: Harry Markov. He is the benevolent Overlord of Temple Library Reviews and also owns Through a Forest of Ideas, where he discusses the principles of writing. He can be found lurking on Twitter as @harrymarkov. Harry wants to talk to you today about Bill Willingham.

I am pretty much cheating by default, because Bill Willingham doesn’t write novels, but has a career in comic books. He has been writing comic books from as early as 1983, but you would probably recognize him with his current, on-goin... Read More