Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan

The premise of this series is an impressive hook on it's own. Every man, and by man I mean mammalian male, on the planet has spontaneously died a horrific death all at the same time, save one average schmoe and the capuchin helper monkey he was training during the near apocalypse, a.k.a. Gendercide. His name is Yorick. He's an escape artist--how appropriate. And he's about as regular as they come, and as loveable as your run of the mill protagonist is gonna get.

So are you hooked yet? I was.

Need to know more? I wouldn't.

The opening alone and all the mystery and intrigue that came with it could have been enough to get me through all 10 volumes (60 issues) of these graphic novels. But the characters were so full of life and believable, I was left satisfied by each issue in the series. And my expectations could not have been higher for this.

-CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE-

I've never before cried while reading a graphic novel, and I got at least (eh hem) a little teary eyed during a few of these scenes. 


What more can be said without spoiling a real work of art? 


This has depth. Political and social intelligence. A storyline that spins so many threads its mind boggling how tight of a knot Vaughan is able to weave them into for the ending. Real characters making real mistakes and lamenting over their idiotic pasts. Even the monkey! The freaking monkey is so awesome... It just kills me.

There's plenty of humor. And considering this is a sort of post apocalypse themed work, it's amazing how funny it can get at times, which only leaves a greater punch for the emotional gritty and violent scenes.

Oh and there's sex, nudity, profanity, GLBT themes and all that good stuff in there as well. For the dissenters of that point, how could there not be when there's one man on a planet filled with millions of sex-deprived ladies?

My recommendation. If you haven't read it, READ IT! Devour it. Love it.

I know I did. <3

Y: The Last Man 

Written by 
Brian K. Vaughan 
Illustrated by 
Pia Guerra 
Goran Sudzuka 
Paul Chadwick 
Inked by 
Jose Marzan Jr.

The City and the City by China Miéville

Teaser

“He went further – said that Orciny wasn’t just somewhere that had existed in the gaps between Qoma and Besźel since their foundings or coming together or splitting. …he said it was still here.”

“Orciny?”

“Exactly. A secret colony. A city between the cities, its inhabitants living in plain sight.”

“What? Doing what? How?”

“Unseen, like Ul Qomans to Besź and vice versa. Walking the streets unseen but overlooking the two. Beyond the Breach. And doing, who knows? Secret agendas?”

-The City and the City

China Miéville

Summary

China Miéville’s The City and the City is difficult to place in a category. The plot is driven primarily by a murder mystery, and the whole story reads a lot like a classic mystery novel. However, Miéville also incorporates politics, familiar societal and social dynamics, and a number of fantastical elements. To say it is a mystery novel, fantasy novel, or social commentary wouldn’t do it justice. It is all three. And to consider attempting to summarize it is, at the very least, rather daunting, but I will certainly try my best.

The story opens in the fictional city of Besźel, a seemingly typical Eastern European city. A girl is discovered dead on one of the city streets and detective Tyador Borlú of the Besźel Extreme Crime Squad is called in – our point of view character. He begins the investigation, but soon discovers that beyond the murder mystery is another twist. The girl they’ve found dead isn’t a Besźel citizen. She is from “neighboring city” Ul Qoma.

Besźel and Ul Qoma are unlike normal neighboring cities. Rather than existing next to one another, we are told that the two cities occupy the same space at the same time. From birth, citizens of each city are taught to “unsee” the citizens, vehicles, and buildings in the other city. In certain “crosshatched” sections of town – shared sections where there are particularly high levels of activity in both cities – they navigate around each other out of habit with learned ease. Citizens of Besźel are forbidden to interact with or even look at citizens of Ul Qoma and vice versa. If caught doing so, the citizen in question will invoke “Breach” – an entity of sorts that travels between the two cities and maintains order by ensuring the two never interact.

As detective Borlú continues to investigate the murdered girl, he discovers that there is much more to her story than anyone could have imagined. She was a scholar at an Ul Qoma university and was studying the possible existence of a third city – Orciny. Supposedly, Orciny is a myth, but the girl had begun to believe in its existence. She had been under the impression that it existed between the two cities – in the sections that Besźel citizens assumed were part of Ul Qoma and vice versa.

As Orciny is said to be an extremely powerful city, the investigation of it raises an entirely new set of questions for Borlú. Did Orciny really exist? Had it been citizens of that third city who killed the girl? Was Orciny at war with the mysterious Breach?

Detective Borlú’s investigation takes him out of his home in Besźel, into Ul Qoma, and even into the mysterious Breach in order to uncover the murderers and the truth behind the city in between the cities.

Rating

I’m going to give this book a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.

The idea for this novel is excellent, fascinating even. The two cities existing together never felt unbelievable to me. I loved reading about citizens “unseeing” one another – especially when, say, a citizen doesn’t recognize that the person they’re seeing is from the other city and they have to quickly “unsee” them once they realize it. Fantastic premise and well-executed as far as setting and plot are concerned. Miéville set up these two cities incredibly well with their different cultures, customs, and even different languages. I had a clear picture in my mind of what was going on at all times.

However, this book was told from a first-person point of view. I normally have no aversion to this style of storytelling at all, but I have never read a first person narrative and felt this distant from the main character and, in fact, ALL the characters. I felt no compassion when characters were shot, killed. I didn’t much care if the point of view character went through any emotional hardships. I just felt so incredibly disconnected from all of them. For this, I took away one star.

Overall, I finished this novel feeling happy that I had read it. Though it was complex and occasionally a bit too confusing, the ending made it worthwhile. I still find myself thinking about it days after finishing, which I think is the mark of a good read. It is definitely worth picking up whether you’re in the mood for fantasy, mystery, political commentary…or perhaps all three.

The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi

  

teaser

"She waits, expecting him to strike her. No one tolerates impudence from New People. Mizumi-sensei made sure that Emiko never showed a trace of rebellion. She taught Emiko to obey, to kowtow, to bend before the desires of her superiors, and to be proud of her place. Even though Emiko is ashamed of the gaijin's prying into her history and by her own loss of control, Mizumi-sensei would say this is no excuse to prod and bait the man. It hardly matters. It is done and Emiko feels dead enough in her soul that she will pay whatever price he chooses to extract."

review

While perusing the shelves in the SF section at work, the cover art for a particular book continued to draw my eye. We had a single copy of The Windup Girl available then. Every time I'd pass the book, even if I was with a customer, I'd find a free moment to ogle over the image. You can see it for yourself. It's certainly worth a second... third... fourth look.

Dirigibles score the smog-ridden skies of a ruined metropolis. A creature akin to an elephant ambles alongside littered streets lined with souks that brim with whatever miscellany of wares. And what are those!? What else? Teetering telephone poles: seeming relics of a dystopia that has achieved autonomy over the expensive oil that once pumped through its historical veins.

That was my initial reaction to the cover alone. And I have to give mad props to the artist, Raphael Lacoste, for hitting the story's main nerve head on. I came away from the image with only questions. Without so much as reading the back, I had an accurate impression that the story had real depth to it, as though this image were a feasible shadow resulting from the socio-political blunders of our own time.

When the news reached me that The Windup Girl had received the Nebula Award for best novel, I couldn't hold out any longer. It went straight to the top of my list. How fortunate that Paolo Bacigalupi's prose do not fall flat to Lacoste's beautiful setup. I can't say I was disappointed--far from it. If you'd like a sample of his writing style, Bacigalupi currently has a few stories available on his site.

• The Tamarisk Hunter
• The Fluted Girl
• The People of Sand and Slag

Despite the title, the novel revolves around several protagonists, as it takes us from one perspective to the next with each chapter. This approach can be jarring in some cases. As a reader I can have difficulty anchoring myself to a story when it has as many perspectives as this one. In this case there was no exception, but I did find myself easily attaching to the setting instead of a character, which kept me flipping the pages wanting to know more about the nightmarish future that Bacigalupi has envisioned for us. And as we go along, and the plot builds and builds, it becomes evident that showing the world through many different eyes is central to getting a rounded view of this world.

How do we experience the future of Thailand? We see it through the eyes of a cynical expatriate with his unending ulterior motives. As a bitter, self-serving old man, former royalty of a fallen empire. As an idealistic native, willing to die for a cause even if it means taking the whole world down with him. As a woman who lives a contradiction of the things she knows and the things she wants to believe in...

Finally, we see it as Emiko, the windup. She offers a nonhuman view of our future selves: how will we appear once removed from our most grievous misdeeds? And as irony would have it, we find in this "soulless husk" the most human perspective of all.

rating

I feel The Windup Girl deserves an exceptional rating at four out of five stars (three being average). The quality of this novel is mind-boggling considering it was Bacigalupi's first. It had emotional depth and cultural relevance, despite his caveat in the credits. Already it has received the Nebula and is up for a Hugo. I fully enjoyed the ending. But I do feel the arc of the story is not quite wound as tightly as it could be. It left me wanting more--which is a marketable quality. It's also the kind of thing that loses you half a star from jerks like me. That's what you get for making the world wait for a sequel, Mr. Bacigalupi.

That said, it has become a book I enjoy recommending to customers. I hold a copy at Customer Service for just such a purpose.

available works by paolo bacigalupi

Also available in eBook format