What I 'ave been reeding...

[angelophile]

First up is BITE CLUB, the Vertigo series, collected in an undersized trade paperback format for a very reasonable $9.99. The series takes the Sopranos, adds a load more sex, violence and vampires and runs with it. It's the Godfather with fangs.

Howard Chaykin and David Tischman's six-issue miniseries imagines that vampires are common place in our world, just another group of immigrants wanting to carve off a piece of America's criminal underworld. The Del Toros are a vampire clan that's been running organised crime in Miami for a century, thanks to patriach Eduardo Del Toro and Factor 150 sunblock. They're a screwed up family of strong, nigh-invulnerable and unashamed hedonists.

When Eduardo is gunned down with wooden bullets, the power vacuum creates a fued within the Del Torro family and sparks hope in the eyes of an eager detective working the vampire beat. When Leto, the vampire son who chose the priesthood over the family business, is named as Eduado's heir, the blood really hits the fan.

The lack of morality displayed by the characters is not down to your very nature - rather the book shows them as evil through both nature and upbringing and how theur lives are corrupted by their loyalty, or disloyalty, to "family." Every character in the book is almost entirely without any redeeming features - they hunger for blood, for sex and for power, their lust overwhelm them to the point of incestuous fantasy.

The comparrisons with the Godfather are impossible to avoid - this is a clear tribute with a supernatural twist, but you could almost remove the vampiric element and the story would remain intact. It just serves as a device to push the sex and violence up a notch. The plot, however, tends to twist violently - he search for Eduado's killer seems to be the focus for much of the book, but is then discarded for an abrupt twist and bloody massacre that seems to negate a lot of the character moments that went before. The characters are developed and grow and then suddenly, they're gone. It's rather irritating when you've invested in these characters, to see them vanish in the space of one panel.

However, there are some truly great moments in there and the anti-heroine, Risa, is an unashamed vamp in every respect, who seems to have no single moral holding her back and no depth to which she will not stoop. And she oozes sexuality in a way that's facsinating and repulsive at the same time. But at least she likes cats. (One of the best moments in the book revolves around Risa's likeness and relationship to a feline.)

David Hahn's art is clean, crisp, sometimes rather plastic, but ultimately works for the book. The Quitely covers veer between brilliance and sheer ugliness, like much of his work. But Hahn runs the show, pastel shades colouring the splashes of sex, nudity and graphic violence that frequently crop up in the book.

It's flawed, but it's a great read, particularly for the price. Any fan of vampire stories or mob stories should find plenty to enjoy here and find some interesting twists, as the genre well deserves.

Rating - ****

Also:

Terry Pratchett - A HAT FULL OF SKY is another Discworld noverl, this one amed more closely towards teenagers rather than adult readers. Other than having a young protagnist, it's hard to really notice any difference between this book and any other Discworld novel. In fact, it suffers from the same problem that most recent Pratchett books suffer from - there's rally nothing new here. It's a character it's hard to tell from any other Pratchett "hero", getting into trouble, fixing it with some kind of magical mumbo jumbo, and learning a valuable life lesson from the experience. Just occasionally Pratchett creates unique and interesting characters - like the Night Watch, the witches and others, but all too often his central characters are rather sketchily drawn and his plots very samish. He's a prolific author - producing at least two books a year, but I kinda wish he'd slow down and work out what he REALLY wants to write, rather than rushing through rather pedestrian or derivative reads.

As it was, this was a fairly enjoyable read, but I found my interest waning about two-thirds of the way through. Tiffany Aching (from The Wee Free Men) goes away to become apprentice to the mysterious Miss Level, a witch with a very surprising talent. She gets a bit tired of the routine duties Miss level expects from her, and encounters some other witches who have very different ideas about how witches should behave. But who is right? Meanwhile Tiffany is being pursued by a strange and sinister force that seems to want to take her over, and the Nac Mac Feegle set out to rescue her. Frankly, there's nowhere near enough of the Nac Mac Feegle and way too much philosphising from other characters. Just having the Feegles in the book for short periods makes you realise how much you're missing by them not being the focus.

Granny Weatherwax has a fairly major role instead, which is a good thing. The frankly confusing way in which the book resolves is not. Clearly the book is meant to teach kids a valuable life lesson, but comes across as being a bit preachy in the process. In addition, Tiffany never acts or seems like a child. She's the same character as pretty much every other Pratchett hero and that means bland and of an indeterminable age. But however old she is, she's not a believable eleven year old.

This was an average Pratchett book and a rather pedestrian plot that will appeal to the Harry Potter fans without winning any of them over.

Rating - **1/2.