Difference between revisions of "Newest Graphic Novels Reviews"

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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lewis Helfand and Lalit Kumar Sharma
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|author=Edel Rodriguez
|title=World War Two: Under the Shadow of the Swastika (Campfire Graphic Novels)
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|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary=One of the most common subjects at primary school, getting on for three generations since it happened, is of course World War Two.  It has the impact that sixty million dead people deserve – but only if it's taught correctly.  One of the ways to present it is this book, which comes from a slightly surprising place – an Indian publisher completely new to me – but succeeds in being remarkably competent, complete and really quite readable.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9381182140</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Al Ewing and Rob Williams et al
 
|title=Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, Volume 3: Conversion
 
|rating=2
 
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you want to judge the worth of a ''Star Trek'' TV series, you judge the theme tune.  It's incontrovertible that they went downhill in unison, after allIt is also a truth universally acknowledged that the same applies to ''Doctor Who'', for the opening credits have definitely had their ups and downs over recent yearsBut you can also define the entertainment value of a series through the companionsOr at least you can with the 11th Doctor comic versions, which decided to pick up a Token Smart, Ballsy, Ethnic one, a bizarre, mercurially disembodied robot-type-with-limited-vocab one, and, er, a cod David Bowie one who relives the entire Ziggy Stardust lyric sheet through his witterings.  I know, right?  No hopeBut can you give up hope with the genius, energetic, effervescent and witty Doctor around?
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|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in CubaThe revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for allWell, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time awayOur narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned uponThe mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782763031</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1474616720
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Serge le Tendre, Regis Loisel and Ivanka Hahnenberger (translator)
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|author=Kia Ahankoob
|title=The Quest for the Time Bird
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|title=The Gold Lion and the Tournament of Sentinels
|rating=2.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=In order to defeat a vengeful god, who is within days of getting out of his prison – a sacred conch shell – several things must happen.  First, the conch must be united with the witch powerful enough to sustain the incantation keeping him locked up. Then she must use her helpers to endure great danger and find the information she seeks in the most perilous of places for knowledge of the ultimate part of the puzzle – the Time Bird. All this calls for heroes, but in the world of fantasy anyone can call themselves a hero – from the witch's own buxom daughter, Pelisse, to an old warrior called Bragon that the girl is forced to unite with and fight alongside.
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|summary= When Myriad created Duniva he endowed his children with different powers, each with its own strength and weakeness, in the hope they would complement each other and collaborate, creating a dynamic and prosperous society. Each power is contained within a magical ring belonging to one of eight countries led by Myriad's children and their descendants. But it didn't quite work out like that. Rivalries developed. Enmities grew out of them and the eight countries went to war. Having fought themselves into an endless and ruinous stalemate and finding the cost of war too high, a solution is proposed. Each of the eight countries will send their greatest warriors, known as sentinels, to a single combat tournament. The winner will take possession of all the rings and become the supreme ruler of Duniva.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782763627</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B09MMQJFPV
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alejandro Jodorowsky, Nicolas Fructus and Ivanka Hahnenberger (translator)
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|author=Pat Grant
|title=Showman Killer: Heartless Hero
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|title=The Grot: The Story of the Swamp City Grifters
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=A long way away, in terms of both time and space, the most perfect assassin is formed – genetically bred, adept at magical transformations, with the most athletic and deadly abilities, and with the complete lack of emotion neededAll he will ever seek is the highest price for the best job – a job that will, now and again, force him to meet with the most unusual people…
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|summary=Everything in this world runs on pedal-power, and that includes the punk bands.  There are three pedallers at the front of the Heath Robinson contraption taking our lead characters to the ferry across the swamp to Falter City, where a mother and her two sons aim to set up a yoghurt factoryYou could say that yoghurt would be the only culture around, for this is a really rough-and-ready dump of a place, but everyone is interested in small things that grow.  For the only money to be had – the only fortunes to be found in Falter City – come from algae, gunk and other crud that – well, the use of it is never really made clearOnce there, the two brothers set themselves each up with a guide Lippy, the more forward-thinking, industrious of the two, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl with bright red hairBut which of the two will come off the worse as they make their own way in this dystopian, semi-Apocalyptic hellhole?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178276139X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1603094660
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jamie Hewlett, Alan Martin and others
 
|title=21st Century Tank Girl
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=I sometimes wonder, when keying in book reviews, if ISBNs are not constructed by design instead of the formal accident that is supposed to create themSurely it's intentional that this book has 666 in its code it's the most devilishly brash, ugly and foul-mouthed comic around, and people who like that kind of thing will like thisEspecially as this book is a return to waaay distant form, and waaay distant creative partnerships, with the original artist Jamie Hewlett back on board.  It's time to cuss and roll once more…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782766618</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Derf Backderf
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|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)
|title=Trashed
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|title=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=For those people who think graphic novels are rubbish, this is the epitome of that baseless argumentIts subject is junk, it's trash, it's landfill, and garbage.  That's not a verdict on its qualities, which are great and fine ones, but its very topicStraight from school, our author was actually a bin man for a few seasons – riding on the back of something like Betty, the garbage van featured here.  It's a job nobody wants in all honesty, of course – but the book is fine enough to actually make the subject something most people should read about.
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|summary=I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, you knowI certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either sideThis book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1419714546</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1684056993
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Luke Pearson
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|author=Leigh Bardugo, Louise Simonson and Kit Seaton
|title=Hilda and the Troll
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|title=Wonder Woman: Warbringer: The Graphic Novel
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=3
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Teens
|summary=Hilda, a rather delightful small, blue-haired girl, is never far from an adventureShe is confident and excitable, brave and creative, and her stories are slightly mad, and very, very readable!
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|summary=Diana, being unique on her island, is the victim of a lot of taunts, and claims of nepotismIt's only her unique status, and her mother being Queen, that has her with any standing at all, her naysayers declare – even though she has clearly fought to be a strong young woman.  Perhaps too strong for the island, however – for every Wonder Woman origin story has her quickly leaving home for the World of Men, and this Diana is the heroine of yet another Wonder Woman origin story.  A shipwreck disturbs her leading performance in a running race, but the survivor she drags from the waters is only going to disturb a lot more...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909263788</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1401282555
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sven Hassel and Jordy Diago
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|isbn=1401286208
|title=Wheels of Terror: The Graphic Novel
+
|title=Black Canary: Ignite
|rating=4
+
|author=Meg Cabot and Cara McGee
 +
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=War books and anti-war books, in my mind, have a lot in common and only a couple of easy things need be changed to turn one to the other. This is dressed as an anti-war book, but here is the lead character surviving against all odds – the platoon whittled down several times while he and his few friends go strong; here he is overcoming all kinds of difficulty and adversity and still coming out the other end; here he is doing proper heroic deeds – or his colleagues saving the day at the last minute – and the war carries onwards towards its inevitable end. The difference perhaps is in the minutiae of what those difficulties and deeds need be, with the anti-war book having a simple honesty about them and their overall worth that the gung-ho, militaristic piece would patently lack.  And when you face the guts and gore of the kind of warfare on these pages, you don't really expect jingoism and 'hoo-rah!' attitudes.  No, even if the DNA is pretty much the same, the result here is definitely, grimly and firmly anti-war.
+
|summary=Meet Dinah Lance. Frustrated that her policeman father will not allow her to try and follow in his footsteps, and seemingly lumbered with being a cheerleader at school, she is desperate to find her voice. But it's actually more a case of her voice finding her, as when she gets frustrated or plain dissed at school her vocal outcry can shatter glass better than any opera singer. You could almost call it a weapon, or a power. But in order for her to call herself a superhero, there has to be a whole path of steps for her to take – one of which will be into her past…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297609769</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Joe Sugg
+
|isbn=1401280048
|title=Username: Evie
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|title=Batman: Nightwalker: The Graphic Novel
|rating=4.5
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|author=Marie Lu, Stuart Moore and Chris Wildgoose
 +
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Meet Evie.  She's surprisingly unwelcome and alienated at school – for a trendy and attractive girl, nobody at all seems to have any time for her, apart from the geeky card-collecting boy with the milk-bottle glasses on the busPerhaps it has something to do with her father's thatched house – after all, she must be a witch to live thereIt's not that she would wish to live there, with nobody else around, and the memory of her deceased motherBut luckily someone is choosing a place for her –her father is able to put all his work into a cyber-world for her, the E-Scape, which is close to the perfect worldAll that remains is to programme the humans to be her friends, and make the connection Evie has with them and them with her in return to be of mutual, confirming, happy benefit.  But someone else has entered the E-Scape, and their influence seems all that much more powerful than Evie's tentative happiness…
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|summary=The young man called Bruce Wayne is a very noticeable one – he can hardly go anywhere without people – bystanders, paparazzi, and suchlike – reminding him he's a billionaire at the age of eighteenFeeling rather stuck with the legacy he's inherited from his murdered parents, he wants to do charitable deedsBut one night, when he speeds off in his posh new car in pursuit of a criminal, he goes too far as far as the authorities are concerned, and gets given the most unlikely stretch of community service instead – cleaning in the home for violent criminals that is Arkham AsylumThere he learns of some other people who also allege charitable intent – the Nightwalkers, a gang who steal any ten-figure bank account contents they can, and murder the ownerCan he get close to one of them and get the truth of their schemes, or will the manipulative Madeleine be a step too far for the young do-gooder?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473619130</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Michael B Jackson, Martin Brennan and Simon Bisley
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|isbn=1401283292
|title=13 Coins
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|title=Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass
 +
|author=Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=''For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.'' There, I've done it – quoted the Bible in a reviewIt's certainly pertinent in the world of this graphic novel, where the fallen angels have one get-out clause they have been seeking since those very lapsarian eventsThey turned a little section of chain holding their leader eternally captive into the titular coins, which can influence the human holders into sheer evil, but might just cause an open war on Heaven, whether they or the best of the holy on earth use them allThe best of the holy then, offspring of the good angels, are culled as a routine, but not one – John Pozner, who of course has no idea of his place in the celestial circle of life…
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|summary=Harleen Quinzel is new in townShe always, to me, seems new in town, even if she's been around a long time, for she always has a very fresh attitude, and seems to look out of those large eyes at everything anew each timeBut here she is new in town, and the town is Gotham City.  Expecting a year-long furlough from life with her mother, she finds her gran dead and herself with no option but to stay with a bunch of drag queensShe also finds school is a drag, she also finds the whole neighbourhood is being redeveloped by a large and uncaring corporation – but she also finds two characters that will have a big impact on her lifeOne is a civil-minded lass called Ivy, the other someone she only meets at night – a lad with a singular graffiti tag and a mind for violence and chaos, who calls himself The Joker…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178276061X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Stref
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|isbn=140128339X
|title=J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan: The Graphic Novel
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|title=Mera: Tidebreaker
|rating=4
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|author=Danielle Paige and Stephen Byrne
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Here's a quiz question for you – despite the uniform seventy year copyright rule, which work has been the sole recipient of an endless extension of it, courtesy of an ex-Prime Minister?  The answer is obvious now at least, as this is one such volume.  It's a very readable and pleasant variant on J M Barrie's original stage version and novel regarding Peter Pan, which of course helps and always will now help the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital.  And for a boy who never grows up, at 111 years old he's in spritely good health.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780272901</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Peter O'Donnell and Enric Badia Romero
 
|title=Modesty Blaise - The Killing Distance
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=''Oh, such things just HAPPEN to that pair, Sir.'' The pair referred to, of course, are Modesty Blaise, sexy femme fatale with a head full of morals and a pair of legs full of kicking power, and Willy Garvin, the only man to call her ''Princess'' and get away with it – intelligent, practical and yet equally resilient in a fight with a baddyThe things that happen to them are legion, over many novels and 95 daily newspaper comic strips, and this is one of the better examples of the current collections of the latterWhere else can you get movie stunts going wrong, pregnant women in danger on the high seas, and people escaping from bomb-laden planes, all in a Jolly Hockey Sticks mood that smacks of pastiche and vintage ribaldry, were it not from the heady days of the mid-'90s?
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|summary=Meet Mera.  She's the latest in a line of young women intent on fighting against their intended destiny for one only they can see for themselvesHer father, the king of Xebel, sees some cotton wool and a hunky man in an arranged marriage as her future – after all, Mera's mother, the territory's warrior queen, is long dead.  Mera doesn't fancy the cosseting or the fella involved at all and is, in fact, trying to get Xebel out from under the cosh of Atlantean power, for Xebel's royalty are merely puppets of Atlantean mastersSo when she overhears her father request that her intended go to the world of us air-breathing humans, and kill the Atlantis heir, she rushes off to get the quest (and the promised throne) all for herselfBut of course, she has no idea what kind of person she will meet, and how hard it will be to get the job done…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781167125</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Ian Edginton and Alex Sanchez
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|isbn=1401286399
|title=The Evil Within
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|title=Super Sons: The PolarShield Project
|rating= 3.5
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|author=Ridley Pearson and Ile Gonzalez
|genre= Graphic Novels
 
|summary=What do you fear most?  And when you've answered that, think on why – is it something that happened to you, something you saw or read, or something you yourself did?  The nature of horror is looked at in this graphic novel, which spins the usual web of nightmares around some fit young adults, and tests them with graphic death on the cards at the same time as keeping them in the dark about what has brought the doom and gloom to them.  Starting with Dana, a college girl seeking her kidnapped best friend, things get darker, weirder, and forever more violent…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782761659</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Eric Colossal
 
|title=Rutabaga the Adventure Chef: Book 1
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Meet the latest adventurer to scour the land.  He has a talent for finding the obscure and seeking out the rare, and surviving all the undignified fates the world has in store.  He even has a magical companion.  He will be open to any challenge set upon him, from locating dragon-smiting swords to besting the largest, most locally loved, rival.  He is Rutabaga, and he is, of course, a chef.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1419715976</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Mark Millar and John Romita Jr
 
|title=Kick-Ass 3
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=At the start of this book, Hit-Girl is stuck in a super-max prison (don't ask why). The entire east coast Mafia command is up for grabs (you don't need to ask why Hit-Girl killed most of them herself).  As for Dave, or Kick-Ass, he's failing. He has a whole cohort of other super-heroes, which in this world means dweebish fans of comics with a stupid costume yet no power other than the determination to do well for society, but they're not going anywhere. They're not spotting crime or solving conspiracies, and they're certainly not getting their colleague and mentor Hit-Girl out of jail. Dave could in actual fact be in danger of the most heinous crime of all – growing up.
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|summary=It's the near future, and every coastal city – including Metropolis – is in need of a huge flood barrier, built on its coast by Wayne Enterprises. But the rising sea levels have put even those constructions under threat, forcing many people to relocate in America's biggest exodus for decades. Superman is helping out, of course first, he was patching up the dams, but now he's mining the asteroid belt for a rare dust that's perfect for blocking the solar energy from making further polar ice melt. Inland, in Wyndermere, the refugees from the coast are suffering bigotry and intolerance for being newcomers, but something else is much worse. A major bout of food poisoning is hitting the city. But it can't possibly have anything to do with what looks like sabotage of the flood barriers and the efforts to correct the climate, can it? Four young children begin to piece together clues that it can…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783290870</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Peter A David
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|isbn=168369015X
|title=The Avengers Vault
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|title=Manfried the Man: A Graphic Novel
|rating=3
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|author=Caitlin Major and Kelly Bastow
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=It's not just because the third richest take of any movie is about to get a sequel that we have this pictorial background guide.  There have been decades of action featuring the main characters of The Avengers, and they themselves are fifty years old as a collective entity, so this book has a lot of ground to cover. To its benefit there are hardly any mentions of the global behemoth that are Marvel films these days, beyond a couple of references where relevant.  Instead we're looking back, with bright and eager eyes, to see what we can find, what the beginner may need to know, and what the fan will have fond memories of.
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|summary=In a world where cats stand on two feet, go to work at call centres and have diminutive human beings for pets, is Manfried. He's a typical frisky but shy pet – forever getting into scrapes, demanding more food than he can suitably eat, but at the same time being the perfect companion for his owner, Steve Catson. To such an extent that Steve, who is getting known for his man-oriented thinking, is actually having nightmares about becoming the neighbourhood ''crazy man cat''. But when a window gets left open by mistake, and Manfried goes missing, the only thing for it is a massive and energised man-hunt…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781313989</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Winshluss
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|isbn=Hainsworth_Gina
|title=In God We Trust
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|title=Talking to Gina
 +
|author=Ottilie Hainsworth
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=To start with, a rhetorical testHow about God and Adam playing badminton day in and day out, until one gets bored and decides to create EveOr the defeater of Goliath and the saviour of the Israelites being one Conan the Barbarian?  Or this as a test – Jesus Himself failing to have a successful session of tequila slammers with Gabriel due to the holes through His hands? I barely need mention that in these pages God does battle with Superman, for you to have answered the test and put yourself firmly in one of two camps for this book one very much opposed to buying it, and one very much in favour.
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|summary=''This is what happened.'' An artist decided she needed a dog – so drove the length of the country, Brighton to Grimsby, to pick up an Eastern European immigrant street dog with some mange and one working eye.  Why notThe first night at home, Gina – the dog – eats something she shouldn't and causes a mess, so it's not a great start, but then begin the tribulations of training, status and behaviour all humans must go through with their dogs.  And then, the life with Gina begins to feel like too much – ''I felt weird about you because you were always there. My thoughts were taken over by you, and I felt sick, as if I was in love.''  Slowly, however, everyone – our artist/author, her husband, two children and two cats gets to form the family they and Gina all would have wanted.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861662350</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Patrick Modiano, Sempe (illustrator) and William Rodarmor (translator)
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|isbn=Colfer_Illegal
|title=Catherine Certitude
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|title=Illegal
|rating=4
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|author=Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=What little I know of Patrick Modiano was gained from the number of 'no, we've never heard of him, either' articles and summaries that came our way when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature at the end of 2014.  They suggested his oeuvre was mature, slightly thriller-based but not exclusively so, and asked lots of accumulative questions regarding identity with regard to the Vichy government during WWII.  Identity is a lot more fixed in this musing little piece, for the adult voice-over looks back over a wide remove, and says there will always be a little bit of her living the events and situations of the book.  Those situations are of a young dance-school attendee, and her loving and much-loved father, living a cosy life in Paris – even if the girl never once really works out what it is her father does for a living…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783443022</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Rob Williams and Simon Coleby
 
|title=The Royals: Masters of War
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=It's World War Two, but not as we know it.  The circumstance is building up to be pretty much what we know – the Allies have ideas to land at Normandy, the Germans have rockets ready to pummel a Blighty only just getting over the Battle of Britain, and the Americans are being pressured by Churchill to enter the war, little knowing what Japan would have in mind to force the issue.  But many things are different.  For this is a world where the Royal blood disease of Europe is not something ailing, debilitating and embarrassing, but instead the giver of super powers. The names in Buckingham Palace are different, but the opulence remains, and with the history of the current incumbents one where their powers are not exercised, people are being tasked with making sure that remains so.  But how can you stop an immovable force when it has enough might and strength to turn the tide of the war single-handed?
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|summary=Ebo is twelve years old and all alone. His sister left for Europe months ago and now he doesn't know where his brother is either but knows that he has probably done the same thing. So Ebo has to attempt the same dangerous journey himself. He must cross the Sahara Desert, get himself to Tripoli, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and then try to cross the Mediterranean Sea. By himself. At twelve. And, even if he makes it, how will he find his sister?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1401250548</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Paco Roca
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|isbn=Miller_Batman
|title=Wrinkles
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|title=Batman: Dark Knight III: The Master Race
|rating=4.5
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|author=Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Never let them tell you life begins at 40, or ends when you enter a retirement home.  Ernest has just entered an old folk's establishment, and life is ever-changing.  There's the time he meets a person hounded by the idea at least of alien abduction, the moment he forgets the word for 'ball' when holding one while doing armchair exercises, and the galling day he finds out he shares a medication routine with the most helpless and locked-in of inmates.  No, for Ernest, especially in the hands of his new room-mate Emile who will do anything to earn a fast buck, life is full of some kind of variety.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861662377</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Tohby Riddle
 
|title=Unforgotten
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Think of fallen angels, and Lucifer and the like come to mind. But they don't have to have fallen with such speed, for such a distance or with such effect. This book concerns one such creature, and while it's not named as an angel as such, and it's identified only by nobody knowing from where it comes yet everyone silently gets to appreciate its presence, it certainly looks like a Western, Christian, angel form.  And so the plot of this gentle, poetic picture book looks at the chance of such a bad thing as the fall of an angel being followed by anything more positive.
+
|summary=Batman is not playing ball. He's been videoed duffing up Gotham policemen, and not the baddies he usually biffs. But then he's not Batman – he's a she, and she finally comes up with the news that Batman died in her hands. Elsewhere, Lara, the daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman, is encouraging Ray Palmer/The Atom to turn his technologies concerned with shrinking and expanding life to the miniaturised city of Kandor, the last vestige of Kryptonian existence not to fly about in visible blue pants. What with Superman sitting idle in an exposed Fortress of Solitude having gone into a sulk, and Batman dead, there would appear to be little in the way of help for the world should anything nasty happen – but then, of course, something nasty does happen… s
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1742379729</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Thunderbirds Comic: Volume 1
+
|isbn=Weeks_Gritterman
|author=Gerry Anderson and Frank Bellamy
+
|title=The Gritterman
|rating=4
+
|author=Orlando Weeks
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|rating=5
|summary=Meet the Thunderbirds.  If you don't know anything about the Tracy family and their International Rescue organisation, then I'm not sure where you've been.  For people of a certain age (OK, mine, at least) they were the staple of Saturday morning cinema clubs, a highlight of BBC2 when repeated teatime, and even managed to make those 3D rotating card-a-vision things worthwhile.  They've been in cinemas since then, of course, but now with the world needing everything everywhen we've got a welcome chance to look back at some of the original comic book spin-offs, that probably haven't been much seen since then.  With five volumes of these books on the cards, it's worthwhile sticking to the first and seeing just what these retro delights – or otherwise – could bring.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405272600</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The Lost Sock
 
|author=Gillian Johnson
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=A lost sock. We’ve all had them. In fact, I know people who only buy socks of one colour in order to always have matching socks.  I, who prefer to buy brightly coloured socks (much like the man in this book), seem to spend my life with my feet constantly mismatched. It doesn’t bother me all that much, but it certainly affects the hero of this tale, who goes on an adventure in order to find the missing sock.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472112431</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Meteor Men
 
|author=Jeff Parker and Sandy Jarrell
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Meet Alden.  He's only at high school, but as his parents have died the farm is his – his and the couple of professors the smart kid hangs out with.  One night a large gathering forms on an ad hoc basis to watch the Perseid meteor shower – and one of them unexpectedly lands.  The rock is Alden's as it landed on private property, but the planetarium's main scientist is keen for science to learn from it – or that it should pay for Alden getting through university.  But the rock has a lesson much bigger than even that premise could provide for – it wasn't a hundred per cent rock.  And Alden also owns a much greater connection to what was inside it when it landed…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1620101513</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Charley's War: A Boy Soldier in the Great War
 
|author=Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=The answer, it seems to me, when writing war stories, is to take something we can all imagine – the young lad signing up and finding out the real truth behind the glorified propaganda of his masters – and still making something unexpected out of it.  People have to die in unexpected ways, because that's what war is.  Soldiers have to face misery, because that's what war brings them.  The writer has to be a godlike entity able to give the power of victory or defeat to either side, because the common or garden soldier character certainly can't.  In putting all this and more into a comic for boys, where it had previously been thought a WWI story with the rigid and static nature of trench warfare would be neither visually nor dramatically appealing, Pat Mills both challenged himself and won many over with his brilliance.  Young Charley certainly gets to know the misery, unexpected death and people in command of his fate.  And with the dramatic narrative artwork here, so do we.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781169144</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Trillium
 
|author=Jeff Lemire
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=It's the future of at least a thousand years hence, and humanity is in trouble.  The species has spread itself thinly out in the galaxy, but is under threat from a sentient virus, which is beating all efforts – military, scientific – to best it. The nearest thing to hope is in the unlikely form of a jungle flower, found only in realms sacred to the natives of one of humankind's planets. Elsewhere and elsewhen a shell-shocked WWI veteran is taken with his brother to South America, to gain the secrets and glories of the remotest Incan temples. It therefore sounds entirely unlikely that the main alien life scientist in the future and the earlier explorer will meet, but meet they do – and then things start to get weirder and weirder…
+
|summary=There's a man who has an ice cream van. In summer, what there is of summer, he uses it to sell ice creams, That's not his vocation though, but it does keep him going whilst he waits for winter when the van becomes a Gritting Van and our narrator becomes a Gritterman. The fibreglass 99s on the roof light up and rotate, playing a tune, whether the van's gritting or selling ice creams. Tonight - Christmas Eve - will be the van's last trip. The council has sent the letter about his services no longer being required. Global warming. Dying profession, they say. There's even a tarmac now that can de-ice itself, but the Gritterman isn't sure that he wants to live in a world where the B2116 doesn't need gritting.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1401249000</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Historical Fiction Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 10:21, 30 October 2023

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Review of

Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey by Edel Rodriguez

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen… Full Review

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Review of

The Gold Lion and the Tournament of Sentinels by Kia Ahankoob

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

When Myriad created Duniva he endowed his children with different powers, each with its own strength and weakeness, in the hope they would complement each other and collaborate, creating a dynamic and prosperous society. Each power is contained within a magical ring belonging to one of eight countries led by Myriad's children and their descendants. But it didn't quite work out like that. Rivalries developed. Enmities grew out of them and the eight countries went to war. Having fought themselves into an endless and ruinous stalemate and finding the cost of war too high, a solution is proposed. Each of the eight countries will send their greatest warriors, known as sentinels, to a single combat tournament. The winner will take possession of all the rings and become the supreme ruler of Duniva. Full Review

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Review of

The Grot: The Story of the Swamp City Grifters by Pat Grant

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

Everything in this world runs on pedal-power, and that includes the punk bands. There are three pedallers at the front of the Heath Robinson contraption taking our lead characters to the ferry across the swamp to Falter City, where a mother and her two sons aim to set up a yoghurt factory. You could say that yoghurt would be the only culture around, for this is a really rough-and-ready dump of a place, but everyone is interested in small things that grow. For the only money to be had – the only fortunes to be found in Falter City – come from algae, gunk and other crud that – well, the use of it is never really made clear. Once there, the two brothers set themselves each up with a guide – Lippy, the more forward-thinking, industrious of the two, with a besuited gent, Penn with a ballsy young teenaged girl with bright red hair. But which of the two will come off the worse as they make their own way in this dystopian, semi-Apocalyptic hellhole? Full Review

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Review of

Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes by Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989. Full Review

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Review of

Wonder Woman: Warbringer: The Graphic Novel by Leigh Bardugo, Louise Simonson and Kit Seaton

3star.jpg Teens

Diana, being unique on her island, is the victim of a lot of taunts, and claims of nepotism. It's only her unique status, and her mother being Queen, that has her with any standing at all, her naysayers declare – even though she has clearly fought to be a strong young woman. Perhaps too strong for the island, however – for every Wonder Woman origin story has her quickly leaving home for the World of Men, and this Diana is the heroine of yet another Wonder Woman origin story. A shipwreck disturbs her leading performance in a running race, but the survivor she drags from the waters is only going to disturb a lot more... Full Review

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Review of

Black Canary: Ignite by Meg Cabot and Cara McGee

3.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Meet Dinah Lance. Frustrated that her policeman father will not allow her to try and follow in his footsteps, and seemingly lumbered with being a cheerleader at school, she is desperate to find her voice. But it's actually more a case of her voice finding her, as when she gets frustrated or plain dissed at school her vocal outcry can shatter glass better than any opera singer. You could almost call it a weapon, or a power. But in order for her to call herself a superhero, there has to be a whole path of steps for her to take – one of which will be into her past… Full Review

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Review of

Batman: Nightwalker: The Graphic Novel by Marie Lu, Stuart Moore and Chris Wildgoose

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

The young man called Bruce Wayne is a very noticeable one – he can hardly go anywhere without people – bystanders, paparazzi, and suchlike – reminding him he's a billionaire at the age of eighteen. Feeling rather stuck with the legacy he's inherited from his murdered parents, he wants to do charitable deeds. But one night, when he speeds off in his posh new car in pursuit of a criminal, he goes too far as far as the authorities are concerned, and gets given the most unlikely stretch of community service instead – cleaning in the home for violent criminals that is Arkham Asylum. There he learns of some other people who also allege charitable intent – the Nightwalkers, a gang who steal any ten-figure bank account contents they can, and murder the owner. Can he get close to one of them and get the truth of their schemes, or will the manipulative Madeleine be a step too far for the young do-gooder? Full Review

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Review of

Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh

3.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Harleen Quinzel is new in town. She always, to me, seems new in town, even if she's been around a long time, for she always has a very fresh attitude, and seems to look out of those large eyes at everything anew each time. But here she is new in town, and the town is Gotham City. Expecting a year-long furlough from life with her mother, she finds her gran dead and herself with no option but to stay with a bunch of drag queens. She also finds school is a drag, she also finds the whole neighbourhood is being redeveloped by a large and uncaring corporation – but she also finds two characters that will have a big impact on her life. One is a civil-minded lass called Ivy, the other someone she only meets at night – a lad with a singular graffiti tag and a mind for violence and chaos, who calls himself The Joker… Full Review

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Review of

Mera: Tidebreaker by Danielle Paige and Stephen Byrne

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Meet Mera. She's the latest in a line of young women intent on fighting against their intended destiny for one only they can see for themselves. Her father, the king of Xebel, sees some cotton wool and a hunky man in an arranged marriage as her future – after all, Mera's mother, the territory's warrior queen, is long dead. Mera doesn't fancy the cosseting or the fella involved at all and is, in fact, trying to get Xebel out from under the cosh of Atlantean power, for Xebel's royalty are merely puppets of Atlantean masters. So when she overhears her father request that her intended go to the world of us air-breathing humans, and kill the Atlantis heir, she rushes off to get the quest (and the promised throne) all for herself. But of course, she has no idea what kind of person she will meet, and how hard it will be to get the job done… Full Review

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Review of

Super Sons: The PolarShield Project by Ridley Pearson and Ile Gonzalez

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

It's the near future, and every coastal city – including Metropolis – is in need of a huge flood barrier, built on its coast by Wayne Enterprises. But the rising sea levels have put even those constructions under threat, forcing many people to relocate in America's biggest exodus for decades. Superman is helping out, of course – first, he was patching up the dams, but now he's mining the asteroid belt for a rare dust that's perfect for blocking the solar energy from making further polar ice melt. Inland, in Wyndermere, the refugees from the coast are suffering bigotry and intolerance for being newcomers, but something else is much worse. A major bout of food poisoning is hitting the city. But it can't possibly have anything to do with what looks like sabotage of the flood barriers and the efforts to correct the climate, can it? Four young children begin to piece together clues that it can… Full Review

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Review of

Manfried the Man: A Graphic Novel by Caitlin Major and Kelly Bastow

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

In a world where cats stand on two feet, go to work at call centres and have diminutive human beings for pets, is Manfried. He's a typical frisky but shy pet – forever getting into scrapes, demanding more food than he can suitably eat, but at the same time being the perfect companion for his owner, Steve Catson. To such an extent that Steve, who is getting known for his man-oriented thinking, is actually having nightmares about becoming the neighbourhood crazy man cat. But when a window gets left open by mistake, and Manfried goes missing, the only thing for it is a massive and energised man-hunt… Full Review

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Review of

Talking to Gina by Ottilie Hainsworth

4.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

This is what happened. An artist decided she needed a dog – so drove the length of the country, Brighton to Grimsby, to pick up an Eastern European immigrant street dog with some mange and one working eye. Why not? The first night at home, Gina – the dog – eats something she shouldn't and causes a mess, so it's not a great start, but then begin the tribulations of training, status and behaviour all humans must go through with their dogs. And then, the life with Gina begins to feel like too much – I felt weird about you because you were always there. My thoughts were taken over by you, and I felt sick, as if I was in love. Slowly, however, everyone – our artist/author, her husband, two children and two cats – gets to form the family they and Gina all would have wanted. Full Review

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Review of

Illegal by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin

5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Ebo is twelve years old and all alone. His sister left for Europe months ago and now he doesn't know where his brother is either but knows that he has probably done the same thing. So Ebo has to attempt the same dangerous journey himself. He must cross the Sahara Desert, get himself to Tripoli, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and then try to cross the Mediterranean Sea. By himself. At twelve. And, even if he makes it, how will he find his sister? Full Review

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Review of

Batman: Dark Knight III: The Master Race by Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello

3.5star.jpg Graphic Novels

Batman is not playing ball. He's been videoed duffing up Gotham policemen, and not the baddies he usually biffs. But then he's not Batman – he's a she, and she finally comes up with the news that Batman died in her hands. Elsewhere, Lara, the daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman, is encouraging Ray Palmer/The Atom to turn his technologies concerned with shrinking and expanding life to the miniaturised city of Kandor, the last vestige of Kryptonian existence not to fly about in visible blue pants. What with Superman sitting idle in an exposed Fortress of Solitude having gone into a sulk, and Batman dead, there would appear to be little in the way of help for the world should anything nasty happen – but then, of course, something nasty does happen… s Full Review

Weeks Gritterman.jpg

Review of

The Gritterman by Orlando Weeks

5star.jpg Graphic Novels

There's a man who has an ice cream van. In summer, what there is of summer, he uses it to sell ice creams, That's not his vocation though, but it does keep him going whilst he waits for winter when the van becomes a Gritting Van and our narrator becomes a Gritterman. The fibreglass 99s on the roof light up and rotate, playing a tune, whether the van's gritting or selling ice creams. Tonight - Christmas Eve - will be the van's last trip. The council has sent the letter about his services no longer being required. Global warming. Dying profession, they say. There's even a tarmac now that can de-ice itself, but the Gritterman isn't sure that he wants to live in a world where the B2116 doesn't need gritting. Full Review

Move on to Newest Historical Fiction Reviews