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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Peter O'Donnell and Enric Badia Romero
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|author=Edel Rodriguez
|title=Children of Lucifer: Modesty Blaise
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|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Out of ninety-five diverse comic strip stories, the publication of this book leaves just the last three yet to be presented in these fabulous large format paperbacks.  So if you haven’t yet met with the sassy brunette with her curves and her great crime-solving mind, and of course with her Willie, this is the last-but-one chance for you to do so.  And if you have any interest in quick little action tales, or even dated kitsch, for both apply here, then you should eagerly be on board…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178329860X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jon Morris
 
|title=The Legion of Regrettable Supervillains: Oddball Criminals from Comic Book History
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=As much as I like comics – and I do, whether superhero ones or not – I have to admit one thing, namely that the villains in them are a bit pants.  What is The Penguin but the world's worst Mafioso, with a hobby of waddling along like his pet birds?  Where else do you win an Oscar of all things by playing a two-bit killer who just fell in a vat of random chemicals and changed colour, and got mardier as a result (although recently he's become a nanotech genius – but let's not go there)?  And what is it with the gimp in the see-through plant pot because he is the embodiment of cold?  And that's just some of the better-known enemies of ''Batman'', one of the better goodies.  You can imagine how awful the baddies related to the bad goodies can be.  And if you can't, this is the perfect primer.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594749329</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Siobhan Dowd and Emma Shoard
 
|title= The Pavee and the Buffer Girl
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Graphic Novels
 
|summary=When Jim's family halt at Dundray, his heart grows heavy. A new Buffer school for this Pavee boy to attend. Jim doesn't like school. He doesn't like Buffers. And you know, you couldn't really blame him because the distrust and suspicion is mutual. Prejudice against the Traveller community is strong and when Jim and his cousins turn up on their first day, it's to stares and muttered insults from the pupils and condescension from the teachers. Within days, Moss Cunningham and his gang have accused Jim of stealing a CD - he did no such thing - and have begun a campaign of threats, bullying and worse.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911370049</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Nathan Hale
 
|title=One Trick Pony
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Forget the moon being made of cheese, here the Earth looks like it's a huge dollop of the finest Swiss stuff.  Horrid, giant insectoid alien things have taken over, and they have zapped anything technological they can find – pumping a blob of something over it, and turning whatever turns up in the resulting spheres into sand, or carting it off to larger ships.  Our heroes belong to a travelling caravan of a village, keeping intact as much human knowledge as they can (think a digital version of those readers in ''Fahrenheit 451''), but they've left their compatriots behind to go exploring.  They'll never expect to find a magical, wondrous, robotic horse, though – which is where their problems begin…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1419721283</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Bobby Joseph and Joseph Samuels
 
|title=Scotland Yardie
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Things are grim in London'People of colour' can no longer stand at a bus stop or cross the road without white cops shooting them down, and planting drugs and guns on themHeaven help them if their satnav leads them past certain corrupt coppersBut obviously one of the problems there is that there are no black police, so to encourage their growth Boris has built Jamaica a prison, and borrowed their finest – Scotland Yardie, a dreadlocked and heavily-armed skunkhead rastaIt's purely thought of as a PR exercise, but Yardie knows different.  When you add on a mystery regarding a new chain of chicken shops, and the nasty cops, he has his work cut out.  Seen?
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|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in CubaThe revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for allWell, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time awayOur narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned uponThe mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861662512</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1474616720
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Mary Telford and Louise Verity
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|author=Kia Ahankoob
|title=Sins
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|title=The Gold Lion and the Tournament of Sentinels
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
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|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Is there enough new to say about the seven deadly sins?  We've seen them all shown to us, from school age and up to the movie ''Se7en'', which we sincerely hope was NOT shown to anyone at school age.  We can each recount them all, having been long familiar with them, even if we probably can't pin down when they were actually set in stone without help. Similarly, is there anything new in the world of fairy tale?  We know the tropes - characters identified by their status or gender (the woman, the husband), a clear set of rules to obey, and a moral as strong as, if not stronger than, the formulae involved. Well, this volume demands we decide the answer to those questions as being positive ones, and if it's not always definitive in the writing here that there is something new, rest assured there will be something in the imagery that will definitely strike one as fresh...
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|summary= When Myriad created Duniva he endowed his children with different powers, each with its own strength and weakeness, in the hope they would complement each other and collaborate, creating a dynamic and prosperous society. Each power is contained within a magical ring belonging to one of eight countries led by Myriad's children and their descendants. But it didn't quite work out like that. Rivalries developed. Enmities grew out of them and the eight countries went to war. Having fought themselves into an endless and ruinous stalemate and finding the cost of war too high, a solution is proposed. Each of the eight countries will send their greatest warriors, known as sentinels, to a single combat tournament. The winner will take possession of all the rings and become the supreme ruler of Duniva.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843516624</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B09MMQJFPV
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Bessora, Barroux and Sarah Ardizzone (translator)
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|author=Pat Grant
|title=Alpha
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|title=The Grot: The Story of the Swamp City Grifters
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=''It felt like there was boiling water inside my head.  To cool it down, I had to leave…''  Those words aren't spoken by Alpha, the narrator of this graphic novel, but they might have beenLiving in Abidjan, on the south coast of Cote d'Ivoire in Africa, he is determined to get out to go to Paris, and a relative's hair salon and a much better lifeIt's not just the boiling water that is causing him to jump out the frying pan into the unknown fire, but the fact that his wife and son went already, and he's trying to follow in their footsteps''Your feet become your headYour body obeys them'' he observes at one point during the ordeal but there are people smugglers galore, and blind chance to also obey along the way…
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|summary=Everything in this world runs on pedal-power, and that includes the punk bandsThere are three pedallers at the front of the Heath Robinson contraption taking our lead characters to the ferry across the swamp to Falter City, where a mother and her two sons aim to set up a yoghurt factoryYou could say that yoghurt would be the only culture around, for this is a really rough-and-ready dump of a place, but everyone is interested in small things that growFor the only money to be had – the only fortunes to be found in Falter City – come from algae, gunk and other crud that – well, the use of it is never really made clearOnce there, the two brothers set themselves each up with a guide Lippy, the more forward-thinking, industrious of the two, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl with bright red hair.  But which of the two will come off the worse as they make their own way in this dystopian, semi-Apocalyptic hellhole?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911370014</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1603094660
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Hurk
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|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)
|title= Ready for Pop
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|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
|rating= 4.5
 
|genre= Graphic Novels
 
|summary=London, The mid-sixties. In what appears to have been a murder attempt, Britain's greatest pop sensation 'Vic Vox' has been left a foot tall – the effects of a 'shrink drug' administered by assailants unknown. As Detective Chief Inspector Ladyshoe and his team at Scotland Yard try to find who did it and why, comedian Tubs Cochran prepares himself for his big come-back show. Can he keep his old fashioned comedy instincts relevant enough to entertain a new generation? Will Vic Vox's big rivals, 'The Small Pocks' be given a boost in Vic Vox's absence? And will June Scurvy get her hit (or maybe not) new single featured on the show they're all waiting for…''Ready for Pop''!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861662504</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Nick Bantock
 
|title=Griffin and Sabine 25th Anniversary Edition: An Extraordinary Correspondence
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=Oh Griffin and Sabine, where have you been all my life?  I've loved epistolary novels and ones that take the narrative two-and-fro of letters and bring us closer to the sender than any omniscient narrator can hope to do.  I've still got the childlike love of picking at an envelope stuck in a book to pull out a sheet of something else – not only is there the wonder at the handmade construction of something so bluntly and undeservedly called 'a book', but there is the frisson of being the first person to see this artefact ever.  So how have I never seen this book before, and its cycle of sequels, concerning the correspondence between two completely different people?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>145215595X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jeremy Haun and Jason A Hurley
 
|title=The Beauty
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Don't we all just want that one little fillup to our looks that tuck there, those pounds or wrinkles vanished, that little tweak to make us more sexually attractive and virile?  Well, if you catch The Beauty, you will indubitably end up, in what colloquial language has it, ''fit''But The Beauty is not to be caught as in a passing fad or itinerant beautician, but as a sexual disease.  And it's hit half the population – most of those willingly.  You feel feverish with it, but it's taken off big time, and Big Pharma is happy with the situationSome violent anti-Beauty activists aren't, so special police units exist regarding it, but they, the Powers That Be, and the underground scientists working against the disease are only going to be swamped when The Beauty shows its true face…
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|summary=I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, you knowI certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either sideThis book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1632155508</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1684056993
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Peter O'Donnell and Enric Badia Romero
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|author=Leigh Bardugo, Louise Simonson and Kit Seaton
|title=Modesty Blaise - Ripper Jax
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|title=Wonder Woman: Warbringer: The Graphic Novel
|rating=4
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|rating=3
|genre=Graphic Novels
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|genre=Teens
|summary=Is there any stopping Modesty Blaise?  Well, inasmuch as there are only ten stories left that have not been anthologised in these lovely reprints, yes – just three books to go, by my reckoning.  That reckoning should be quite accurate, if I can be immodest, for there is a lot that is routine about these storiesThey all had three panels a day, six days a week (with one day's output being less relevant to the story for those papers that didn't carry the comic on weekends), for twenty-one weeks.  But rest assured there is also a lot that is unusual about Modesty and her output, including a never-ending variety to the locations, to the manner of the baddy's crime, and to the action Modesty and her Willie are forced to undertake to win the dayAnd nobody, but nobody, has undertaken so much action and come out looking so attractive…
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|summary=Diana, being unique on her island, is the victim of a lot of taunts, and claims of nepotismIt's only her unique status, and her mother being Queen, that has her with any standing at all, her naysayers declare – even though she has clearly fought to be a strong young woman.  Perhaps too strong for the island, however – for every Wonder Woman origin story has her quickly leaving home for the World of Men, and this Diana is the heroine of yet another Wonder Woman origin storyA shipwreck disturbs her leading performance in a running race, but the survivor she drags from the waters is only going to disturb a lot more...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783298588</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1401282555
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jens Harder
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|isbn=1401286208
|title=Alpha: Directions
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|title=Black Canary: Ignite
|rating=5
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|author=Meg Cabot and Cara McGee
 +
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=So, people might still ask me, why do I turn to graphic novels – aren't visual books with limited writing more suited to young people?  Yeah, right – try pawning this off on juvenile audiences and the semi-literate. If you can't kill that cliché off with pages such as these I don't know what will work. I know the book isn't designed to be a message to people in the debate about the literary worth of graphic novels, but one side-effect of it is surely an engagement with that argument.  What it is designed to be is a complete history of everything else and in covering every prehistoric moment, it does just that, and absolutely brilliantly.
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|summary=Meet Dinah Lance. Frustrated that her policeman father will not allow her to try and follow in his footsteps, and seemingly lumbered with being a cheerleader at school, she is desperate to find her voice. But it's actually more a case of her voice finding her, as when she gets frustrated or plain dissed at school her vocal outcry can shatter glass better than any opera singer. You could almost call it a weapon, or a power. But in order for her to call herself a superhero, there has to be a whole path of steps for her to take one of which will be into her past…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861662458</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Marcel Ruijters and Laura Watkinson (translator)
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|isbn=1401280048
|title=Hieronymus
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|title=Batman: Nightwalker: The Graphic Novel
 +
|author=Marie Lu, Stuart Moore and Chris Wildgoose
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=This is a book for those who find it amusing that a biography of someone who has been dead 500 years is called 'unauthorised'.  This is a book where the detail is in the devil people pissing in the street; the locals baiting blind people armed with cudgels in a pit with a pig, often failing to whack the beast and hitting their colleagues by mistake; farting demons visiting the sleeperThis is a book for those who don't mind a spot of ribaldry, an affront to religious piety or suchlike in their graphic novels.  Whether or not this is a book for those seeking a biography of Hieronymus Bosch remains to be seen.
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|summary=The young man called Bruce Wayne is a very noticeable one – he can hardly go anywhere without people – bystanders, paparazzi, and suchlike – reminding him he's a billionaire at the age of eighteen.  Feeling rather stuck with the legacy he's inherited from his murdered parents, he wants to do charitable deedsBut one night, when he speeds off in his posh new car in pursuit of a criminal, he goes too far as far as the authorities are concerned, and gets given the most unlikely stretch of community service instead cleaning in the home for violent criminals that is Arkham Asylum.  There he learns of some other people who also allege charitable intent – the Nightwalkers, a gang who steal any ten-figure bank account contents they can, and murder the ownerCan he get close to one of them and get the truth of their schemes, or will the manipulative Madeleine be a step too far for the young do-gooder?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861662466</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jean-Patrick Manchette, Max Cabanes and Doug Headline
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|isbn=1401283292
|title=Fatale
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|title=Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass
 +
|author=Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=PlayIt's a weird verb – it can mean many different things.  Aimee intends to play – she's already put paid to several men playing at being hunters, but she has a different game in mindArriving at a very insular little town she scopes the big-wigs out, watching them over the bridge table and across the golf tees, and, seeing them bicker about each other at both play and work, she knows she can play with themBut what might happen, given these undefined rules, if they chose to play as a team against her?
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|summary=Harleen Quinzel is new in townShe always, to me, seems new in town, even if she's been around a long time, for she always has a very fresh attitude, and seems to look out of those large eyes at everything anew each timeBut here she is new in town, and the town is Gotham City.  Expecting a year-long furlough from life with her mother, she finds her gran dead and herself with no option but to stay with a bunch of drag queens.  She also finds school is a drag, she also finds the whole neighbourhood is being redeveloped by a large and uncaring corporation – but she also finds two characters that will have a big impact on her lifeOne is a civil-minded lass called Ivy, the other someone she only meets at night – a lad with a singular graffiti tag and a mind for violence and chaos, who calls himself The Joker…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782766820</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Des Taylor
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|isbn=140128339X
|title=Scarlett Couture
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|title=Mera: Tidebreaker
|rating=3
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|author=Danielle Paige and Stephen Byrne
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=What, in the real world, would be the least likely cover for a secret agent but that of super-model?  Apart from the advantage of everyone thinking you were gormless, there is the implausible clothing and having to run around after baddies in high heels to consider.  But the world of comics isn't the real world, and so you have to ask the opposite – what would be the most visually appealing band of secret agents, if not for a whole cabal of them working undercover as bimbo-looking models?  The Showroom is one such, and its main agent is Scarlett Couture, daughter of a male cop and a female fashionista-cum-agency boss.  Looking wonderful is incredibly easy for her – but sometimes saving the world is quite a bit tougher…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782760628</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jason Quinn and Naresh Kumar
 
|title=World War Two: Against the Rising Sun (Campfire Graphic Novels)
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary=World War Two – so often a lesson subject for our primary school children, even after all this time.  Nazis, Soviets, Pearl Harbor – but wait.  That last wasn't just the clarion call to the Americans to join in with the rest of our Allies – it was a mere episode in a fuller story – the half of the war that was never seen by those in Europe, beyond the fact the British Empire was certainly changed forever.  The War in the Pacific is something I was certainly never taught much about in school, at any age.  And here's a graphic novel version of the tale from a publisher in India that can serve at last as a salutary lesson.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9381182051</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lewis Helfand and Lalit Kumar Sharma
 
|title=World War Two: Under the Shadow of the Swastika (Campfire Graphic Novels)
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary=One of the most common subjects at primary school, getting on for three generations since it happened, is of course World War Two.  It has the impact that sixty million dead people deserve – but only if it's taught correctly.  One of the ways to present it is this book, which comes from a slightly surprising place – an Indian publisher completely new to me – but succeeds in being remarkably competent, complete and really quite readable.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9381182140</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Al Ewing and Rob Williams et al
 
|title=Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, Volume 3: Conversion
 
|rating=2
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you want to judge the worth of a ''Star Trek'' TV series, you judge the theme tune.  It's incontrovertible that they went downhill in unison, after all.  It is also a truth universally acknowledged that the same applies to ''Doctor Who'', for the opening credits have definitely had their ups and downs over recent years.  But you can also define the entertainment value of a series through the companions.  Or at least you can with the 11th Doctor comic versions, which decided to pick up a Token Smart, Ballsy, Ethnic one, a bizarre, mercurially disembodied robot-type-with-limited-vocab one, and, er, a cod David Bowie one who relives the entire Ziggy Stardust lyric sheet through his witterings.  I know, right?  No hope.  But can you give up hope with the genius, energetic, effervescent and witty Doctor around?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782763031</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Serge le Tendre, Regis Loisel and Ivanka Hahnenberger (translator)
 
|title=The Quest for the Time Bird
 
|rating=2.5
 
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=In order to defeat a vengeful god, who is within days of getting out of his prison – a sacred conch shell several things must happenFirst, the conch must be united with the witch powerful enough to sustain the incantation keeping him locked upThen she must use her helpers to endure great danger and find the information she seeks in the most perilous of places for knowledge of the ultimate part of the puzzle – the Time BirdAll this calls for heroes, but in the world of fantasy anyone can call themselves a hero – from the witch's own buxom daughter, Pelisse, to an old warrior called Bragon that the girl is forced to unite with and fight alongside.
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|summary=Meet Mera.  She's the latest in a line of young women intent on fighting against their intended destiny for one only they can see for themselves.  Her father, the king of Xebel, sees some cotton wool and a hunky man in an arranged marriage as her future after all, Mera's mother, the territory's warrior queen, is long deadMera doesn't fancy the cosseting or the fella involved at all and is, in fact, trying to get Xebel out from under the cosh of Atlantean power, for Xebel's royalty are merely puppets of Atlantean mastersSo when she overhears her father request that her intended go to the world of us air-breathing humans, and kill the Atlantis heir, she rushes off to get the quest (and the promised throne) all for herselfBut of course, she has no idea what kind of person she will meet, and how hard it will be to get the job done…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782763627</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alejandro Jodorowsky, Nicolas Fructus and Ivanka Hahnenberger (translator)
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|isbn=1401286399
|title=Showman Killer: Heartless Hero
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|title=Super Sons: The PolarShield Project
 +
|author=Ridley Pearson and Ile Gonzalez
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=A long way away, in terms of both time and space, the most perfect assassin is formed genetically bred, adept at magical transformations, with the most athletic and deadly abilities, and with the complete lack of emotion needed.  All he will ever seek is the highest price for the best job – a job that will, now and again, force him to meet with the most unusual people…
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|summary=It's the near future, and every coastal city – including Metropolis – is in need of a huge flood barrier, built on its coast by Wayne Enterprises. But the rising sea levels have put even those constructions under threat, forcing many people to relocate in America's biggest exodus for decades. Superman is helping out, of course first, he was patching up the dams, but now he's mining the asteroid belt for a rare dust that's perfect for blocking the solar energy from making further polar ice melt. Inland, in Wyndermere, the refugees from the coast are suffering bigotry and intolerance for being newcomers, but something else is much worse. A major bout of food poisoning is hitting the city. But it can't possibly have anything to do with what looks like sabotage of the flood barriers and the efforts to correct the climate, can it? Four young children begin to piece together clues that it can…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178276139X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jamie Hewlett, Alan Martin and others
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|isbn=168369015X
|title=21st Century Tank Girl
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|title=Manfried the Man: A Graphic Novel
|rating=3.5
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|author=Caitlin Major and Kelly Bastow
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=I sometimes wonder, when keying in book reviews, if ISBNs are not constructed by design instead of the formal accident that is supposed to create them.  Surely it's intentional that this book has 666 in its code – it's the most devilishly brash, ugly and foul-mouthed comic around, and people who like that kind of thing will like this.  Especially as this book is a return to waaay distant form, and waaay distant creative partnerships, with the original artist Jamie Hewlett back on board.  It's time to cuss and roll once more…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782766618</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Derf Backderf
 
|title=Trashed
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=For those people who think graphic novels are rubbish, this is the epitome of that baseless argument.  Its subject is junk, it's trash, it's landfill, and garbage. That's not a verdict on its qualities, which are great and fine ones, but its very topic. Straight from school, our author was actually a bin man for a few seasons – riding on the back of something like Betty, the garbage van featured here. It's a job nobody wants in all honesty, of course – but the book is fine enough to actually make the subject something most people should read about.
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|summary=In a world where cats stand on two feet, go to work at call centres and have diminutive human beings for pets, is Manfried. He's a typical frisky but shy pet – forever getting into scrapes, demanding more food than he can suitably eat, but at the same time being the perfect companion for his owner, Steve Catson. To such an extent that Steve, who is getting known for his man-oriented thinking, is actually having nightmares about becoming the neighbourhood ''crazy man cat''. But when a window gets left open by mistake, and Manfried goes missing, the only thing for it is a massive and energised man-hunt…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1419714546</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Luke Pearson
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|isbn=Hainsworth_Gina
|title=Hilda and the Troll
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|title=Talking to Gina
 +
|author=Ottilie Hainsworth
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Hilda, a rather delightful small, blue-haired girl, is never far from an adventure.  She is confident and excitable, brave and creative, and her stories are slightly mad, and very, very readable!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909263788</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sven Hassel and Jordy Diago
 
|title=Wheels of Terror: The Graphic Novel
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=War books and anti-war books, in my mind, have a lot in common and only a couple of easy things need be changed to turn one to the otherThis is dressed as an anti-war book, but here is the lead character surviving against all odds – the platoon whittled down several times while he and his few friends go strong; here he is overcoming all kinds of difficulty and adversity and still coming out the other end; here he is doing proper heroic deeds – or his colleagues saving the day at the last minute – and the war carries onwards towards its inevitable endThe difference perhaps is in the minutiae of what those difficulties and deeds need be, with the anti-war book having a simple honesty about them and their overall worth that the gung-ho, militaristic piece would patently lackAnd when you face the guts and gore of the kind of warfare on these pages, you don't really expect jingoism and 'hoo-rah!' attitudes. No, even if the DNA is pretty much the same, the result here is definitely, grimly and firmly anti-war.
+
|summary=''This is what happened.''  An artist decided she needed a dog – so drove the length of the country, Brighton to Grimsby, to pick up an Eastern European immigrant street dog with some mange and one working eyeWhy not?  The first night at home, Gina – the dog eats something she shouldn't and causes a mess, so it's not a great start, but then begin the tribulations of training, status and behaviour all humans must go through with their dogsAnd then, the life with Gina begins to feel like too much – ''I felt weird about you because you were always thereMy thoughts were taken over by you, and I felt sick, as if I was in love.''  Slowly, however, everyone – our artist/author, her husband, two children and two cats – gets to form the family they and Gina all would have wanted.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297609769</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Joe Sugg
+
|isbn=Colfer_Illegal
|title=Username: Evie
+
|title=Illegal
|rating=4.5
+
|author=Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Meet Evie. She's surprisingly unwelcome and alienated at school – for a trendy and attractive girl, nobody at all seems to have any time for her, apart from the geeky card-collecting boy with the milk-bottle glasses on the bus. Perhaps it has something to do with her father's thatched house – after all, she must be a witch to live there.  It's not that she would wish to live there, with nobody else around, and the memory of her deceased mother.  But luckily someone is choosing a place for her –her father is able to put all his work into a cyber-world for her, the E-Scape, which is close to the perfect world.  All that remains is to programme the humans to be her friends, and make the connection Evie has with them and them with her in return to be of mutual, confirming, happy benefit.  But someone else has entered the E-Scape, and their influence seems all that much more powerful than Evie's tentative happiness…
+
|summary=Ebo is twelve years old and all alone. His sister left for Europe months ago and now he doesn't know where his brother is either but knows that he has probably done the same thing. So Ebo has to attempt the same dangerous journey himself. He must cross the Sahara Desert, get himself to Tripoli, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and then try to cross the Mediterranean Sea. By himself. At twelve. And, even if he makes it, how will he find his sister?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473619130</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Michael B Jackson, Martin Brennan and Simon Bisley
+
|isbn=Miller_Batman
|title=13 Coins
+
|title=Batman: Dark Knight III: The Master Race
 +
|author=Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=''For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.'' There, I've done it – quoted the Bible in a review. It's certainly pertinent in the world of this graphic novel, where the fallen angels have one get-out clause they have been seeking since those very lapsarian events.  They turned a little section of chain holding their leader eternally captive into the titular coins, which can influence the human holders into sheer evil, but might just cause an open war on Heaven, whether they or the best of the holy on earth use them all.  The best of the holy then, offspring of the good angels, are culled as a routine, but not one – John Pozner, who of course has no idea of his place in the celestial circle of life…
+
|summary=Batman is not playing ball. He's been videoed duffing up Gotham policemen, and not the baddies he usually biffs. But then he's not Batman – he's a she, and she finally comes up with the news that Batman died in her hands. Elsewhere, Lara, the daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman, is encouraging Ray Palmer/The Atom to turn his technologies concerned with shrinking and expanding life to the miniaturised city of Kandor, the last vestige of Kryptonian existence not to fly about in visible blue pants. What with Superman sitting idle in an exposed Fortress of Solitude having gone into a sulk, and Batman dead, there would appear to be little in the way of help for the world should anything nasty happen – but then, of course, something nasty does happen… s
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178276061X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Stref
+
|isbn=Weeks_Gritterman
|title=J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan: The Graphic Novel
+
|title=The Gritterman
|rating=4
+
|author=Orlando Weeks
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Here's a quiz question for you – despite the uniform seventy year copyright rule, which work has been the sole recipient of an endless extension of it, courtesy of an ex-Prime Minister?  The answer is obvious now at least, as this is one such volume.  It's a very readable and pleasant variant on J M Barrie's original stage version and novel regarding Peter Pan, which of course helps and always will now help the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. And for a boy who never grows up, at 111 years old he's in spritely good health.
+
|summary=There's a man who has an ice cream van. In summer, what there is of summer, he uses it to sell ice creams, That's not his vocation though, but it does keep him going whilst he waits for winter when the van becomes a Gritting Van and our narrator becomes a Gritterman. The fibreglass 99s on the roof light up and rotate, playing a tune, whether the van's gritting or selling ice creams. Tonight - Christmas Eve - will be the van's last trip. The council has sent the letter about his services no longer being required. Global warming. Dying profession, they say. There's even a tarmac now that can de-ice itself, but the Gritterman isn't sure that he wants to live in a world where the B2116 doesn't need gritting.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780272901</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Historical Fiction Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 10:21, 30 October 2023

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Review of

Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey by Edel Rodriguez

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen… Full Review

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Review of

The Gold Lion and the Tournament of Sentinels by Kia Ahankoob

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

When Myriad created Duniva he endowed his children with different powers, each with its own strength and weakeness, in the hope they would complement each other and collaborate, creating a dynamic and prosperous society. Each power is contained within a magical ring belonging to one of eight countries led by Myriad's children and their descendants. But it didn't quite work out like that. Rivalries developed. Enmities grew out of them and the eight countries went to war. Having fought themselves into an endless and ruinous stalemate and finding the cost of war too high, a solution is proposed. Each of the eight countries will send their greatest warriors, known as sentinels, to a single combat tournament. The winner will take possession of all the rings and become the supreme ruler of Duniva. Full Review

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Review of

The Grot: The Story of the Swamp City Grifters by Pat Grant

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

Everything in this world runs on pedal-power, and that includes the punk bands. There are three pedallers at the front of the Heath Robinson contraption taking our lead characters to the ferry across the swamp to Falter City, where a mother and her two sons aim to set up a yoghurt factory. You could say that yoghurt would be the only culture around, for this is a really rough-and-ready dump of a place, but everyone is interested in small things that grow. For the only money to be had – the only fortunes to be found in Falter City – come from algae, gunk and other crud that – well, the use of it is never really made clear. Once there, the two brothers set themselves each up with a guide – Lippy, the more forward-thinking, industrious of the two, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl with bright red hair. But which of the two will come off the worse as they make their own way in this dystopian, semi-Apocalyptic hellhole? Full Review

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Review of

Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes by Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989. Full Review

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Review of

Wonder Woman: Warbringer: The Graphic Novel by Leigh Bardugo, Louise Simonson and Kit Seaton

3star.jpg Teens

Diana, being unique on her island, is the victim of a lot of taunts, and claims of nepotism. It's only her unique status, and her mother being Queen, that has her with any standing at all, her naysayers declare – even though she has clearly fought to be a strong young woman. Perhaps too strong for the island, however – for every Wonder Woman origin story has her quickly leaving home for the World of Men, and this Diana is the heroine of yet another Wonder Woman origin story. A shipwreck disturbs her leading performance in a running race, but the survivor she drags from the waters is only going to disturb a lot more... Full Review

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Review of

Black Canary: Ignite by Meg Cabot and Cara McGee

3.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Meet Dinah Lance. Frustrated that her policeman father will not allow her to try and follow in his footsteps, and seemingly lumbered with being a cheerleader at school, she is desperate to find her voice. But it's actually more a case of her voice finding her, as when she gets frustrated or plain dissed at school her vocal outcry can shatter glass better than any opera singer. You could almost call it a weapon, or a power. But in order for her to call herself a superhero, there has to be a whole path of steps for her to take – one of which will be into her past… Full Review

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Review of

Batman: Nightwalker: The Graphic Novel by Marie Lu, Stuart Moore and Chris Wildgoose

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

The young man called Bruce Wayne is a very noticeable one – he can hardly go anywhere without people – bystanders, paparazzi, and suchlike – reminding him he's a billionaire at the age of eighteen. Feeling rather stuck with the legacy he's inherited from his murdered parents, he wants to do charitable deeds. But one night, when he speeds off in his posh new car in pursuit of a criminal, he goes too far as far as the authorities are concerned, and gets given the most unlikely stretch of community service instead – cleaning in the home for violent criminals that is Arkham Asylum. There he learns of some other people who also allege charitable intent – the Nightwalkers, a gang who steal any ten-figure bank account contents they can, and murder the owner. Can he get close to one of them and get the truth of their schemes, or will the manipulative Madeleine be a step too far for the young do-gooder? Full Review

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Review of

Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh

3.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Harleen Quinzel is new in town. She always, to me, seems new in town, even if she's been around a long time, for she always has a very fresh attitude, and seems to look out of those large eyes at everything anew each time. But here she is new in town, and the town is Gotham City. Expecting a year-long furlough from life with her mother, she finds her gran dead and herself with no option but to stay with a bunch of drag queens. She also finds school is a drag, she also finds the whole neighbourhood is being redeveloped by a large and uncaring corporation – but she also finds two characters that will have a big impact on her life. One is a civil-minded lass called Ivy, the other someone she only meets at night – a lad with a singular graffiti tag and a mind for violence and chaos, who calls himself The Joker… Full Review

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Review of

Mera: Tidebreaker by Danielle Paige and Stephen Byrne

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Meet Mera. She's the latest in a line of young women intent on fighting against their intended destiny for one only they can see for themselves. Her father, the king of Xebel, sees some cotton wool and a hunky man in an arranged marriage as her future – after all, Mera's mother, the territory's warrior queen, is long dead. Mera doesn't fancy the cosseting or the fella involved at all and is, in fact, trying to get Xebel out from under the cosh of Atlantean power, for Xebel's royalty are merely puppets of Atlantean masters. So when she overhears her father request that her intended go to the world of us air-breathing humans, and kill the Atlantis heir, she rushes off to get the quest (and the promised throne) all for herself. But of course, she has no idea what kind of person she will meet, and how hard it will be to get the job done… Full Review

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Review of

Super Sons: The PolarShield Project by Ridley Pearson and Ile Gonzalez

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

It's the near future, and every coastal city – including Metropolis – is in need of a huge flood barrier, built on its coast by Wayne Enterprises. But the rising sea levels have put even those constructions under threat, forcing many people to relocate in America's biggest exodus for decades. Superman is helping out, of course – first, he was patching up the dams, but now he's mining the asteroid belt for a rare dust that's perfect for blocking the solar energy from making further polar ice melt. Inland, in Wyndermere, the refugees from the coast are suffering bigotry and intolerance for being newcomers, but something else is much worse. A major bout of food poisoning is hitting the city. But it can't possibly have anything to do with what looks like sabotage of the flood barriers and the efforts to correct the climate, can it? Four young children begin to piece together clues that it can… Full Review

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Review of

Manfried the Man: A Graphic Novel by Caitlin Major and Kelly Bastow

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

In a world where cats stand on two feet, go to work at call centres and have diminutive human beings for pets, is Manfried. He's a typical frisky but shy pet – forever getting into scrapes, demanding more food than he can suitably eat, but at the same time being the perfect companion for his owner, Steve Catson. To such an extent that Steve, who is getting known for his man-oriented thinking, is actually having nightmares about becoming the neighbourhood crazy man cat. But when a window gets left open by mistake, and Manfried goes missing, the only thing for it is a massive and energised man-hunt… Full Review

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Review of

Talking to Gina by Ottilie Hainsworth

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

This is what happened. An artist decided she needed a dog – so drove the length of the country, Brighton to Grimsby, to pick up an Eastern European immigrant street dog with some mange and one working eye. Why not? The first night at home, Gina – the dog – eats something she shouldn't and causes a mess, so it's not a great start, but then begin the tribulations of training, status and behaviour all humans must go through with their dogs. And then, the life with Gina begins to feel like too much – I felt weird about you because you were always there. My thoughts were taken over by you, and I felt sick, as if I was in love. Slowly, however, everyone – our artist/author, her husband, two children and two cats – gets to form the family they and Gina all would have wanted. Full Review

Colfer Illegal.jpg

Review of

Illegal by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin

5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Ebo is twelve years old and all alone. His sister left for Europe months ago and now he doesn't know where his brother is either but knows that he has probably done the same thing. So Ebo has to attempt the same dangerous journey himself. He must cross the Sahara Desert, get himself to Tripoli, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and then try to cross the Mediterranean Sea. By himself. At twelve. And, even if he makes it, how will he find his sister? Full Review

Miller Batman.jpg

Review of

Batman: Dark Knight III: The Master Race by Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello

3.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Batman is not playing ball. He's been videoed duffing up Gotham policemen, and not the baddies he usually biffs. But then he's not Batman – he's a she, and she finally comes up with the news that Batman died in her hands. Elsewhere, Lara, the daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman, is encouraging Ray Palmer/The Atom to turn his technologies concerned with shrinking and expanding life to the miniaturised city of Kandor, the last vestige of Kryptonian existence not to fly about in visible blue pants. What with Superman sitting idle in an exposed Fortress of Solitude having gone into a sulk, and Batman dead, there would appear to be little in the way of help for the world should anything nasty happen – but then, of course, something nasty does happen… s Full Review

Weeks Gritterman.jpg

Review of

The Gritterman by Orlando Weeks

5star.jpg Graphic Novels

There's a man who has an ice cream van. In summer, what there is of summer, he uses it to sell ice creams, That's not his vocation though, but it does keep him going whilst he waits for winter when the van becomes a Gritting Van and our narrator becomes a Gritterman. The fibreglass 99s on the roof light up and rotate, playing a tune, whether the van's gritting or selling ice creams. Tonight - Christmas Eve - will be the van's last trip. The council has sent the letter about his services no longer being required. Global warming. Dying profession, they say. There's even a tarmac now that can de-ice itself, but the Gritterman isn't sure that he wants to live in a world where the B2116 doesn't need gritting. Full Review

Move on to Newest Historical Fiction Reviews