Doctor Who Free Comic Book Day 2018

Doctor Who Free Comic Book Day 2018

Published: 2018
Read: November 2021

Writers: Nick Abadzis, John Freeman, George Mann, Jody Houser
Artists: Giorgia Sposito & Arianna Florean, Christopher Jones, Mariano Laclaustra, Rachael Stott
Colorists: Marco Lesko, Carlos Cabrera

Letterers: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

This Free Comic Book Day offering contains three-and-a-half stories, only one-and-a-half of which have been collected, so I picked it up. It's a weird artifact, in that when it came out, Titan clearly planned to do some stuff it never actually got around to doing; instead, it massively shrank its output when it began its Thirteenth Doctor comic.

It begins with "Catch a Falling Star," a twelfth Doctor story that picks up from the end of The Good Companion, showing Gabby being picked up out of the time vortex by a later incarnation of the Doctor than her own. Mostly it's recap and set-up, one assumes so that people could jump on with the new twelfth-Doctor-and-Gabby comics that the closing caption promised with its "THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES THIS NOVEMBER!" But November 2018 saw no such comics released, nor did any subsequent Novembers, even though Abadzis wrote the scripts. It's cute, though; I always like it when Florean draws Gabby's diary.

It continues with "The Armageddon Gambit," a slim story that serves as an utterly nonessential prologue to Operation Volcano, Titan's seventh Doctor miniseries... but at least that actually came out! Interestingly, it's by John Freeman, editor and occasional writer of the DWM strip during the era the comic seeks to recreate. This is actually collected in the Operation Volcano trade paperback, so you can read it there.

It ends (kind of) with "Midnight Feast," an eleventh Doctor story that offers some faint amusement. This story ends with "THE ELEVENTH DOCTOR WILL RETURN!" He never really did, appearances in The Road to the Thirteenth Doctor and The Many Lives of Doctor Who aside.

It actually ends with "And Introducing...", a one-page three-panel strip where the thirteenth Doctor gets out of the TARDIS, by the Thirteenth Doctor creative team. Not sure if it really needed a writer, but I guess someone had to write "VWOORRRP" down so the letterer knew to put it on the page.

So, overall, a bit of a curio, but if you were invested in Gabby's story from the Tenth Doctor comics, it's definitely worth a few minutes to read what turned out to be the end of her adventures.

I read an issue of Titan's Doctor Who comic every day (except when I have hard-copy comics to read). Next up in sequence: The First Doctor: "In-Between Times"

Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension by George Mann, Cavan Scott, Rachael Stott, Mariano Laclaustra, et al.

Collection published: 2018
Contents originally published: 2017
Read: September 2021

Collection published: 2018
Contents originally published: 2017
Read: September 2021

Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension, Book One

Writers: George Mann, Cavan Scott & Nick Abadzis
Artists: Rachael Stott, Adriana Melo, Cris Bolson, Mariano Laclaustra, Carlos Cabrera, Leandro Casco, & I. N. J. Culbard, with Pasquale Qualano, Mony Castillo, Klebs Jr, JR Bastos, & Fer Centurion
Colorists: Rod Fernandes, Marco Lesko, Dijjo Lima, & Hernán Cabrera

Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

 

Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension, Book Two

Writers: Gordon Rennie, Emma Beeby, George Mann & Cavan Scott
Artists: Ivan Rodriguez, Wellington Diaz, Rachael Stott & Mariano Laclaustra, with Anderson Cabral, Marcelo Salaza & Fer Centurion
Colorists: Thiago Ribiero, Mauricio Wallace, Rod Fernandes & Carlos Cabrera, with Mony Castillo
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

 

Titan's Doctor Who crossovers got bigger every year. This one is eight issues and two collected editions, and crossed through its ongoings (instead of just featuring characters from them), taking in issues of The Tenth Doctor: Year Three, The Eleventh Doctor: Year Three, and The Twelfth Doctor: Year Three. It also features the ninth Doctor, Rose, Jack, Tara, Madame Vastra, and Jenny; Jenny, the Doctor's daughter; the fourth Doctor and second Romana; and River Song in a set of specials. Plus every other incarnation of the Doctor puts in at least a one-scene cameo. Is that enough already?

 

It is, in fact, too much. It follows the Big Finish model: the characters are mostly separate for most of it, which means they undertake pretty generic adventures, and then the characters come together at the end, which means the narrative doesn't have room for anything other than simple solutions and generic Doctor sniping... something we've seen twice in the past two years! I have posited in the past that Big Finish's nostalgic crossovers are pointless because they bring together characters we see in ongoing adventures all the time already, and the same is true here. There is no novelty to bringing "back" the tenth Doctor, Gabby, and Cindy when I read their adventures already. The only characters we don't already see all the time in Titan adventures are Jenny, the fourth Doctor and Romana, and River, but the first of those I had no desire to see come back, and the others I listen to the adventures of already via Big Finish. (Plus, I didn't find the stories or dialogue very good; the River story in particular was confusingly written and poorly illustrated.)

 

If we aren't getting nostalgia, then we're not getting anything, because this story isn't really about anything. A dimension turns people into mindless zombies... as Doctor Who threats go, it's definitively bottom tier and generic. Does this story have any interesting themes or clever characterization? Basically, no. The one exception is the Eleventh Doctor issue, which isn't by any of the regular Eleventh Doctor writers but is at least by regular Eleventh Doctor artists Leandro Casco and I. N. J. Culbard. It's a decent tale of the eleventh Doctor and Alice being trapped on ancient Gallifrey and becoming inadvertently involved with the Time Lord's early TARDIS experiments. The rest of it all is sound and fury, signifying nothing. I'm glad that after three goes, Titan finally abandoned these annual events; I had mixed thoughts about Four Doctors, but it was overall pretty interesting. The latter two have been exercises in tedium.

 

(If, like me, you are curious about what issues are collected where, the collected editions give incomplete information, and the Tardis wiki is flat-out wrong. Book one collects what was originally published as parts 1-4 and 7: The Lost Dimension: Alpha #1, Ninth Doctor Special #1, The Tenth Doctor: Year Three #9, The Eleventh Doctor: Year Three #10, and the Jenny and Alice stories from The Lost Dimension Special #2. Book two contains parts 5, 7, 6, and 8 in that order: the fourth Doctor story from The Lost Dimension Special #1, the River Song story from The Lost Dimension Special #1 and 2, The Twelfth Doctor: Year Three #8, and The Lost Dimension: Omega #1. Thanks to a friendly Gallifrey Base poster for working this out for me. Not confusing at all! I also have a feeling the credits are incomplete or inaccurate.)

I read an issue of Titan's Doctor Who comic every day (except when I have hard-copy comics to read). Next up in sequence: The Tenth Doctor: Facing Fate: The Good Companion

Doctor Who: Roots by George Mann, James Peaty, I. N. J. Culbard, Ivan Rodriguez, Wellington Diaz, Klebs Junior, Leandro Casco, et al.

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor: The Sapling, Vol 2: Roots

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 2017
Read: September 2021

Writers: George Mann & James Peaty with Vince Pavey
Artists: I. N. J. Culbard, Ivan Rodriguez, Wellington Diaz, Klebs Junior & Leandro Casco with Pasquale Qualano
Colorists: Triona Farrell, Stefani Renne & Thiago Ribiero

Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

Longtime readers of my reviews of Titan's Doctor Who comics will know that The Eleventh Doctor has consistently been my favorite of their three-then-four-then-three ongoings. For its first seven volumes, it was always written by Rob Williams and one other writer (Al Ewing for "Year One," Si Spurrier for "Year Two," Alex Paknadel for vol 1 of "Year Three"); they would typically cowrite the opening and closing story, and then alternate the stories in between, most of which were just one issue. I don't know how much collaboration there was, but they certainly seemed like a seamless whole, and the succession of done-in-ones allowed for a lot of variety. More than any other Titan ongoings, The Eleventh Doctor has felt like comics first and foremost, not a tv show on the comic page, much like the early years of Doctor Who Magazine's strip.

Year Three, alas, breaks the pattern. For the first time in the run of The Eleventh Doctor, we have a collected edition with no Rob Williams content, and this volume doesn't bring back Alex Paknadel from vol 1 of The Sapling, either. And to add insult to injury, the writer primarily used instead is George Mann. Now, Mann has gotten better than he was, even if he's not great, but I didn't find him very suited to the style of The Eleventh Doctor; neither is James Peaty, who handles the other of the four issues collected here. (There's also a four-page backup story by Vince Pavey.) Neither writer can get the short story down; in all of the examples collected here, the Doctor discovers a problem, and then defeats it right way, much too easily. Too long is spent on the build-up, keeping there from being an effective twist or turn at the climax; in Mann's "Fooled," for example, the Doctor just takes the villain's device and breaks it, and that's it; in Peaty's "Time of the Ood," things go similarly easy. Even when Mann has two issues, as in "The Memory Feast," we still have one-and-a-half issues of running around before we get to a quick resolution. (Overload the thingy, that good old Doctor Who standby.)

I also didn't find the engagement with the ongoing Sapling arc very satisfying. The Sapling himself is a blank slate of a character, the supposed memory crisis that the Doctor and Alice are experiencing doesn't really seem to make much of a practical difference, and though two of the three stories are about memory, they thematically are not up to much.

What does work is the art of I. N. J. Culbard. He's worked on two previous volumes of The Eleventh Doctor, but this is the first where he's made an impression on me, and it's a strong one; he draws three of the four issues here, and he has a somewhat Mike Mignolaesque style, even if it's all his own. Very atmospheric, pairs well with the coloring, and as The Eleventh Doctor does at its best, it feels like comics, not comics-as-tv (or tv-as-comics). I see that for the final volume he'll be back, and paired with Alex Paknadel, which should hopefully be an excellent combination.

I read an issue of Titan's Doctor Who comic every day (except when I have hard-copy comics to read). Next up in sequence: Free Comic Book Day 2017

Doctor Who: The Terror Beneath by George Mann, James Peaty, Mariano Laclaustra, Warren Pleece, et al.

Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Time Trials, Vol 1: The Terror Beneath

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 2017
Read: September 2021

Writers: George Mann & James Peaty
Artists: Mariano Laclaustra & Warren Pleece with Fer Centurion
Colorists: Carlos Cabrera & Hernán Cabrera
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

"Year Three" of Titan's Twelfth Doctor ongoing has the umbrella title "Time Trials," but no kind of ongoing storyline is introduced in its first volume. Indeed, my guess is that the umbrella title is so vague because there won't be one, that kind of thing being much harder to weave into an ongoing that's beholden to what's happening on screen. (The twelfth Doctor was still on screen when these comics came out; "Year One" did have a minor ongoing plot, but "Year Two" didn't.) Like the last couple volumes of Year Two, the Doctor is still companionless here, but he does pick up one-off companion Hattie from The Twist for a perfectly okay outing about spooky underwater things in a seaside village. Mann has settled in as a serviceable writer of twelfth Doctor comics: rarely wretched, but in no way does the twelfth Doctor looking at the "camera" and saying, "I always thought the Jon Pertwee era was the best one" capture what the twelfth Doctor era was like on screen, which often pushed at the boundaries of screen Doctor Who to such an extent as to irritate me. Just try to be interesting, Mann! I do think Mariano Laclaustra is good at atmosphere, and he's probably this comic's best artist who wasn't Rachael Stott.

There's also a one-issue story by James Peaty where the Doctor lands in a town terrified by a floating smile. Warren Pleece turns in some excellent, disconcerting art, but the story itself is entirely predictable and obvious.

I read an issue of Titan's Doctor Who comic every day (except when I have hard-copy comics to read). Next up in sequence: The Eleventh Doctor: The Sapling: Roots

Review: Doctor Who: Ghost Stories by George Mann, Ivan Rodriguez, Pasquale Qualano, and Dennis Calero

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 2016-17
Acquired: March 2020
Read: July 2021

Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Ghost Stories

Writer: George Mann
Artists: Ivan Rodriguez, Pasquale Qualano & Dennis Calero
Colorist: Dijjo Lima
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

I thought this was going to be something slightly different than it was. Spinning out of the 2016 Christmas special, "The Return of the Doctor Mysterio" (the first issue came out literally the day after it aired), this sends the twelfth Doctor on an adventure with that story's superhero, the Ghost, and his wife and daughter. I thought it was going to be the ongoing superhero adventures of the Ghost, with the Doctor as a minor character maybe. Instead, it's a pretty standard set of Doctor Who adventures, but with the Ghost and his family as companions. There's no New York City superheroics here; instead, there's visits to the future and alien planets and Sycorax spacecraft to track down some cosmic thingummies.

It's fine. I appreciated the focus on Grant's wife Lucy, who is the focal character much more than the Ghost, actually. But it's pretty bog-standard stuff, slightly enlivened by the novelty of having an entire family (including a daughter who is either eight or eleven) as a companion team.

But I feel like something funner could have been done. "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" was a pastiche of the Richard Donner Superman films, and it seems that a comic book version of the character could have been a superhero comic pastiche. I can imagine some fun stuff: give the Ghost a classic Siegel and Shuster social justice adventure, a wacky Mort Weisinger Silver Age tale, a John Byrne Man of Steel-era adventure, each with appropriate art. Heck, use the TARDIS to show him what he inspired in the 31st century for some Legion of Super-Heroes madness! I know damning a story for something for not doing something it didn't even aspire to do isn't the done thing in reviewing, but I really feel like this squandered the potential of a fun episode. As is often the case, Mann's Twelfth Doctor comics aren't as playful as the television run they are trying to emulate.

I read an issue of Titan's Doctor Who comic every day (except when I have hard-copy comics to read). Next up in sequence: The Eleventh Doctor: The Sapling: Growth

Review: Doctor Who: Supremacy of the Cybermen by Cavan Scott & George Mann, Ivan Rodriguez, Walter Geovanni, et al.

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 2016
Acquired: September 2018
Read: May 2021

Doctor Who: Supremacy of the Cybermen

Writers: Cavan Scott & George Mann
Artists: Ivan Rodriguez & Walter Geovanni, with Alessandro Vitti & Tazio Bettin
Colorists: Nicola Righi with Erica Eren Angiolini

Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

Event Teasers Art by Dan Boultwood, Andrew Pepoy & Jason Millet, Mike Collins, Blair Shedd, Simone De Meo & Arianna Florean, Stephen Byrne, Simon Myers, Lee Sullivan & Luis Guerrero, and Rachael Stott & Marcio Menys

Like Four Doctors the year before it, this crosses over all of Titan's ongoing comic series, which now includes the ninth Doctor in addition to the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth. It takes a very different structure, though; while Four Doctors had its three Doctors meet up by the end of the first issue and then treated them like a team, the four Doctors in Supremacy of the Cybermen never actually meet. Instead, each is involved in a parallel adventure of the Cybermen taking over the universe with Time Lord technology: the ninth Doctor, Rose, and Captain Jack battle them on the Powell Estate; the tenth Doctor, Gabby, and Cindy encounter them at war with the Sontarans; the eleventh Doctor and Alice discover them in the Silurian era; and the twelfth Doctor visits Gallifrey to discover the root of the problem.

The issue this causes is that since each Doctor gets a totally separate story, they in effect each get just one issue of story. Only that one issue of story is spread across five issues, making it feel like nothing is actually happening, because when you finish an issue, each Doctor has experienced just one-quarter of an issue of events. The end result is a five-issue collection where nothing happens: the ninth, tenth, and eleventh Doctors each have very simple battle with the Cybermen; the twelfth Doctor resets it all. The end. Even though it reads fast, I quickly came to dread reading it, so little did I enjoy it.

(Weird that when the Cybermen take over Gallifrey again in "Ascension of the Cybemen," the Doctor doesn't mention that she just went through this!)

from Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor #4
(art by Lee Sullivan)

Titan also did one-page preludes for the pre-ninth Doctors, showing what happened to each of them in the aberrant timeline where the Cybermen took over the universe. These set the stage for the main story... but for some reason the collected edition puts them all at the back! One of the cool things about reading in PDF is that I just moved them all to the front and read them first, as was clearly meant to be. They are fine, mostly noteworthy because Titan gets in some good artists for them, especially Mike Collins and Lee Sullivan.

I read an issue of Titan's Doctor Who comic every day (except when I have hard-copy comics to read). Next up in sequence: The Ninth Doctor: Official Secrets

Review: Doctor Who: The Twist by George Mann, Mariano Laclaustra, Rachael Stott, et al.

Collection published: 2016
Contents originally published: 2016
Acquired: March 2020
Read: April 2021

Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor, Vol 5: The Twist

Writer: George Mann
Artists: Mariano Laclaustra & Rachael Stott, with Agus Calcagno & Fer Centurion
Colorists: Carlos Cabrera, Alexandre Siquiera & Rodrigo Fernandes, with Thiago Ribero & Juan Manuel Tumburus
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

This volume contains two twelfth Doctor stories, with a new short-term companion between Clara and Bill. The first, "The Twist," is set on a human space habitat in the far future, and the Doctor investigates a series of mysterious disappearances while also attending a rock concert. It's okay. It has a twist that's kind of dumb, and I didn't buy the resolution, but I enjoyed the ride well enough.

The second, "Playing House," is actively dumb. The big twist here is so obvious you feel insulted. The bigger-on-the-inside place the Doctor discovers... is a TARDIS! Wow, who would see that coming?

Also, I feel that between George Mann's three original companions (Engines of War's Cinder, The Eighth Doctor's Josie Day, and this volume's Hattie), I am far too able to triangulate what he thinks is sexy. He very clearly has a type!

from Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Year Two #7 (art by Mariano Laclaustra with Agus Calcagno & Fer Centurion)

I read an issue of Titan's Doctor Who comic every day (except when I have hard-copy comics to read). Next up in sequence: The Tenth Doctor: Sins of the Father

Review: Doctor Who: A Matter of Life and Death by George Mann and Emma Vieceli

Every morning over breakfast, I read a single issue of a comic book. If I have one to hand, that's a hard copy comic. (Usually of late, that would be from my reading through of all of DC's post-Golden Age Earth-Two/JSA comics.) When I don't, I read a digital comic, usually from a Humble Bundle; these days, I'm reading Titan's Doctor Who comics in publication order. Things have worked out recently such that I've been reading a lot of those, and I am a bit behind on reviewing them. So starting today I catch up! If you are not interested, come back on June 28 when I review, er, a Doctor Who prose novel, or July 12 when I review, ah, um, a different Doctor Who comic. But after that things should finally get more diverse again... if you count Transformers as diverse! (Of course my Friday posts will continue their usual eclectic selection of topics.)

Collection published: 2016
Contents originally published: 2015-16
Acquired: September 2018
Read: March 2021

Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor, Vol 1: A Matter of Life and Death

Writer: George Mann
Artist: Emma Vieceli
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

The first (and so far only) volume of Titan's eighth Doctor range is another slice of perfectly adequate Doctor Who comics from Titan. George Mann has written worse stuff, and Emma Vieceli proves excellent on the artwork. A lot of the plots were decent Doctor Who ideas, but rushed or poorly implemented. Art comes to life in the first story, but so quickly we barely see its effects; in the second story we're asked to believe the best match for a race of living crystal is a race of sentient cats; the idea of a weird dimensional portal in the third seems over before it's even used; and so on. Titan's Eleventh Doctor series has done done-in-one tales much more successfully. On the other hand, I liked Mann's emphasis on the Doctor as a man trying to find peace in conflict, and Vieceli brings both Doctor and companion to life in a way utterly suited to the bouncing, emotional eighth Doctor. If there are more eighth Doctor comics (seems unlikely), get someone else to write them, but bring her back.

I read an issue of Titan's Doctor Who comic every day (except when I have hard-copy comics to read). Next up in sequence: The Tenth Doctor: Arena of Fear

Review: Doctor Who: Hyperion by Robbie Morrison, George Mann, Daniel Indro, Mariano Laclaustra, and Ronilson Freire

Collection published: 2016
Contents originally published: 2015
Acquired: September 2018
Read: October 2020

Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor, Vol 3: Hyperion

Writers: Robbie Morrison, George Mann
Artists: Daniel Indro, Mariano Laclaustra, Ronilson Freire
Colorists: Slamet Mujiono, Luis Geurrero
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

I'm of two minds about Titan's Twelfth Doctor ongoing. I find the plots very uninteresting. Evil fire monsters who are ancient enemies of the Time Lords invade the Earth, blah blah blah. It's Doctor Who at its most generic, which is a shame, because on screen, the Peter Capaldi era was Doctor Who at some of its most inventive and clever. In his three seasons, we only got three alien invasion stories by my count, and all of them (the 2014 Missy/Cyberman two-parter, the 2015 Zygon two-parter, and the 2017 Monks trilogy) did really interesting and clever stuff with the concept, and mostly used alien invasions as a way of exploring other issues: mortality, xenophobia, compliance and resistance. The Hyperion storyline does nothing like that; these are just stompy alien fire monsters who want to burn down the Earth and drain the sun, and the human guest characters are about as complex as a bad drawing. Plus there's this really clunky bit where the Doctor leaves in the middle of a crisis to get the stuff he needs to defeat the aliens from other times and places, which I think creates more problems than it solves.

But writer Robbie Morrison really gets the voices of Peter Capaldi as the Doctor and Jenna Coleman as Clara. I can imagine Capaldi saying these lines, and can hear how he would balance warmth and coldness in that way only he can do. So even if the experience of reading the overall story was meh, the experience of reading any individual page was usually pretty enjoyable, so long as the Doctor was on it. (On the other hand, George Mann, who pens a single-issue story about Victorian vampires, writes a pretty generic Doctor.) So far the best this series has been is the Las Vegas story in vol 2, which was fun and inventive just like the twelfth Doctor's era on screen. If Morrison can do more stuff like that and less stuff like this, he can do something really interesting, I reckon. I hope so.

I read an issue of Titan's Doctor Who comic every day (except when I have hard-copy comics to read). Next up in sequence: Four Doctors

Review: Doctor Who: Fractures by Robbie Morrison, Brian Williamson, Mariano Laclaustra, et al.

Comic PDF eBook, n.pag.
Published 2015 (contents: 2015)
Acquired September 2018
Read May 2020

Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor, Vol 2: Fractures

Writers: Robbie Morrison [with George Mann]

Artist: Brian Williamson & Mariano Laclaustra
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

This volume contains three stories, thankfully largely ignoring the tedious "Hyperion" storyline introduced in volume 1 of The Twelfth Doctor, except for small references. The first story is a tie-in to the "new UNIT" era, with Kate Stewart; I found it dull. I think it's supposed to be scary, but neither writing nor art really carries an element of fear, and I found the motivations of the villains confusing and unconvincing.

The second story was, even if not as strong as some of Titan's tenth and eleventh Doctor stuff, the best twelfth Doctor comic yet. It's the first of these comics to really capture was worked about Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman on screen, as the Doctor and Clara swan through 1960s Las Vegas, battling gangsters being aided by aliens. Lots of colorful art and colorful characters, and great ideas, I really enjoyed it.

The whole book ends with a brief short focusing on Clara, which didn't make much of an impression.

I read an issue of Titan's Doctor Who comic every day (except when I have hard-copy comics to read). Next up in sequence: The Eleventh Doctor: Conversion

Review: Zenith Lives!: Tales of M.Zenith, the Albino edited by Stuart Douglas

Trade paperback, 161 pages
Published 2012
Acquired May 2012
Read August 2014

The Obverse Quarterly, Book Four: Zenith Lives!: Tales of M.Zenith, the Albino
edited by Stuart Douglas

The last volume of the first year of Obverse Quarterly gives us a selection of stories about Monsieur Zenith, a supervillain who is apparently the archnemesis of Sexton Blake, a detective character I'd never heard of before, but was apparently continuously published from 1893 to 1978. Unfortunately, whatever appeal exists in the character of Monsieur Zenith is not really brought out by this collection, which mostly seems to depend on one's preexisting interest, I think.

"The Blood of Our Land" by Mark Hodder is the best of these, showing Zenith executing a heist that gets very complicated, very quickly-- though there are time it's a little rough, it displays why one might be interested in Zenith and his exploits. Michael Moorcock's "Curaré" is all right, but it's not really a Zenith story and more a story in which Zenith happens to appear; the focus is on the improbably named Seaton Begg and his delightful associate Yvette.

Weirdly, there are two stories that most serve to introduce a new nemesis for Zenith, George Mann's "The Albino's Shadow" and Stuart Douglas's "Zenith's End!" both end with Zenith getting a new lease on life by having a new good guy to fight. This makes neither particularly interesting as standalone pieces, especially as Mann's is a very weak story: basically Zenith threatens the Prime Minister, the protagonist asks people about him, the protagonist follows Zenith's henchman, Zenith decides that such skills will make him a delightful opponent. Skills? What skills?

There's also Paul Magrs's "All the Many Rooms," which again is not a Zenith story, but just a story Zenith is in, but even worse, is a complete jumble and total nonsense.

Review: The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction

Mass market paperback, 408 pages
Published 2007
Acquired March 2012
Read March 2014

The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction
edited by George Mann

Several years ago, I read and enjoyed volume three of this series, so looping back to the beginning seemed warranted, although "new science fiction" hardly applies at this point. It's a decent anthology, though not as good as remember that later one being. Unfortunately, it doesn't start strong, as I found Jeffrey Thomas's "In His Sights" pretty difficult to get into, with lengthy exposition dumps starting right on the first page, but it eventually picked up for me with a fun time travel story in Peter F. Hamilton's "If At First..." and Stephen Baxter's apocalyptic "Last Contact."

"Cages" by Ian Watson, about aliens who introduce disabilities to the human race, was fascinating even if I didn't understand it and Mary A. Turzillo's "Zora and the Land Ethic Nomads" was a great, personal-level story set on Mars. Those four are seemingly it for strong stories, alas, though there are number of decent ones. Many of the middling ones run afoul of that old nemesis of science fiction: the writer who has an idea, but not a story. I wanted to love "The Bowlder Strain" by James Lovegrove (about a virus that removes your ability to swear) and "Personal Jesus" by Paul Di Filippo (about aliens who give everyone on Earth an iPod that lets them talk to God), but both had these amazing concepts wedded to insubstantial stories.

Special excoriation must be reserved for Mike Resnick & David Gerrold's "Jellyfish," about a Philip K. Dick/Kurt Vonnegut pastiche cleverly named "Dillon K. Filk" who... listen, I don't even know. It's the worst sort of metafiction: lazy, in-jokey, and knowing. I rarely hate stories as much as I hated this, but this was really a complete waste of every one of the 38 pages it was printed on. After ten pages have been wasted on basically nothing, then you get more and more expys of famous authors: "E. A. van der Vogel" (ugh), "Belevedere Atheling" (double ugh), "Robert Goldenboy" (really? are you even trying?), and then a whole page that just lists these I-am-sure-they-are-so-hilarious-to-Resnick-and-Gerrold-and-their-friends parody names of writer after writer after writer, culminating with "whatsisname, that sissy little creep who sold that stupid script to Star Truck while still in college, stealing the opportunity from a real science fiction writer." As if David Gerrold ever crossed the radar of Dick or Vonnegut; dream on, fanboy. It was at this point that I swore violently and went on to the next story, because life is too short. This story and Brian Aldiss's contribution ("The Four Ladies of the Apocalypse") make me think Mann was willing to take any old shit from famous writers to bolster his book.

Wow, I wasted a lot of words on it, but I seriously hated that story, and it remains my strongest emotional reaction to the book. Thankfully, I know the series will do better work later on.

Review: Lady Stardust edited by Art Critic Panda

Trade paperback, 112 pages
Published 2012
Acquired October 2012
Read June 2013

The Obverse Quarterly: Year Two, Book Two: Lady Stardust
edited by Art Critic Panda

I guess this Iris Wildthyme anthology is based on David Bowie or something; I wouldn't know. But who cares? This is one of the most fun, most diverse Iris Wildthyme anthologies yet. Vince Cosmos makes an appearance in Paul Magrs's "Hold onto Yourself," which is fun (where's the next audio drama, though?); Scott Liddell gives us a creepy and evocative story in "Slip Away"; and Stewart Sheargold's "Cracked Actor" is a deranged murder mystery on the set of an Italian vampire film. All good fun, without going over-the-top in an alienating way.

The only story I felt didn't work was George Mann's "Low/Profile," which purports to be the Wikipedia entry for a Bowie album, but ended up telling a pretty standard narrative; I don't think Mann really utilized the form well beyond the occasional "[citation needed]" or "[original research]" gag. Real Wikipedia entries aren't quite this coherent.

(I was disappointed at another Obverse title with sloppy typesetting; it seems to be a different size in each story, and sometimes fluctuates within one story. It makes this book look amateurish.)