Vintage magic in a modern vessel

Muirwood: The Lost Abbey (Kindle Serial) by Jeff Wheeler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's difficult to rate or review a story based only on the first chapter, but since that's what the ARC contained...

For me, the best thing about Muirwood: The Lost Abbey is the comfortably nostalgic feel of it. It has a lot of the fixtures that you might expect from a high fantasy novel: the exiled royalty, the special object, the quest for a source of magical power. If I was reading a lot in the genre these days, I might be exasperated by the familiarity of it. But since I haven't, I actually thought it was pleasant to revisit those old themes but in comic form, which makes it more unusual.

When it comes to the art and text, what stood out to me was the quantity of text - there's a lot of it, describing how Maia, the main character, perceives and thinks about the world. I didn't quite get the symbiosis of words and imagery that I get from most graphic novels. Instead, this felt more like an illustrated storybook where the text is the focus and the art provides a backdrop - it amplifies the nostalgic atmosphere, and not in a bad way. I felt that the art could be a little more expressive, but that's just a personal preference.

There's not a huge amount that I can say about the plot and the characters. I liked Maia's slightly detached way of looking at the world, and the magic system is hinted at just enough to be intriguing. Some of the other characters aren't particularly developed and the premise for the quest seemed a bit rushed and thin. I'm not sure yet if I'll commit to reading the next installments in the series, but I wouldn't rule it out - I'm curious about what else inhabits the Muirwood world.

(As an aside, I learned that this book is part of a fictional universe accessible through Kindle Worlds - which seems like an interesting system for growing a book series by rewarding reader participation. In other words, you can get paid to write fanfiction.)

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

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I'd say "Come at me, bro," but I have a feeling you're gonna do that anyway.

Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's been a while since I read a book that was such pure fun.

Kamala Khan is a Muslim teenager in Jersey City. She wants to fit in among her classmates and do all the things that they do, but it's practically impossible while she's under the watchful eyes of her strict and protective Pakistani parents. When she unintentionally acquires shapeshifting superpowers, her struggle to define her identity only becomes more complicated.

I think Kamala would be relatable to almost anyone who's felt like an outsider or who's attempted to reconcile different value systems. As I'm also the offspring of immigrant parents, I found myself nodding in sympathy during almost all of Kamala's interactions with her family, from the uncomfortable to the affectionate. Beyond Kamala, the entire cast of characters is well-developed. Each one brings something unique to the story and evokes the reader's interest in different ways.

The art is full of luminous color and I loved the attention to detail in the different settings. The pacing of the story is pretty much impeccable, which made me want to read the entire thing in one sitting.

Amid all that joyfully fast-paced action, there are spine-tingling moments of quiet, deliberate, uncompromising bravery - moments when Kamala makes decisions that shape her into a true hero. Her heroism is driven by an intermingling of the values that she was raised to believe in, and an innate willingness to defend those in need.

"Whoever kills one person, it is as if he has killed all of mankind. And whoever saves one person, it is as if he has saved all of mankind." When I was a little kid, that always made me feel better. Because no matter how bad things get, there are always people who rush in to help. And according to my dad, they are blessed.

The only reasons that I'm not giving this book a full five stars is that 1) the writing is decent, but at times not as polished as it could be, and 2) the villain remains vague, and the conflict between him and Kamala isn't developed much - I assume that's being saved for future volumes.

All the more reason that I can't wait to see what Kamala does next.

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So crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace...

Watchmen by Alan Moore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Watchmen made me want to scrub my mind with bleach, to throw the book across a room, and to flip back to the beginning and read the whole thing over again. Massive yet succinct, the story is woven into a meticulously-imagined, self-contained parallel universe that I became immersed in almost effortlessly. The little details that make the world so believable - newspaper clippings, tattered signs, overheard conversations - also form hints about characters' hidden thoughts and activities. Many of these hints turn out to be pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that I could half-solve on my own, but whose ultimate conclusion I couldn't anticipate. Every word and penstroke counts, and even the few things that I thought were superfluous flourishes turned out to be pivotal.

Watchmen takes themes of superhero-ness that are familiar even to those of us who aren't comic book aficionados - the costume, the hidden identity, the violent exaction of justice - and explores their practical, psychological, and political consequences. What kind of person wants to punish wrongdoing so ardently? How does it feel to have a superhero for a parent? Why would someone with superpowers even care about the rest of humanity? The answers to these questions are difficult, as seen in the spectrum of attitudes taken by the book's leading characters, and in the shifting backdrops of public opinion.

The core of the story is that someone is out to destroy superheroes. In a world where they hold the balance of the Cold War, their elimination could have disastrous consequences. Following the murder of The Comedian, the remaining superheroes Rorschach, Silk Spectre II, Nite Owl, and Dr. Manhattan are forced to grapple with mysterious developments that throw their positions in the world (and the world itself) into jeopardy. Along the way, we learn about their histories and become acquainted with their varied perceptions of morality. I think it's worth pointing out that even the "minor" characters are presented as complex, significant individuals, and in many ways they are the people that the story is really about. Sometimes, it takes a careful look to appreciate the interconnections between them. The story is dark and bloody and shocking, which make its touching moments stand out even more.

But, it's not without its faults. My biggest criticism is that the female characters seem defined mostly in terms of their ties to the male characters. (Although, I give the book credit for capturing, and often critiquing, the double standards of a sexist society, especially when it comes to treatment of women in the public eye.) This book also didn't make my jaw drop quite the same way that V for Vendetta did. However, Watchmen is free of the convoluted sideplots that encumbered VFV, so my enjoyment of the two books was almost the same.

All in all: an extremely well-constructed story of characters who are horribly flawed, and perfectly fascinating.

[Read for the Read Harder Challenge: a graphic novel.]

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