Greg RuckaCritiques

Badass.
Excellent story telling.

Hard-boiled leader of team that can't seem to die...

“…I’m doing this all wrong. Look, I’ll start. My name is…”
“Don’t. Do not tell me your name.”
“Why not?”
“Saves me the trouble of forgetting it.”

Stories of immortals are always interesting and this one is no exception. While first book was very interesting at the time I read it, in last four years certain movements and related ideas have become so dominant they literary poke us in the eye. Due to this I have to say I did not enjoy this volume as much.

Art is interesting and with chosen coloring it is really good. There are certain elements like Andy's profile (Greek nose) that are very exaggerated to the point one might consider Easter Island's stone statues to be Andy's self-portraits. For someone who seems to originate from the Central Asian steppe aeons before the Greeks, I am not sure how [exaggerated] Hellenic facial traits play any role here (what, she gave birth to all Ionians?).

Story wise this book is in that weird and unsatisfactory role of teaser - some things are revealed from history of our heroes and some are hinted and ..... that's it. Wait for book number three.

But for me the most problematic aspect of the book is that, as it is product of the time it was created, it suffers from preachiness. As diverse our heroes are, they are actually homogeneous. Why you might ask? I do not know, could be due to the fact that offspring would not survive the parent (not to mention the partner) so idea is not to get involved and basically not have any offspring (very similar issue can be found in Highlander). Interesting, but ultimately boring.

Second aspect is angry-female phenomenon. For some reason strong (especially warrior oriented) female characters (again, because of the current philosophical, political and sociological discourse) need to be [for all means and purposes] male, but male stereotype that is constantly angry, needs to kick everything in the teeth, have that baleful eye and approach everything with shoot-first-and-do-nothing-later attitude. For some reason this aggression-first stereotype exists and predominates lately in the media. This is not Modesty Blaise, deadly to the maximum but cool under pressure, this is not Tara Chace of Queen and Country fame, nor Legs from Nathan Never (although she alone is very near this every-problem-is-a-nail-use-hammer approach), Axa, or even Red Sonja or Angela (all three are very capable warriors but also nuanced characters). No, Andy (and Noriko) are just angry people with huge blood-lust and that is it. They do good (Andy) and very bad things (Noriko) but they do it because they are just angry. They are given role in the universe, gift of the immortality and they are angry about it. While I can understand the problem of outliving everyone they love, reason for being angry all the time and not being able to accept oneself, just points to the fact that these characters are immature, forever children, unable to learn anything from their very long (and definitely deep, whether they like it or not) life experience. It is interesting how approach to immortality in Warhammer 40K through so called Perpetuals (very divisive element fan-wise btw) gives us much more mature characters than this book.

All of the above would not ruin my experience were it not for almost mandatory clash-of-generations. Nile, junior in every way, meets Noriko and what must be most cliche inspired event, gets intrigued by a reference to a Hamurabi's Code. Everything ends with Noriko saying, ask Andy to explain it to you. And Andy is terrified when Nile mentions this. Reason? Nobody knows, but apparently this part of Hamurabi's Code is about disciplining slaves and that brings Andy so low in the eyes of her team (again, what?), that Nile is all of a sudden new boss (and unfortunately yet another angry female lead) and she rounds everyone else and they leave Andy (even worse than team leaving Booker at the end of volume 1). So, to sum it up, Andy is apparently guilty for living in time of slavery and not writing on her Instagram and blog how she is offended by it. This spoiled the story for me in a great way - what, we are to judge people living through aeons of human civilization development because they lived in times when slavery was common thing (btw. we are talking about turning prisoners of war into slaves, people ending as slaves being of same ethnicity as the conqueror/winning side). It is not that Andy did not better herself and did some very positive things to help their fellow humans. No, she lived in times that were dark by today's norms and she "did nothing about it". This way of approaching history makes serious literary works look stupid, but in form of light entertainment such as this graphic novel it comes out as completely idiocy. This for some reasons breaks Andy (serious nervous breakdown) after which she says she cannot continue the fight - this upsets Nile even more, because this just shows how Andy does not want to do the righteous fight (huh?). And while Nile I can understand (she is from our modern times), rest of Andy's team just picks up their stuff and leave with Nile, without any comment and discussion. This then creates conditions for next extremely idiotic turn of events - Andy, left by her team is approached by Noriko and decides to join her. Why? Why, oh why? To have some sort of a sequel I guess.

All the actions of Andy and her team are inconsistent with actions of people who have seen and lived through a lot (again Nile is exception because she just joined and she is very young, 20-something when she joins the team). They all behave as video game characters that will just respawn on another location and continue on. No need to learn, no need to develop, just push forward. Andy does not want to lead, but Nile says she will lead - we all follow Nile (??!???!???!???!) While this might applicable in video games, in life people learn and adapt and dont behave as eternal teens.

As I said, all of these elements existed in volume 1, but 4 years between reading these books, and too much current-thing in a relatively slim volume ruined experience for me. Instead of giving the reader an interesting story of timeless mercenaries, there are some weird philosophical discussions (including ever present humans-are-vermin discourse) that are so cliche but are present in order for comic to take itself "seriously", and this just makes immersion very difficult.

Hopefully next book in series will go back to the adventure, thriller side of the story and no longer include nonsensical aspirations to be a "serious" literary work.

Interesting story, unfortunately ends with more questions than answers. Until volume 3 is released nothing makes sense. It might be best read (or in my case re-read) when vol 3 comes out. Additionally, if you have "allergy" to preachiness this book might not be for you.

Ex-Library copy,

Escher girl poses are hard for me to ignore, but the writing was particularly good.

Sixth volume starts with the bang as our heroine Forever finds herself devising the plots for extending the influence of Carlyle family in the never-ending conflict with Hocks and their allies. While entire book reads like a chess game between two supermen (ah, i got you here! no, I let you because I analyzed your look at the recent news about price of milk so I knew you would strike here, aha! etc etc - what price we pay for CSI/Sherlock like series, unbelievable) details do come out. And one is pretty striking and comes out in the middle of the Carlyle family - maybe old Carlyle is not the head of the family as we were lead to believe.

Art is as always good. Only issue I had is with identifying some of the characters (Marisol and Forever look like twins) but this might be something to do with the future story development (after all we are talking about clones and mental reprogramming (and outright override like it happened to Forever's once love interest)) so lets see what future issues will bring.

This issue feels like a preparation for a truly bloody events. All families have now taken sides, line is drawn and large scale conflict is started. As I said story gets more interesting by the issue.

Recommended to all fans of action adventure and dystopian SF.

Well this was a strong finale for the current story arc. War between the houses reaches the climax that would put Middle Ages to shame, total annihilation and wipe-outs taking place left and right. This culminates with the session between Carlyle and Hock families. What comes pouring out shows how things started and how they ended - world thrown into turmoil and carved out by new feudal lords. Forever takes a desperate action, forced by her family's decisions - question is will she be able to pull it out, it is just too many moving parts in every direction.

I wont go into more details here because everything I say would be a spoiler, trust me lots of things take place.

Pretty good closure and I cannot see where it will go next. In parallel to main story famous Carlyle exile might just make his way back on the stage - as it usually goes in stories like this, he has a grudges of his own.

Highly recommended.

This is a collection of mini series issues that run in parallel to the main story arc. In it we follow side-characters and their adventures/challenges that take place in the shadow of the great Family Conflict.

That being said first thing first - art is mixed bag here, not of your standard quality but again this is side-story collection so I guess they wanted to experiment somewhat. In any case definitely not the quality of main story arc. In my case this was not a major issue but if you expect art to be on the same level as in main story ... lets just say beware :)

We follow young recruit in the Carlyle Daggers as she tries to survive ruthless and almost religiously indoctrinated instructors, her parents as they try to find their way in the new environment after getting "lifted" from "waste" level, journalist investigating what happened to one of the Carlyle sons held by Hock Family (and ending up as involuntary pawn used by the Families), Middle East and South Africa Lazarus soldiers in action trying to retrieve forgotten technology of Vassilovka (because we need better monsters right?), we see what happened to Joacquim and why he acted in the way he acted in vol 6 (compared to these families Corleone is a bloody welfare institution) and finally we get the story centered on weirdest, deadliest and definitely craziest Lazarus of them all, Zmey. As expected, this story is bloody weird but again it is not like Zmey is OK in his head right?

Where it not 2020 story would be of pure dystopia and utter defeat of humanity (you know like in almost every 10th SF novel these days). But since it is 2020 book was more depressing and disturbing to me than I would expect. I think people should treat stories like these as warnings not as bloody blueprints.

Recommended to all fans of dystopian SF.

This is story about people that are living around us but are markedly different - youngest is 200 years old and oldest member of part over six millennia. They are warriors by trade blessed by the exquisitely long life-spans. Even after hundreds of years their immortality puts them into very specific niche - if you cannot die then most logical profession is one where risks are high (for mere mortals) and rewards are great.

And so we find our motley group of immortal mercenaries taking new assignments in modern age - one assignment too many that will endanger them all.

So if you look at the story itself it is nothing new - it is standard story of warrior band facing the impossible odds. If we want to be true all sagas and myths are more or less the same. But that does not deduct from the experience (at least for me :)).

Story concentrates on the price of immortality (very much in vein of Highlander) and I especially like the twist on the immortality itself. Wont spoil it here but it is an interesting twist on the subject.

Recommended to all fans of action and adventure.

Forever is now suspected of foul play by her family. Although she is aware of of her origins this knowledge cannot prepare he for what she will find out later. But as it is always the case with Lazarii and their respective clans/families somebody (and quite unexpected person mind you) will lend her a hand on her path to better understand her and world around her.

In the meantime in order for her to prove her loyalty Forever is sent onto battlefields but these battles seem more concentrated on destroying the Lazarus troops of the families than on achieving the major war goals. What might be in the background of this?

Action, adventure, conspiracies and terrible facts popping up - what else is there to wish for :) I especially liked the Matrix-like history-repeats-itself twist. Cannot wait on more details regarding this.

Recommended to all fans of SF and action/adventure.

Carlyle family is now in the all out war against their competitors while patriarch remains knocked out due to the insidious poison delivered by Hock. Drawn out conflict in the continental USA against Hock's and their allies seem to shake the Carlyle allies to the core. But as long Forever is in the fight there is nothing to lose. Right? Hmmm....

As always we have backstabbing, plots within plots, assassinations between these clans and plain people fighting it out out on the frontlines for their overlords.

And Forever is changing, in a subtle ways but she now knows what she is and no longer sees the world through the same eyes.

Story continues int he same tone as before. This is very bleak and dystopian world. Comics are not the ultimate and reference source to learn about the world and society relations (just look at this situation we are now world-wide, governments and serious professional organizations are treating it like it is a bloody video game, pure embarrassment) but they are always good to make people think and wonder and seek additional information through more serious works.

Same applies here - while what we are presented with would curdle the blood of any sane person and can easily be dismissed as weird fantasy it is somewhat sobering when one thinks how people are willing and eager to surrender themselves to respective authority. And when unscrupulous people use this chance then bottomless pit opens up (particularly disturbing is the intro regarding biological warfare).

While Carlyle's do show up as a rather sympathetic lot (when compared to others) it is obvious that neither family is united nor they see the other allied families as allies - they are just tools for the old Carlyle. everyone and everything, including his posterity and Forever.

As the rest of the series so far this is very good graphic novel. Art is the same as in previous books, sometimes a little bit blocky and rigid but in general very detail and photo realistic. Coloring is just magnificent.

Recommended to fans of SF and action/adventure stories.

A pretty good retelling of Wonder Woman's origin story and first arrival in "Man's World". I liked the art, the optimistic way it portrayed our heroine, and the prominent use of WW's supporting characters. This is the first book that made me care about Dr. Minerva (Cheetah) at all. It's confusing that this is "Volume 2" but I assume that's due to the weird publication order.

Pretty art, but I didn't care much for the premise that Wonder Woman basically decided her recent life was a lie; this was a clumsy way to try and retcon the previous writer's work. I liked how WW's traditional supporting cast and villains were reintroduced and heavily used. However I felt the book didn't have a proper conclusion, it seemed like they just reprinted X issues in the trade paperback but ran out of room mid-story-arc.

Slow to start. By the end of the book I was engaged and ready to read book two.

This was an intriguing tale about one of Batman's greatest foes: Ra's Al Ghul. Batman makes a deal to help Ra's Al Ghul in exchange for speaking with his dead parents but this is more of a tale of the other daughter Ra's Al Ghul had and why she hates him so. I found it to be a bit overly dramatic, and the Nazi concentration camp stuff to be slightly problematic but overall, I enjoy it.

For someone who likes cop-shows in the vein of Homicide: Life On The Streets (they even have The Board), and Batman, this hits the spot pretty well. If anything a bit too much Batman.

Greg gave my husband a copy of the book and wanted his thoughts. I read it because we knew him, even though it is a genre I don’t like. At the time, I avoided first-person stories, even in genres I do like. I didn’t like the book because it isn’t the style I like in the first place, but I liked that he described his characters as more than two-dimensional. He added details to make the story seem more realistic. That’s good. Given that I don’t like the genre but read the entire book means I would give it 3 stars.

I bought this book because I knew the author. I don’t particularly like first-person detective novels. I had read Greg’s first novel, Keeper, because he gave us a copy, and I did like that he adds detail to his characters, unlike some of the few others I’ve read in this genre. I started reading this second Atticus and didn’t have any complaints, but I decided early on in the book that I just was not interested in reading this genre. I would be willing to try reading it again, which is better than I can say for some books in genres I enjoy.

My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/ufhe53BEYv8

Enjoy!

I haven't read the comic yet, but I think it will work better as a comic than a book. So many characters, without a satisfying conclusion to their arcs.

I'm reading this only because I really enjoyed the movie adaptation featuring these characters, and I can be a completist sometimes. The art is really variable in this collection—some of the artists were great, some of them were, uh, not to my taste. In more than one story I couldn't tell if I was supposed to be looking at Nicky or Booker. With such a short amount of space for each writer to work in, it's not surprising that most of these stories tend not to have much to them. Most of them are at least okay, though, with the exception of one near the end featuring a group of orgiastic murderous nuns which was an unpleasant little burst of misogyny. Way too much Booker, not enough Joe or Noriko/Quynh.

A little deeper examination of what it might mean to be immortal.

Decent enough take on mercenaries that can live forever. But why do they have to be mercenaries?

Basically the story that inspired the TV pilot episode. But not quite the same. Enjoyable. But I liked the second volume ([b:Stumptown, Vol. 2: The Case of the Baby in the Velvet Case|17569392|Stumptown, Vol. 2 The Case of the Baby in the Velvet Case|Greg Rucka|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1414712033l/17569392._SY75_.jpg|24507296]) better.

Decent little story that felt a little padded with soccer crowd moments.