Review: Justice League of America: Power & Glory

Justice League of America: Power & Glory by Bryan Hitch
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Superman is a religiously-gullible rube, The Flash is an idiot, Green Lantern is a morose quitter, and once again the JLA is confronted by an impossible to beat antagonist, only to defeat it by a combination of mysterious, one-time only outsider assistance and because-the-narrative-requires it. And yet, Hitch manages to make everything progress so smoothly and at such a pace that it all seems to work, and you find yourself happily swept up in it all. The wheels fall off towards the end, as the narrative begins to creak under the weight of the spiralling absurdity and lack of logic, but it's still enjoyable, and the kind of slick escapism that is perfect for a lazy afternoon on the sofa.

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Review: JSA: The Golden Age

JSA: The Golden Age by James Robinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gorgeous artwork, a beautiful balance between superheroic nostalgia and historic paranoia, and plenty of over-the-top revelations that carry the whiff of the best of 1950s B-grade monster movies, all delivered with a straight face and a perfectly balanced respect for, and love of, the various elements. A wonderful volume for the geekiest of JSA fans, those with a memory of the-way-comics-used-to-be, and those who enjoy a finely balanced combination of artwork and narrative.

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Review: Writers on Writing

Writers on Writing by James Roberts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An absorbing and educational collection with writers from the 2000 Adelaide Festival of Arts. The majority of advice within is on-point and sensible, even 17 years after the fact, and most of it is delivered with a refreshing lack of pompousness and self-aggrandizement. A worthy addition to any writer's shelf, and valuable for simply dropping in and out of or ploughing right through. Inspirational and essential.

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Review: The Best American Mystery Stories 2011

The Best American Mystery Stories 2011 by Harlan Coben
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fantastic collection of crime stories, running the gamut from hard-boiled to cozy, from urban to rural, and from the humorous to the downright chilling.


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Review: Green Lanterns, Volume 2: The Phantom Lantern

Green Lanterns, Volume 2: The Phantom Lantern by Sam Humphries
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A good, solid Green Lantern story, clearly identifying enemies on two fronts and leavening the action with crisp dialogue and lightly-handled interactions between the main and supporting characters. The character arc of the titular antagonist makes for a potentially worthwhile addition to the Lantern Rogues Gallery, and deals directly-- and in a more effective way-- with the question that consumes the rookie Green Lanterns Baz and Cruz: what if you give everything you have to the cause, and it still just isn't good enough?

Two GNs in, and my main quibble with this series remains: I still struggle to see what the point of creating 2 new GNs *is*, particularly as Baz and Cruz remain little more than an assemblage of tics without any real sense of a character arc. Perhaps they'll grow into something extraordinary and ground-breaking. Right now, the writing and plotting far exceeds the characters themselves.

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Review: The Who's Who of British Crime: In the Twentieth Century

The Who's Who of British Crime: In the Twentieth Century by Jim Morris
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Short entries, as befits a Who's Who, with length seemingly determined not so much by notoriety or impact as how easily available the source text was. The writing style is variable, indicating a slapdash approach or weak editing of a manuscript collated over an extended period of time, and there are numerous lapses in both language and viewpoint-- Morris strays regularly from a factual detail to engage in philosophical moralising of the man-at-the-end-of-the-bar variety.

Handy as a quick flick-through book in support of other, meatier texts, but not an essential part of any bookshelf by a long way.

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