davramlocke's Reviews (777)

Wow. This is one of the most impressive books I've ever made my way through. First of all, if you're not a fan of Batman in general, don't bother. I suppose it's possible that looking through this Bat-pedia might make a fan out of someone, but nuts to that. This is a book for fans. And it is just that; a Bat-pedia. It tells the facts of Batman from his inception into the present, and it does so in beautiful detail. It's an encyclopedia for Batman-lovers and a manual for would-be Batmans. It doesn't lay out every dimension of the Batmobile, but it comes eerily close.

At this point in the comic cycle of Gotham's Dark Knight, it would be fairly difficult to read the entire story. It branches off at points, it contradicts itself, and at times it becomes almost too ridiculous to actually read. Add to this the cartoon series, the multiple movies, and a few excellent video games, and you have a world that has little cohesion but loads of entertainment. With the Batman Files, Manning has attempted to tell a certain timeline, and while even it doesn't hold up to super-scrutiny, it's incredible to read through. It's dense, full of information, and one of the most visually pleasing books I've ever held in my hands. I want so much to have it in my own collection just for its aesthetic appeal, but alas I can not afford to spit out a hundred bucks for one book. I'll leave it to my library to foot that expense. But I'm glad they did because this book just feels...important. Yes, he's just a guy in a fancy bat-suit, but as a symbol, he's so much more than that. The Batman Files delivers that importance.

There were parts of this I really enjoyed, but like many of the Fables books, it all felt meandering with lots of flimsy excuses to include certain characters and keep up with other realms.

But I am a sucker for holy grail stories, and this one fits that bill.

I am always skeptical picking up anything set in feudal Japan for fear that I will find the usual anime, over-the-top kill-fests that many writers and artists love to create. This samurai book is not that, and there's much to appreciate here. For one, the tone feels very authentic, particularly when one considers that the author is French. There is great love for Japanese history on the page, but it's mixed well with enough mythical fantasy to not take itself as historical fiction. I also like that the protagonist, the nominal Samurai Taeko himself, is not invincible, which is another problem many similar tales can fall victim to. He is good, but he isn't that good.

There are problems. There's a definite over-sexualization of the women in the book (you see them naked, but never a man), but at the same time the power structures in place allow for equality. Women can beat men in combat fairly easily here. The story is also fairly rote and predictable and is possibly even over-edited. I felt like there were holes between panels at times.

In all, I would read a second volume of this. I'm not sure that it's memorable, but I enjoyed it.

Imagine my surprise when finishing this installment of Fables that it stands as my favorite of the series. To be truthful, I am only reading the final volumes out of an odd sense of obligation - I've read so much that it seems wrong not to finish it. But this one, which I assume is the second to last of the deluxe versions and so close to the end of the run, has engaged me more than anything since the very first few books.

I like it in part because of the feminine King Arthur twist (King Arthur myths are basically my comfort food), and also for the merry band of adventurer's journeying into fabled Celtic lands portion (another mythical area that I have great love for).

But even the ending of this book, which foreshadows the end of it all, is really well done. Add in Princess Bride and Lord of the Rings references, which I would criticize in any other fiction, and you have a recipe in line with my tastes. Really intrigued to finish this one up.

I am not sure what I expected out of this. Willingham has already done huge battles and big monsters and betrayals and every other fairy story trope imaginable. The conflict between Snow and Rose could have been interesting, but ends up as a mediocre last gasp. I enjoyed the wrap ups for all the characters, even if they were just footnotes. These are familiar characters, and I do feel attached to them after reading through all of the series.

Not much more to say really. This particular book has lots of build up that never pays off, and I can see both the value and the disappointment in that outcome. If nothing else, I really liked Rose and Snow's armor.

What a load of waffle.

I feel like this book should be called Ancient Greek Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. I understand that when people say Ancient Philosophy, that most of us in the Western Hemisphere think of the Greeks, but the word Ancient is not relegated to one small area. This work only looks at Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the resultant philosophers that emerged from those three giants.

That said, it is a good overview for the work of the Greeks. I found the organization to be slightly annoying because Annas tries to base the outline of the book on themes instead of on eras, and so it becomes confusing to sort out the whens from the whats. She also has a tendency to veer into academic jargon, which is not the best way to introduce concepts to an unfamiliar reader.

Dear Bloodborne,

You were a true curse to me. I spent many, many hours struggling with you, feeling the various ways in which you chose to torture me but yet loving it for reasons that remain unclear. I quit you, almost a year ago to this day, and I still, somewhere in the back of my mind, feel a sense of uncompleteness at the beasts left unslain, the nightmares left still roaming.

Imagine my surprise at finding, and enjoying, this short graphic novel that shares your name, if not your narrative structure. I generally do not expect video game tie ins, in novel or movie or television form, to be very good. Games have a very specific structure that do not often lend themselves to alternate-form tellings. But when someone decides to break away and write something in the spirit of a game, capturing what makes the game so good without trying to completely imitate the game, that is when you have a winner. This is a winner, and I'm excited to see where it goes despite the fact that the narrative seems wildly different from that of the game.

Thanks for listening,

David

ps: That one moment, you know the one, the surprise moment about midway through - genius.

I picked this book up because vaccination is something I knew very little about, and it's something everyone should know a very lot about. This is stuff we inject into our bodies, and into those of our children, and we do so because we trust the medical industry that recommends it. But when an industry (particularly Big Pharma) is shown to value profit over human life, is it right to trust them anymore?

With Vaccine Nation, Conis answers some questions I had about immunization and its impact on society. She does a thorough job of giving the history of vaccines in the United States from Jonas Salk's polio vaccine up to 2015 when this book was written. What I think I like most about this text is that I could never truly tell which side of the argument that Conis fell on, and this is an attribute that any informative non-fiction book should boast. She lays out hundreds, maybe thousands, of facts, all backed up by a huge bibliography, and she allows the reader to decide for themselves what side of the fence they wish to jump on. To her credit, she even managed to move my opinions more towards the middle than they otherwise would have been.

The only thing that Conis really leaves out is the hard-core science behind vaccines. She explains their workings enough that a reader has an understanding of how they work at basic levels, but she doesn't weigh the text down with complicated formulas or theories. This is good because it sparks curiosity about those higher levels of knowledge that I may now go and seek. Her writing is academic, for sure, but it is never the un-readable jargon that many books like this can be.

This is an important book for parents and anyone concerned about what it means to be protected from disease. I recommend it and will be curious to read others like it.