The Story

One of the most iconic comic series to date, a series that helped set the standards of graphic novels as a medium to be taken seriously by the general public, The Watchmen tells the story of a group of masked heroes in the mid-eighties in an alternate universe USA.

And I don’t even know how to start talking about what Watchmen is about, so if you have no idea, rent the movie. Or read this article on Wikipedia.

The Response

Okay. So, this is supposed to be great. Fabulous. All that stuff. It’s got critical acclaim, and any number of comic book fans would tell me that it’s the greatest thing ever…

But this was a little smidgeon boring. Actually, it was all kinds of extremely boring.

I couldn’t get into it at all.

I loved the movie based on this graphic novel so much. So so SO much. Loved the story, loved the cinematography, loved it all. And so many people say that it was such an awesome adaptation of the book – but if I had read the book first, I would not have wanted to see the movie. Yes, I saw how they kept most of it so true to the novel, to the point where you could have a screencap and compare it to a panel in the graphic novel, and it would be almost exactly the same, and that was cool. But it wasn’t enough to get me really really super excited about actually reading the book.

The characters? Yes, it’s realistic in that they all have major issues, and none of them are the perfect hero, blah blah blah, but oh gosh, NONE of them are likable. Or even empathizable. You’ve got the psycho, the super-smart genius who only relates to Alexander the Great (even though I have an historical crush on Alexander the Great, this did not endear him to me), the guy who underwent so much radiation that he turned blue and waltzes around naked all the time, a really boring dude, and some chick that a bunch of people are in love with. And they’re all main characters and they’re all not likable. And I’m sure if the Comedian, Hollis and what’s-her-name’s mother had more page-time, they would’ve been just as bad.

And so now I’m wondering why I liked the movie so much. I think it was the effects and the cinematography and some other stuff that distracted me from the characters.

The Bottom Line

Meh. Not really caring too much about this book on a whole. Perhaps too hyped up. Need to move on to other more exciting reading materials.

Other Reviews

Things Mean A Lot, Dear Author, Look at that Book, Fyrefly’s Book Blog. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.

The Story

So. Billy Pilgrim is an untrained soldier in WWII, present at the Dresden Bombings. He’s also a time traveler. And an attraction at a Tralfamadorian zoo. And the sole survivor of a plane crash. All at the same time. Because time doesn’t flow in a linear fashion, yo. In fact, everything that has ever happened and will ever happen, they all happen at the same moment. So when someone dies, they’re not really dead, because they’re still alive somewhere in time. So it goes.

The Review

Um. I just… don’t know what to say… I simple did not GET this book. I don’t know whether Billy Pilgrim is completely utterly mad and insane and unhinged, or whether the stuff in the book is really actually happening to him. I do not get it. And the whole thing about the book jumping around to different periods of Billy Pilgrim’s life constantly was confusing as all hell. And the characters? It’s so hard to know or to like any of them because you only see them for a short snippet in a certain period of their lives, and then the next time you see them is 30 years before or after that last time you saw then. And coming from a scifi fan, who likes time travel stories, well!

Actually, this book reminded me of why I hated classics in high school and refused to read them for so many years afterwards. Because, quite frankly, this book is a whole lot of “WTF kind of crack is this?” mixed with a dash of “OMG I need three stiff drinks in order to understand what is going on here.” (Why are the weird books the ones that are always chosen to be the classics that are studied in high schools?)

And I know a lot of people liked this book! Love this book, even! Otherwise it wouldn’t be a classic, right? RIGHT?

But! There are just so many things about it that don’t make sense to me! First of all, if Billy Pilgrim is in the middle of some event in his life, but then gets transported (or whatever) to sixty years later, and if that’s the first time he’s ever been that far ahead in the future, how does he know who his daughter or wife or son or even good friends are if he hadn’t met them from the time period he had been in before? And how come he didn’t completely freak out the first time he got unstuck in time and travelled to another period in his life? (Seriously, who WOULDN’T freak out about that?!) And how come the plots of those scifi books he liked paralleled his own life so closely? (Too closely to seem coincidental, in fact!)

Plus, there just seemed like there were too many things going on. I mean, I love me some time travel, and I love me some war fiction… but mixing the two of them together, well, it didn’t mesh for me. It felt like it was trying to create a statement on the horrors of war, but then didn’t really seem to actually show the effects of the horror of war for more than a paragraph every dozen of pages. And it felt like it was trying to be smart and make a statement about how there’s no such thing as freewill and how we can’t change what has been predestined for us, but it was never explored!

Oh bother.

The Bottom Line

I’m going to read one or two other books by Kurt Vonnegut Jr just to see if I don’t like all of his books, or if it was just the one… but I will fully admit that I am nervous of what I will find. And I don’t know if I would recommend this one. On one hand, A LOT of people LOVE it… but on the other hand, I really did NOT.

Other Reviews

Things Mean A Lot, Mostly Harmless, Booklit, Jenny’s Books. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.

The Story

The Five Laws of Librarians:

1. Books are to be read.
2. Every person his or her book.
3. Every book its reader.
4. Save the time of the reader.
5. The library is a growing organism.

So starts the collection of the first five comics in the Rex Libris comic book series, a series that tells the story of one kick-butt librarian. Now, this is not any ordinary librarian, but one who worked in Rome over 2000 years ago before the Romans burt their library down. The Egyptian god Thoth took Rex under his wing for the library organization, and since then has been hunting down books – both the populate the library, and to bring overdue books BACK to the library. The Rex Libris books are his autobiography, in graphic novel format.

The Review

It’s so disappointing when a book doesn’t live up to it’s potential by like half. I mean, a series of books about a space and time traveling librarian sounds like it could only be made of win, right? Right?? That’s certainly what I had been hoping for.

But there were so many things going on here that it didn’t have time to really develop the potential awesomeness for any of the parts. There’s the space traveling to retrieve overdue books. Battling aliens or historical characters to get these overdue books back to the library safely. Librarians turning rowdy patrons into pigs. Mythological characters working in the library – Circe! Thoth! The Sphinx! That could DEFINITELY have been awesome. Fictional characters randomly popping out of the books in the library. So many things that could’ve be focused on and expanded.

Then there is the fact that this adventure is really what Rex Libris is writing for his autobiography, and so you get random asides of conversation between him and his editor in the middle of the story. And of them arguing what would make a better story – the truth, or some random ploy to draw readers. Could’ve worked if the fact that this is a story inside a story was emphasized more… or if it was gotten rid of altogether.

It wasn’t all bad though, it did have some fun stuff. Like the fact that a very sassy (and very old) Circe was there using her magical powers to keep order in the library. Wish that had been played with a little bit more.

The Bottom Line

It was okay. I won’t be reading the rest of this series, but I won’t get rid of this collection either.

Other Reviews

The Novel World, So Many Books, Experiments in Reading. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.