my regrets are few ([info]walksbyherself) wrote,
@ 2009-05-06 22:50:00
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Entry tags:acen, books, cosplay, real life

he is no less than a stuffed man...
What, can it be? An entry of...SUBSTANCE??

SAY IT IS NOT SO.


It's so.

Hokay. So I was at the library on Monday and discovered they had the first Nightside book. Having been meaning to see what all the fuss was about over this series, checked it out. Just finished it, and I have to say I loved pretty much everything about it...except John Taylor.

When I say I loved pretty much everything else, I mean it. The setting of the Nightside has me hooked (*eyes [info]strangefellows*), as does the potential cast of crazy thousands. Alex, Razor Eddie, Shotgun Suzie, even those guys hiding behind shit in the Fortress--wanted to wrap them up in a package with a bow and hug them. John, on the other hand...

Maybe it's Simon's writing style for him that's ruining the character for me. He does have this habit of going on about "IT IS THE NIGHSIDE AND SO GODDAMN TERRIFYING; WEIRD SHIT HAPPENS HERE SO HOLD ON TO YOUR VALUABLES. AND INTERNAL ORGANS, HAHA." that it gets old. I'm temped to write "ALSO, WHITE COURT VAMPIRES ARE REALLY SMOKING HOT" in the margins. (Bonus points if you get that joke.)

The stuff that should feel scary just doesn't somehow. Case study: the Timeslip. Holy crap is that (in concept) a creepy fucking future. No people. Decomposing buildings. Worst use of regenerative powers EVER. And also it's ALL JOHN'S FAULT. But...I don't know, it kind of fell flat for me. Maybe knowing the spoiler of Who John's Mum Is kind of kills some of the suspense factor where that crosscuts the plot, but shouldn't a creepy postapocalyptic near future nightmare be scary even if you do know how maybe we get to that point?

And speaking of narration (which we weren't really, but go with it), John's actual dialogue reads a lot of the time like narration--so much so that sometimes I skimmed right over the quotation marks and forgot he was saying this shit out loud. I don't care if you are a hardboiled Nightside noir poster child, PEOPLE DON'T TALK LIKE THAT. And if one more freaking person "had to be in their late [age bracket] by now" I was going to gag myself with a spoon.

Tell me, oh wise f-list, because I know I've got some Nightside readers out there, will I like John more as things carry on? Am I being too nitpicky? Is the first one the worst one? Throw me a bone here, guys, because I really wanted to like this series.

(I also checked out the mega book with the first three Hawk and Fisher stories; am hoping those are better or I will be a SAD LIBRARY PANDA.)

This time tomorrow I will...hopefully be in bed, actually, given what time I have to get up to go to the airport on Friday, because in case the cosplay pictures weren't a clue, I'M GOING TO ACEN. This will put me incommunicado pretty much, where LJ is concerned, although I will be bringing my laptop and will tag if I can. On the other hand, I plan on twittering the crap out of the convention, so hopefully that will keep y'all entertained over the weekend.

I should make my sandwich for tomorrow, but will probably end up watching Much Ado on YouTube instead. Which I may be doing already.

(Or, ohgod, tell me they have Branagh as Iago on youtube. SO MUCH HOT.)

EDIT: Also, if anyone knows what I should be reading if I find myself craving Deadpool? (No, I haven't seen the movie yet, but all the Deadpool chatter has made me remember my scans_daily-spawned love.)


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[info]slutbamwalla
2009-05-07 03:32 am UTC (link)
John Taylor is one of those characters that you either really like, or really don't like. To my mind, the reason why things don't seem too scary is because you're seeing it from John's POV, and he knows that if he let himself realize how scary things were, he'd freeze up. His best weapon against things bigger and badder than him is his bravado. Because no one can quite figure out if he's as badass as he seems to be, and no one really wants to test it on the off chance that he is.

In later books, John isn't alone, so you do get to see a little more reaction from other people to use as a gauge for just how ballsy John is being in standing up to them.

And, to be honest, yeah, I think already knowing about Mum is going to hamper you, because you already know that makes John pretty damn powerful. Before you know that, though, you're wondering just as much as everyone else if he could really pull off his threats, and that adds something.

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[info]daniidebrabant
2009-05-07 04:15 am UTC (link)
1. I get your reference and raise you a OH DEAR GOD *HEADDESK HEADDESK HEADDESK*

and

2. John's... he's got the difficult position of being your window into the world and at the same time being an old hand at all this. Also, like Roger said, if you come in knowing about John's mum it kind of... breaks the suspense.

I will say he settles into the role better in the next book. He's no longer starting from scratch.

3. ...Green's writing is a bit repetitive. You just kind of have to learn to phase bits of it out. When I play him, I generally try to phase out the worst of it.

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[info]sotto_voice
2009-05-07 05:34 am UTC (link)
Read Joe Kelly's run on the first Deadpool solo series. It's #1-33, along with the Deadpool/Daredevil 1997 annual, and it's fucking brilliant. I still can't believe it was Kelly's first major assignment. Kelly, in my mind, kind of wrote the classic Deadpool. The series is still fun after his departure, but I really hated Christopher Priest's work on it along with the writer whose name I can't remember, and I was not wild about Gail Simone's. Also fun: Deadpool: The Circle Chase #1-4 and Deadpool (1994) #1-4, both miniseries which came before the '97 solo title. Fabian Nicieza, Deadpool's co-creator and the guy who wrote all of Cable and Deadpool (which ran in the early '00s, and wow is that terrifying to say), wrote at least one of those miniseries, maybe both. It's not quite the Deadpool I was expecting -- I think Joe Kelly was really the first person to start writing him like that -- but they're pretty great backstory and, like I said, they're fun.

Also amazing and hysterical, if slightly less emotionally nuanced (but still Swan Lake in comparison to Daniel Way's current shitacular series): Cable and Deadpool, the entire fucking run. Fabulous. I had [info]jothra's comics for a while, and I left them out on the coffee table in my apartment. Inevitably, when we had people over, someone would pick one up to idly flip through, and by the end of the night, would be in a corner, reading book number six-out-of-six, laughing uncontrollably.

I ... hope that is mildly helpful and not as confusing as I think it may be? I read a lot of Deadpool a couple months ago.

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[info]sotto_voice
2009-05-07 05:36 am UTC (link)
(Kelly's and Simone's Deadpool and Nicieza's Cable and Deadpool are laugh-out-loud funny. Kelly's Deadpool features the most character development and motivation, followed by Nicieza's. They're my favorites. <333)

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