Beautiful Darkness

A friend at work recommended this to me.  Well, indirectly.  She wrote a blog post talking about the 2014 comics of the year and listed Fabien Velhmann and Kerascoet's Beautiful Darkness as one of her favourite reads of the year.  So I put it on hold and she left me a note telling me to let her know how it is.  So when I finished reading Paragon Lost, I decided to give Beautiful Darkness a shot, especially since I knew it would be a quick read.

Beautiful Darkness is a strange tale.  It's about a princess named Aurora who lives inside a girl.  Something happens and the girl dies, so Aurora and her people escape and live in the woods.  Aurora takes care of everyone, helping them find food and make shelter.  But over time, you see that her people are taking advantage of her.  And so Aurora sets out on her own, only to be followed by those she left behind.

I finished reading Beautiful Darkness in an hour or two.  And when I was done, I was left wondering what I actually THOUGHT about it.  Part of me wanted to reread it, to see if I got something else out of it a second time.  But the other part of me doesn't want to because there's a lot of other books I'd like to be reading.  Even now, several hours later, I'm still not really sure.  The artwork is beautiful.  But the story itself is deeply disturbing.  From the dead little girl Aurora's people came out of, who remains a fixture of the setting as she slowly rots, to the macabre ending where Aurora reminded me of the witch from Hansel and Gretel, I just don't know.  I didn't dislike it, but I don't think I really liked it either.  I guess I'll sleep on it before giving it a rating on Goodreads.

Paragon Lost

I read Dave Duncan's King's Blades trilogy many years ago and really, really liked them.  Over time, I acquired book five in the series (Impossible Odds) without realizing it was book five.  So when I went to read it, I decided to read book four first, which luckily the library had.  Apparently I didn't have to because books four, five, and six are standalone stories which can be read in any order.  But once I had my hands on Paragon Lost, I decided to read these three in order anyway.

Paragon Lost is the story of the disgraced Blade Beaumont.  Beaumont has been working as a fencing instructor at Gossip's Corner, an inn.  The Blade's Grand Master discreetly pays him a visit, telling him that a Blade has been stolen and Beaumont is the only one who can get him back.

At this point, the narrative goes back to the past, showing what led to Beaumont's disgrace.  Beau and two other Blades, Arkell and Oak, were given to the King's trusted friend Lord Wassail for a secretive and dangerous mission.  They were to travel across the world to Skyrria to bring back the new queen of Chivial.  Unfortunately the new queen is the sister-in-law of the autocrat of Skyrria, Czar Igor.  Igor is a mad ruler, given to kill people on a whim.  And Igor wants to know the secret of how the Blades are bound because he wants to make his own. And he may not let the four leave his country without giving him that secret.

Unfortunately, Paragon Lost wasn't as good as the original trilogy, at least as I remember them.  I had a really hard time getting into Paragon Lost, rereading a couple of early pages several times.  It was only after I realized that the Grand Master who had come to call on Beau was the same Durendal from the previous trilogy that I became a bit intrigued.  It still took about halfway through the story before I really felt like I was getting into it.  And once the story of what happened to Beau in the past sort of ended, the remainder of the book was just ok.  Hopefully the remaining two will be a bit better!

In Real Life

I don't really remember what attracted me to In Real Life, the new graphic novel by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang.  I've read some stuff by Cory Doctorow and liked it, so when In Real Life finally showed up at the library, I was more than happy to read it.

In Real Life is the story of Anda, a girl who falls in love with the new MMORPG Coarsegold Online.  Her mother lets her play under the stipulation that she only hang out with girls her age, something relatively easy because of the guild Anda has joined.  But one of her new friends, Lucy aka Sarge, talks Anda into killing gold farmers for real world money.  Anda agrees and life is good until she meets Raymond, a gold farmer from China.  Raymond is the first gold farmer to actually talk to her.  And so she starts to learn about his life and the horrid conditions under which he lives (he farms gold for hours every day, and is suffering from a back injury but doesn't have a doctor or coverage to get it treated).  Things come to a head when Anda's mother discovers the money coming into her Paypal account and Sarge discovers Anda's friendship with a gold farmer.

In Real Life was a really interesting story about economics, video games, and bullying (sort of).  It was also a really interesting look at how we take our lives here in the West for granted (and what it's like elsewhere in the world).

Krampus: the Yule Lord

Back in 2009, I read Brom's The Child Thief.  I absolutely loved it and wanted to get a hold of more books by him.  A few years later, I stumbled upon Krampus: the Yule Lord.  I've been meaning to read it, but just never got around to it.  But when I realized I had both an article and book review due for work, I decided that Krampus was the perfect compliment to my article on Santa Claus.

Krampus is the story of the Yule Lord.  He was imprisoned by Santa Claus five hundred years ago.  With the help of his Belsnickels, demonic-looking people he has chained to his will, he is finally ready to break free.  All he needs is Santa's magical sack.

Jesse Walker has the misfortune of observing the Belsnickels make their grab for the sack, which falls into his trailer.  When he discovers the sack's magic, he thinks his money trouble is over.  But both Santa and the Belsnickels are after him.  And when the Belsnickels find him first, he gets caught up with Krampus and his ancient feud with Santa. 

I had a hard time getting into Krampus; it took until about half-way through the book before I started really caring about what was going on.  But make no mistake: after the initial set-up, this book gets awesome!  The Yule Lord is Loki's grandson, and Santa Claus is actually Baldr.  Their feud was really interesting, seeming to be started from a difference in both opinion and viewpoint.  The Belsnickels were really interesting people, being made up of Native Americans from 400 years ago, a surveyor from the turn of the century, and Isabel, a woman with the heart of a lion.  Krampus was a really fun but dark romp through Christmas traditions.

Santas of the World

Continuing with the research for my Christmas I themed article, I read George Ouwendijk's Santas of the World. This is another kid's book, meaning it was a really easy read. It goes through mostly European and North American countries, explaining the differences in what people believe concerning Christmas ideas on gift-givers. I found the book really interesting (although a lot of the facts were similar to the ones in The Truth About Santa Claus). Together, both books were good reads, particularly for the article I'm writing. 

The Truth About Santa Claus

I decided to write a Christmas-themed article for work.  So that meant I needed to find some books on Christmas.  One of the ones I found and read is The Truth About Santa Claus by James Cross Giblin.  This is an older book (from 1985), but it still seemed pretty good, giving a great history of how the Santa Claus we know today evolved.

The Truth About Santa Claus is divided into seven chapters.  It starts off looking at St. Nicholas, both the man (what little we know of him), and the saint who was a miracle-maker.  There was a really neat story about St. Nicholas anonymously giving money to a poor man for his daughters' dowries so the man wouldn't have to sell one (or all?) of them into slavery.  It was stories like this that led to the idea of St. Nickolas as a gift-giver.

People in England stopped worshipping St. Nicholas in the 1500's, in part thanks to people like Martin Luther, who denounced the St. Nicholas Day holiday (which is December 5th).  So new gift-givers sprung up, including Father Christmas (who is actually based off the Roman god Saturn), and the German Christkindl, who was the Christ child, believed to bring gifts to children.The Dutch kept worshipping St. Nicholas, but they added Black Peter, a frightening creature believed to serve St. Nicholas; it was Black Peter who carried a trunk full of presents (for good children) and birch rods (for bad children).  As a historical side note, Black Peter was often depicted as a sixteenth-century Spanish official, because the Dutch were occupied by the Spanish but drove them out.  Dutch children called St. Nicholas "Sinter Claes" for short; this eventually evolved into "Santa Claus."

From there, these various gift givers merged and became the figure of Santa Claus (for example, "Christkindl" eventually became another name for Santa, "Kris Kringle").  His image slowly became the jolly old elf, in no small thanks to Clement Clarke Moore's poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" ("'Twas the night before Christmas...") and Thomas Nast's cartoons for Harper's Weekly.  Other characters entered the Santa Claus myth, including his helper elves, Mrs. Claus, the eight reindeer, and later Rudolph.

The Truth About Santa Claus was a really interesting read about Santa Claus's history.  It might be old, but it's still well-worth the read.

Shoplifter

I don't have a lot to say about Michael Cho's Shoplifter. I saw it while I was working one day and decided to take it out. Shoplifter is the story of Corrina, a girl who finds herself, several years later, in the same job she took right after graduating. The only time she feels alive is when she steals a magazine from the corner store. But then a series of events lead her to question her entire life.

This was a story that I thought would speak to me. It's about a young woman deciding to go and live life, rather than just waiting for something to happen. But for some reason, the story just didn't really work for me (possibly because I'm not at the waiting for life to happen stage anymore myself). I did enjoy the art though - the style is different from most comics and graphic novels that I read.