George Martin's A Dance With Dragons (no spoilers)

A Dance With Dragons is easily the worst book in George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. But I read 950 pages in a week, and often gave up sleep to do so, so it would be silly to call the book bad.

In retrospect, the flaws of the book were trumpeted by Martin himself. A third (or more) of the book is content that was meant to be included in A Feast for Crows. But that book ran too long, so the content was saved for this. In other words, it's b-material that never deserved to be its own book. Another third of the book was frequently described by Martin as the "Meereenese Knot" - - an inescapable plot hole he had worked himself into. His difficulty in solving that "knot" was the reason the book was so famously delayed. What he really needed was someone to tell him that the Meereen portion was trash and should be completely discarded. (Is there somewhere where he's defended the main character's actions in that part of the book? Because they certainly made no sense to me.)

The last two hundred pages more than made up for the rest of the book, though, and it will be a long, difficult wait for the next book.

Doc Savage and Python Isle

I've always loved radio dramas, whether it was stumbling across them on the radio as a child, or listening to podcasts while teaching my boys to sleep in their own beds, or watching the excellent "Ham Radio" episode of Frasier. I was also delightfully frightened by the ghostly snakes in the Doc Savage movie.

So I eagerly accepted the chance to review a brand new Doc Savage audiobook called Python Isle:

For over 80 years, the name Doc Savage has meant thrills and excitement to millions of readers worldwide. Now, for the very first time, the legendary Man of Bronze comes to vivid life in "Python Isle", the first audiobook adventure from Radio Archives. In "Python Isle", a long-lost pioneer flyer returns to civilization accompanied by an exotic woman who speaks in a lost tongue. From his towering skyscraper headquarters in New York, through a dangerous Zeppelin journey to Cape Town, climaxing on a serpent-haunted island in the forbidden reaches of the Indian Ocean, Doc Savage and his iron comrades race to untangle a weird puzzle so deep that the only clues can be found in the Bible! Written by Will Murray and produced and directed by Roger Rittner - the same team that created "The Adventures of Doc Savage" radio series - "Python Isle" features dramatic narration by Michael McConnohie, cover art by Joe DeVito, and two exclusive audio interviews with Will Murray on the history of Doc Savage and the discovery of Doc Savage creator Lester Dent's long lost manuscripts. "Python Isle", an 8 audio CD set, is the first in a new pulp fiction audiobook series from Radio Archives.

I enjoyed the production as much as I'd hoped, but the bigger surprise was that my six year old son, who's grown up with video games, loved listening to it, too. If you like radio dramas, I highly recommend Python Isle.

George Martin's A Dance With Dragons

I usually wait for paperbacks, but decided to read this right away to avoid spoilers. After 400 pages, I say the new characters are entirely forgettable, Daenarys has lost what once made her appealing, and the plot is so, so tedious.

And yet, I cannot put it down.

The Griff

The Griff written by Christopher Moore and Ian Corson is an unusual comic. I don't think I've ever read a comic where the artist was so thoroughly deemphasized, almost an afterthought. Check out the book's page at Harper Collins and Barnes & Noble - - Jennyson Rosero isn't even mentioned.

As I read the story I thought, this is less a comic, than a movie treatment. In the right hands it would probably make a solid movie - - a group of brave and attractive people struggle against an invasion force of space dragons and their mysterious masters. And sure enough, when I Googled "The Griff," I found this - - Moore and Corson originally wrote a screenplay based on the concept, and when Reign of Fire came out, shelved the idea until eventually turning it into this comic. The 160-page story, which I received as a review copy, is currently available for preorder for 34% off at B&N.

Comic book review roundup (slight spoilers)

1. The New Avengers: Powerloss by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen: Every few years I forget how much I dislike Bendis's writing, and start to feel an urge to catch up with the Marvel Universe's major team. Well, consider me reminded, and mystified as to this guy's success. Moments after finishing the collection, I couldn't remember a single noteworthy moment or line of dialog. Immonen's art is solid, but wasted. Please team him up with someone who knows how to make use of his skills. Available for $8 used at B&N, which sounds about right.

2. Uncanny X-Force: The Apocalypse Solution by Rick Remender, Leonardo Manco and Jerome Opena: I'm totally out of touch with anything that's happened to the X-Men since Whedon and Cassaday, so I have no idea why Archangel can sometimes look like regular Angel, and why Apocalypse looks like a regular little boy. But so what. This was a lot of fun. It's the perfect mix of classic X-Men soap opera drama and fast paced (and beautifully illustrated) action. I especially liked the new Horsemen of the Apocalypse. $13 at B&N and well worth it.

3. The Nobody by Jeff Lemire: Fine, I guess. I'll probably try other books he's written since I hear so many raves about him. But this one was definitely not worth the $15 cover price. $7 used at B&N.

4. Human Target: Chance Meetings by Peter Milligan, Edvin Biukovic, and Javier Pulido: The plot's a little darker than I like, but the art by Biukovic and Pulido has a sort of lightness that prevents the story from being too disturbing. Biukovic was one of my favorites during his brief career, and I highly recommend everything he's drawn, especially Grendel Tales: Devils and Deaths. Chance Meetings is $7 used at B&N. Devils and Deaths is less than $4 used.

5. Secret Six: The Reptile Brain by Gail Simone, Paul Cornell, J. Calafiore, Pete Woods, Marcos Marz, and Luciana Delnegro: Obviously I didn't like New Avengers: Powerloss, but at least it was a coherent story. This comic was so poorly told that I thought it was missing panels or even pages. On the positive side, the covers by Dan Luvisi were kind of nice, in a sterile, digital manner. Available at B&N, but not worth it at any price.

Book review roundup (slight spoilers)

1. Provenance by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo: Here's the official description:

Filled with extraordinary characters and told at breakneck speed, Provenance reads like a well-plotted thriller. But this is most certainly not fiction. It is the astonishing narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate cons in the history of art forgery. Stretching from London to Paris to New York, investigative reporters Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo recount the tale of infamous con man and unforgettable villain John Drewe and his accomplice, the affable artist John Myatt. Together they exploited the archives of British art institutions to irrevocably legitimize the hundreds of pieces they forged, many of which are still considered genuine and hang in prominent museums and private collections today.

If you enjoy nonfiction, it doesn't get much better than this. (Although I think the authors were a bit too kind to some of the members of the conspiracy.) If 300 pages sounds like a little much, just enjoy the Wikipedia links I inserted above. But it's only $2 used at B&N, and well worth that price.

2. The Maze Runner by James Dasher: I give the writing and character development a D+, the plot a B, and the cover by Philip Straub a B+ (unusually good for a fantasy novel). The story is Ender's Game meets The Stand, which sounds promising, but I barely managed to force myself to skim the last 40 or so pages to find out what happened. Just read the Wikipedia entry for this one. $5 used at B&N.

3. This Is Not a Game by Walter Jon Williams: The first 140 pages are an excellent novella that imagines, "What if Jane McGonigal got stuck in Indonesia during a coup and had to rely on her ARG-loving fans to help her escape?" Unfortunately the next 300 pages are so horrendously cliched and predictable that I (incorrectly) thought the book must have been the author's first. $2 used at B&N, which is a good price for the 140 pages.

4. Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands by Michael Chabon: An intensely boring collection of his nonfiction essays. However, there were some fun factoids in the essay about Arthur Conan Doyle. For example:

At least one writer has suggested that Conan Doyle might have managed to kill a patient, through Charles Bovary-like ineptitude or more sinister motives; he did subsequently marry the dead man's sister, and took control of the income that she inherited from her brother.

And this is quite a sentence:

Detective Freud might well conclude that Conan Doyle never entirely recovered from the pain and humiliation first of watching his mother cuckold his demented father in his own house and then of being obliged to stand by as the old man was packed off to the Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum, never to return.

I wish he'd simply written a novel called The Amazing Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle. $2 used at B&N, but only for the Chabon completist.