I’m an absolute sucker for this kind of stuff. Harkening back to House of X/Powers of X, Sins of Sinister finds the titular villain infecting resurrecI’m an absolute sucker for this kind of stuff. Harkening back to House of X/Powers of X, Sins of Sinister finds the titular villain infecting resurrected X-people with his genes and taking control of Krakoa thanks to his bank of cloned Moiras. But Krakoa isn’t enough for the madman, and soon Earth falls victim to his machinations, and then the galaxy… and beyond. A thousand-year rule of Sinister and the various factions he’s created. This is top-notch alt-future history, X-Men by way of Alastair Reynolds. So damn good!...more
Wow, what an issue! Wildly, sometimes hilariously, over the top. Snyder's scripting shows us a Bruce Wayne in captivity for months, swinging us througWow, what an issue! Wildly, sometimes hilariously, over the top. Snyder's scripting shows us a Bruce Wayne in captivity for months, swinging us through hopelessness to hope, culminating in a terrific exchange between him and Bane and a perfect one-liner to cap it all off. This issue is a great showcase for Batman's resiliency, even as he's broken down bit by bit, in ways that are oftentimes shocking and disturbing. Nick Dragotta also gets to showcase some great body horror as we're guided through the mad science laboratories of Ark M, teasing potential future foes (or maybe allies, given how much Snyder has flipped Batman's traditional rogues gallery). I also really dug Batman being labeled Subject 27, a nice little callback to the character's debut in Detective Comics #27, back in 1939. Talk about resilience indeed!...more
I am absolutely loving Aaron and Sandoval's take on Superman, and the corners they're pushing the Kryptonian into with its investigation of nature verI am absolutely loving Aaron and Sandoval's take on Superman, and the corners they're pushing the Kryptonian into with its investigation of nature versus nurture. Can this alien raised on a despotic Earth that's been pushed into perpetual warfare by the rich elite still be a force for good? I've loved the exploration of Kal-El's life as a young boy on Krypton and the course he's charted into adulthood on a foreign world steeped in violence, under a yellow sun that makes him stronger -- and angrier -- by the day. Who, and more importantly, what is Superman in this dystopic, all too recognizable world? We're not quite sure yet, but I'm pretty damn excited to find out....more
This issue moves along so quickly it'd be easy to mistake it for being slight even as it finally gives some answers to the questions that have been brThis issue moves along so quickly it'd be easy to mistake it for being slight even as it finally gives some answers to the questions that have been brewing since this series opening pages. We also get some nice nods to the larger world of the Absolute Universe, which have been mostly absent in other books. Or we just finally get a character who's connected to that larger world thanks to their business dealings, or maybe they just watch the news? Either way, it's a welcome bit of connective tissue to help sell this as a connected world rather than the piecemeal series we've been sold as being part of the same universe without any direct connections. ...more
Kachow! What's popping, fellow weirdos? It's your pal Wonder Woman, back at it again with the fish people! Kachow! What's popping, fellow weirdos? It's your pal Wonder Woman, back at it again with the fish people! ...more
While I'm still digging the vibe and art style very much, I feel like I'm losing track of what the plot is supposed to be here. While I do like Camp aWhile I'm still digging the vibe and art style very much, I feel like I'm losing track of what the plot is supposed to be here. While I do like Camp and Rodriguez's depictions of madness and the art deco design aesthetic, and the slow unraveling of John's marriage, I'm a bit lost as to where this is all supposed to be heading. ...more
Finally, at long last, an Absolute book has made a direct reference to the larger world established in one of its sibling titles. Hopefully this leadsFinally, at long last, an Absolute book has made a direct reference to the larger world established in one of its sibling titles. Hopefully this leads to bit more connectivity to establish the shared world of the Absolute Universe. Otherwise, another solid issue with a hell of a banger for the last page to tee up the next issue. Nicely done!...more
Boy, am I glad to be done with this one. Two books into the High Republic series and I'm learning I'm either getting too old for this brand of Star WaBoy, am I glad to be done with this one. Two books into the High Republic series and I'm learning I'm either getting too old for this brand of Star Wars storytelling, or the High Republic era just isn't the least bit compelling for me.
Cavan Scott juggles so many thinly developed characters, it's virtually impossible to keep track of who's who without a dramatis personae. There comes a point in the book where the Jedi have to deal with a communications blackout during an attack and, once restored, conduct a check-in amongst the survivors. One of the space wizards reflects the names were coming in too thick and fast to keep track of. It's almost a meta wink and a nod to the listeners because that’s this book in a nutshell. So, so, so many names. I couldn't keep track of all the characters, the names of aliens species, the names of their pets and robots, zoo animals, minerals, flora, fauna, planets, moons, sectors, etc., etc., etc. And they're all so unmemorable that as they pop up from scene to scene, my first reaction was, "Who?" There's nothing much to distinguish one character from another, all of them one shade of Jedi brown robe after the next.
Oh well. At least we got two seasons of Andor to enjoy....more
When Bane co-creator Graham Nolan referred to Nick Dragotta's visual update of the villain for this issue of Absolute Batman as a "terrible abominatioWhen Bane co-creator Graham Nolan referred to Nick Dragotta's visual update of the villain for this issue of Absolute Batman as a "terrible abomination," I don't think he knew just how right he was, even if he was far too quick in his dismissal. To their credit, Scott Snyder and Dragotta take the piss out of Nolan's complaints, titling this installment, suitably, "Abomination."
This Absolute version of Bane is, indeed, an abomination, and in all the best ways possible. As he did with Mr. Freeze, Snyder presents a horrific twist on the character and teases up a few other story and character threads that we can expect to be covered in this new story arc.
Snyder also continues to show that if you're going to take such intimately familiar characters and give them a page-one overhaul in a brand-new universe separate from the main DC continuity, this is the way to do it. This book has been phenomenal the whole way through, and it doesn't look like Snyder and Dragotta will be slowing down anytime soon. I love not knowing what's going to happen next, or what direction they'll be pulling us readers in, but goddamnit, suddenly I wish it were July already....more
This review was originally published at FanFiAddict
Whichever ad wizards came up with the long-enduring ad slogan of “Reach out and touch someone” for This review was originally published at FanFiAddict
Whichever ad wizards came up with the long-enduring ad slogan of “Reach out and touch someone” for AT&T back in the 1970s probably didn’t expect their campaign encouraging Americans to rack up their phone bills with long distance call charges to provide a touchstone for telephonic grief horror so many decades later. Of course, one doesn’t have to look hard to find a certain insidiousness in those words, to twist an otherwise cozy, cutesy corporate phrase into a threatening promise.
When Hurricane Aubrey hits the Chesapeake, bartender Jenny loses her fisherman love, Callum, to the elements. The loss unmoors her and their daughter, leaving them stranded and emotionally adrift. Their small town of only a few hundred is hit hard, but one of the things left standing is a long-defunct payphone outside Jenny’s dockside watering hole. It hasn’t been operational in decades, the booth now covered in graffiti and used as a make-out spot for local teens. It’s even where Jenny and Callum conceive their daughter, Shelby. Reach out and touch someone, indeed!
In the wake of Aubrey’s violent tantrum, the booth has attracted a new crowd. People who have lost loved ones in the storm now line up in the bar’s parking lot for a chance to step inside that phone booth, waiting for their turn to use the old, dead landline to speak one last time to their dearly departed.
Clay McLeod Chapman doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel with Stay on the Line, turning to the familiar ‘phone-calls from the dead’ trope that has largely replaced the Ouija board in the 21st Century, but he does a great job firmly grounding the story within the emotional core of grieving widow Jenny. There can still be room for worn tropes as long as they are propped up by strong, compelling characters that give us a reason to care, and Chapman succeeds in that. It helps, too, that Stay on the Line is supremely focused and the author keeps it short, knowing, perhaps, that it’s a tired premise but that his characters are young, strong, and emotionally potent. In print, Stay on the Line was only about 80 pages with illustrations, and this audiobook runs a brisk 61 minutes.
Chapman uses much of the first half of this novelette to establish the family and their dynamic. Callum is the fun parent and has turned the ancient phone booth into a fantastical story point in the bedtime stories he tells Shelby. He’s also had to convince Shelby that the phone booth was, in fact, an actual, real-life, functioning telephone that people used to make calls. She doesn’t believe him. I couldn’t help but grin at this, having had a similar conversation with both of my sons over the old-fashioned toy rotary phone they once played with. It didn’t look anything at all like the iPhones my wife and I use, didn’t take pictures or videos, and had this big dial on it. It couldn’t possibly be a phone; daddy was just pulling their leg. I think my wife talked them around eventually, and then they saw similar rotary phones in a movie from the 80s and realized we were actually serious.Thankfully, they haven’t gotten any phone calls from deceased relatives on their toy (yet).
Stay on the Line digs deeper into the supernatural in its second half, when Jenny can no longer resist her curiosity about the phone booth and whether or not it will reconnect her with her lost love. Chapman covers the usual ground one would expect from the premise, but he does offer up some neat sequences of creeping dread, and one flat-out horrific scene in which the phone booth becomes a tomb of aquatic horrors. The audio production helps to amplify the creep factor with some well-done sound effects mixed in by audio editor Eric West. Sean Patrick Hopkins’s voice work as Jenny’s other half takes on spooky, staticky, ethereal overtones that really help sell the otherworldly nature of Jenny and Callum’s conversations.
The bulk of the production, though, belongs to Patricia Santomasso, who positively inhabits the role of Jenny, bringing nuance and heartfelt emotion through the grief of her loss, the elation of being reconnected with Callum, and the wariness and fear over the concerns that follow. On a personal note, I’ve worked with Santomasso and Hopkins both in separate audiobook productions of my own work and was absolutely delighted at how those projects turned out. As such, I was expecting them to bring their talents to the fore here and wasn’t the least bit surprised to find their work to be excellent. I did my best to avoid any bias in my judgements here, but I’ll let you listen to them and decide for yourself. Let me just say, there is a reason they’re both award winning narrators with hundreds upon hundreds of titles under their belt.
Stay on the Line is an emotionally resonant horror and Santomasso brings it all to compelling life. Her narration is as richly heartfelt as Chapman’s earnest prose. If you’ve read the print edition previously, you’ll want to experience the story again as an audiobook. If you haven’t, you may want to reach out and… well, maybe not touch someone, but at least grab yourself a copy....more