Enemy of my Enemy: A Daredevil Marvel Crime Novel by Alex Segura review

    ENEMY OF MY ENEMY by Alex Segura is the second superhero novel I've read by Alex Segura. The first was ARANA AND SPIDER-MAN 2099, which had the hilarious premise of teaming up two much-neglected characters to face against Judas Traveler (quite possibly the most hated supervillain concept of all time with the possible exception of Paul Rabin). I loved it and thought it was an incredibly goofy but loyal to the characters who have always deserved better. Yes, I'm a guy salty about the fact Miguel is the villain of the second Spider-Verse universe and wonder what Peter David (RIP) thought.

    The premise is that the Punisher has murdered the Kingpin and Matt Murdoch AKA Daredevil has the task of defending him. This is an incredibly strong premise and reminiscent of the second season of the Netflix Daredevil show even if that about defending Frank Castle in general versus killing Wilson Fisk. My first thought was, of course, "I really hope they don't backtrack on this. This is an alternate universe so there's no reason they have to." Unfortunately, it's only chapter later that we find out the Medical Examiner was kept from analyzing Wilson Fisk's body and most readers will deduce this is like those covers that state a hero will die this issue (only for it to turn out to be a clone or something). This is less a spoiler than my reaction and, who knows, maybe my finely tuned comic book reader instincts were wrong.

    Still, Alex Segura has a pretty good grasp on Matt Murdoch and the story is about his moral conundrum of defending a man that he knows to be a mass murderer. The best parts of the novel are also Matt wrestling with the fact that he feels no small sense of joy at Wilson Fisk's death (this is a post Born Again [comic] storyline so many references are made to the Kingpin destroying Matt's life even if specifics like Nuke aren't mentioned). Matt is so deep in his own righteousness, he feels guilty even for wanting Wilson dead even if he didn't do anything to bring him down.

    We also get the inclusion of no less than three former Daredevil girlfriends to compensate for the fact
Karen Page is (still) dead in this universe. Elektra, Dakota North, and Typhoid Mary all show up at various points in the story to comment on both how much they still care for Matt while also privately (or not so privately) bemoaning what a terrible boyfriend he is. Matt is also in a relationship with an original character working in Internal Affairs and it doesn't take long for Daredevil to torpedo this relationship by exploiting it for help in his vigilante efforts despite what a gross betrayal this is. This shows that Alex Segura has a good grasp of who Matt Murdoch is and his often hypocritical self-righteousness.

    The book has flaws even if I overall enjoyed it. Some of the cast are slightly out of character even accounting for an alternate Marvel universe. Would Frank Castle ever make a deal with organized crime even if it managed to get him closer to some big wigs that he wants to kill? Would Matt Murdoch not be able to tell that two women he's had, uh, intimate relations with are the same person even if they are in disguise? His blindness doesn't work that way. Would Bullseye ever work as someone's bodyguard versus just an assassin for hire?

    Overall, I really enjoyed Enemy of my Enemy. Alex Segura has a deep love for the Marvel universe and manages to thread the needle that it's close enough to the Netflix shows that fans of them will enjoy it while keeping it comics-related. The absence of Karen Page for Netflix fans will be an issue but I'm confused why she's still dead in the comics myself (because comics). I am already interested in picking up the third of these Marvel Crime Novels. If I have any complaints, it's the 28 dollar Kindle price tag, which is outrageous. I strongly suggest people pick up the Audible version instead.

Available here 

Review - Breaking the Dark: A Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel review

    BREAKING THE DARK by Lisa Jewel is the first of the Marvel crime novels that has been released by the House of Mouse for adult readers. I've already read both it as well as the sequel, ENEMY OF MY ENEMY, by Alex Segura (which stars Daredevil). How adult is it? Honestly, not really very much and it's a lot lighter than either the Netflix show or the original Alias comics. That's not necessarily a bad thing and if you want to read a decent novel about crime fighting with a dash of vampire makeup influencers. 

    Jessica Jones, for those unfamiliar with the character, is the creation of Brian Michael Bendis when he couldn't use Jessica Drew AKA Spider-Woman (I). His idea was to do a gritty private detective series with a female protagonist in the Marvel Universe and more or less succeeded. So much so that a successful Netflix TV show was created around the character. In all likelihood, if you want to buy this book, you probably already know the character from one or the other. 

    This isn't quite either the comic version or the TV show one but a hybrid as little is made of Jessica Jones' ties to other Marvel superheroes and no mention of her past as Jewel but Malcolm is obviously the character from the comics rather than the Netflix version. This is less confusing as it sounds but the alternate continuity becomes clear as Jessica's pregnancy with Luke Cage's baby plays a role in the story but none of the messiness related to her dating Scott Lang by the time they find out. This isn't a spoiler as her discovering her pregnancy is a chapter or two in. No Trish or Carol Danvers serves as her major female friend. 

    Indeed, if I were to summarize this book's take on Jessica Jones, it would be she's considerably less messy than either of her incarnations and her inner world streamlined. Jessica has strong feelings for Luke Cage already and would want to marry him even before the baby becomes an issue. She's traumatized by the Purple Man but the exact details are never gone into like they were in both the comic as well as show. I'd go so far as to say this Jessica is far more functional, likable, and effective as an adult in a profession. Which isn't to say that the more mainstream versions aren't entertaining but they're both heavily reliant on their interpretations of Jessica being a human train wreck.

    With all of that out of the way, is the book any good? Yeah, I think so. The premise is Jessica is hired by a woman who thinks her children have had something strange happen to them while they were visiting their father in England. Whether trauma, changeling substitution, or brainwashing is something she can't tell even if her primary clue is they no longer care about their cell phones. Jessica, needing money, takes the job and finds that they are actually Stepford Children that are related to a story taking place a hundred years earlier. Along the way, Jessica Jones discovers an evil makeup influencer (aren't they all) and a woman who wants to kidnap women to force them to watch John Hughes movies in their jammies. I'm not kidding.

    The weakest part of the book is probably the flashbacks to the villains' past that take up way too much of the book and don't have any characters as interesting as Jessica Jones. The bad guys' motivation isn't particularly intriguing and I would have appreciated it being more about our central character. On the plus side, I like that they went with an original villain that isn't precisely explained in an easy category like mutant or vampire.

    In conclusion, Breaking the Dark is a solid and entertaining novel that feels like it takes place in the present with the culture of beauty, teenagers, and the generational divide. Jessica Jones is a bit nicer and more put together than usual but that actually fits well with her preparing to be a mother. I like the story and while it's not really the "dark and gritty adult crime novel" I expected, I had a lot of fun from it.

Available here 

Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw review

    HAMMERS ON BONE by Cassandra Khaw is a rare gem in what I’ve always felt should have been a larger genre: the Cthulhu Mythos detective novel. I’ve played a few video games with the premise like Dark Corners of the Earth, The Sinking City, and Call of Cthulhu (2018) but I feel like it’s something that should have been as popular a genre in paperback fiction as the Dungeons and Dragons novel was in the Nineties. I feel like Chaosium and other parties could have made some serious bank on this and I’ve always wondered at that missed opportunity.

    Personally, my theory is that in addition to the nebulous status of Cthulhu copyright ownership, I also felt like there were people who felt that Pulpy fun “Tommy Guns and Two Fisted Action” Cthulhu playstyle was something that people in charge disdained. This despite the fact that I think it’s the absolute best way to play Call of Cthulhu and why I will always choose Pulp Cthulhu over its regular counterpart. I know my friend Seth Skorkowsky prefers to run the games that way and if you don’t mind a digression, I suggest if you haven’t checked out his YouTube channel then you should. I also recommend David Hambling’s Harry Stubbs series for another Cthulhu detective adjacent series.

    Hammers on Bone is a detective novel set in the Cthulhu Mythos with protagonist John Persons. John acts like a detective from the 1940s in the Modern Era and very few people comment on it. He’s also got a touch of the Mythos as well, possessing the ability to see things that other people do not see and interact with the supernal world. However, despite this, he doesn’t want to do these sorts of cases as a general rule and is annoyed when a young boy asks him to kill his stepfather. Doubly annoyed when the boy make san excellent case for why it should be done.

    Cassandra Khaw did a short interview where she said the book was primarily an allegory for domestic abuse (link: http://www.thebooksmugglers.com/2016/11/hammers-bone-cassandra-khaw-inspirations-influences.html ) and I can certainly see that. John Persons wants to help the family out of their situation but finds himself stymied at every opportunity. There’s a certain argument that John is also suffering from “The Hamlet Question” where if he’d just straight up murder McKinsey then things might end better than they do. However, murder isn’t something that is easy to do for our protagonist and I appreciate it is treated with suitable gravity.

    Cassandra Khaw has a great mastery of the weird and disturbing. Her interpretation of the Cthulhu Mythos is that reality is a a thin wallpaper over something nauseating and terrifying. Many of the encounters John has with the creatures around him are viscerally disturbing and work to underscore the all-too-human evils being conducted around him. Unlike Lovecraft, she does have an interest in the petty awfulness of mankind and the juxtaposition works very well.

    John Pearson is a likable enough protagonist that manages to explain away a lot of his unusual insights into the occult and sixth sense without overpowering him. He’s also someone who is neither superhuman nor particularly effective against the human evils around him, let alone the human. You feel his sense of frustration and desire to do the right thing but no real sense of how to even figure out what that would look like.

    Hammers on Bone is a short novel, really a novella, and yet is worth the full price. Not every novel is measured in the quantity of its pages after all. I think if you like horror novels, detective fiction, and the Cthulhu Mythos then you’ll definitely enjoy this book. The ending is a gut punch but feels appropriate to everything that happened before in the novella. I’m definitely going to check out the sequel as well.

Available here

Marlowe (2022) review

    MARLOWE (2022) is a movie that reminds me that we probably should have more Raymond Chandler adaptations. There's nothing that will probably ever match THE BIG SLEEP starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and there's been an adaptation of most of his novels of varying quality but I wish we'd get a kind of Poroit or Holmes-esque series of adaptations with one singular actor. Phillip Marlowe is the archetypal private detective alongside Sam Spade and even if you've never read or watched one of his films, you've got a rough ideal of his personality by his many parodies or homages.

    Marlowe is an adaptation of The Black Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black (pen name of John Banville), not actually a Chandler novel at all. Having read the book, I actually recommend pick it up with the caveat that the writing isn't actually very faithful to Raymond Chandler. "Black's" version of Phillip Marlowe is a lot hornier, morally flexible, and tolerant (even friendly with a homosexual bartender) than the one in the books. This isn't a bad thing but purists might balk at the slightly more flawed version of the character.

    The big change of Marlowe (2022) from The Black Eyed Blonde is primarily Liam Neeson's casting in the role. The actor is in phenomenal physical shape for his age but his age is seventy and that is something that hangs over a lot of the scenes. He might be able to pass for his fifties but I can't help but think of his age when he's being romantically paired with Diane Kruger (45) while her character's mother's actress, Jessica Lange (72) was Liam's wife in Rob Roy.

    This wouldn't be an issue if not for the fact the movie is set in 1939 and the characters' backstories are strongly affected by their ages. Diane Kruger's character, Claire Cavendish, is the daughter of a massive film star and Dorothy Quincannon is said former film star. Which wouldn't be an issue if not for the fact that the Hollywood film industry wouldn't exist at the time that Mrs. Quincannon was a young woman. Liam Neeson also says he's old enough to be her father so it's not like they're massively underplaying their ages. It's just something where the movie would have benefited from being set in, say, 1959 instead.

    Still, if not for this incredibly noticeable factoid, the story is excellent and I give it high marks. The plot is classic noir and you can basically tell when characters are lying to Phillip Marlowe by their lips moving. Mrs. Cavendish (Diane Kruger) comes to Marlowe's office, wants him to find her missing lover. He's dead, his head crushed in a car accident, but she believes that he's still alive. What will follow involves the Hollywood studio system, dope, and a few other twists and turns.

    The movie is a little too heavy on the private eye cliches but they're rare enough that anyone but huge fans of the genre will probably find them refreshing. Liam Neeson does an excellent Marlowe throughout being both dogged in his pursuit of the truth as well as sarcastically flippant wherever possible. The ending is a bit darker than normal and I don't think literary Marlowe would have let it lie the way he does in the film but perfectly true to the genre.

    In conclusion, I recommend checking this film out. It got a surprising thrashing in the reviews but I don't think that's fair at all. It was certainly entertaining and if you can get over the casting (moving it to 1959 in my head certainly helped) then I think it is a great film.

Fatale vol 1: Death Chases Me by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

    FATALE VOL. 1: DEATH CHASES ME by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips is a work that I picked up after the fantastic THE FADE OUT comic. I'm a huge fan of film noir and it was some of the best art as well as writing I've found in comic books period. I wasn't a fan of the ending but I still wanted more and my friends said that not only was Fatale similar in some ways but it had my other proverbial catnip: Lovecraftian horror.

    Fatale is a deconstruction of the classic film noir trope: the femme fatale. Cherchez la femme or "look for the woman" is such a cliche in the dark and seedy storytelling that it was ripe for parody/subversion in the Seventies. Chinatown, without spoiling the plot, depends greatly on the idea that Jake Gittes can't get it out of his head that Mrs. Mulray must be running some sort of scam on him because film noir dictates that a beautiful rich woman must somehow be evil or manipulative. The Maltese Falcon depends on Brigid O'Shaughnessy being a lying sociopath and The Big Sleep, Lauren Bacall's charms aside, is a story around two devious women with one being a psychopath.

    It's a trope as old as Circe, Medea, and Morgan Le Fey. Actually, one may argue that it goes back to the very first novel ever written with Ishtar unleashing holy hell on Gilgamesh because he wouldn't sleep with her. It is a double-edged sword as while it may be considered a misogynist trope, it is also something that grants agency to female characters. As one of my female friends explained: "Maleficent is the best of Disney's female characters and I don't mean the Angelina Jolie one."

    In this case, Fatale is essentially the story of the most beautiful woman in the world. Josephine AKA "Jo"  has the supernatural power to turn any man into her slave by simply looking at him. They fall in love at first sight and gradually fall under her sway to the point that all of their previous relationships become meaningless. Happily married to a pregnant wife? Doesn't matter. A deranged religious fanatic? Doesn't matter. It's not something she can turn off either and has led to countless ruined lives.

    While Josephine, herself, plays an important role, it's actually three separate men who fall in love with her that form the majority of the story. A man investigating his writer grandfather's death, a happily married reporter, and an aging cancer-ridden police officer who has been Jo's lover for decades. All three of them have a self-destructive streak a mile wide and they blame Jo, justly or unjustly, for leading them to the ruination they all face. They want her beyond anything else but also hate that she has that kind of power over them. If it is a form of love, it is a selfish and ugly sort.

    Opposing our antiheroes is what appears to be the Cult of Cthulhu, though that title is never given to them despite the abundance of robes, human sacrifice, tentacles, and squid-faced monsters that are involved in their magic. Either way, they are led by the mysterious Bishop that wants Josephine to be a sacrifice and is willing to offer anything to those who can bring her to him. It's funny, in a black comedy sort of way, that the only man Josephine could have a relatable conversation with is a demonic monster in human skin.

    Readers should be warned this is a DARK f***ing book. People are horribly maimed, innocent people are murdered in blood sacrifices, and there's very few in the way of happy endings. Unlike THE FADE OUT, there's very little in the way of nudity with the lovingly illustrated images of Josephine being mostly suggestive rather than explicit. Jo is a spectacular comic book beauty and you can believe she has that je ne sais quoi (wow, there's a lot of French in this review) even without magical powers.

Available here

Sweet Silver Blues (Garrett PI #1) by Glen Cook

    Glen Cook is an author that I intellectually know I should love but just doesn't jive with my style. At least, that's what I thought about him having tried and failed to read the Black Company three times. It was excellent world-building but, for some reason, I wasn't able to appreciate it the way I wanted to so I ended up dropping the series. Still, I was attracted to the prospect of another supernatural PI story. I'm a huge Dresden Files fan and the idea of a normal non-magical PI in a fantasy world seemed a cool reversal.

    The premise is Garrett is a former Marine in the service of the kingdom of Karenta that survived his term of service before becoming a private investigator. A former friend of his is killed in an accident and leaves his vast fortune to a mysterious woman. Named executor of their estate, Garrett is compelled by the substantial fee he's offered to go back to war-torn Cantard in order to find her.

    For the most part, I very much enjoyed the book and the whole idea of a detective novel in a fantasy land is something I'm absolutely down for. I mentioned that I felt like Dragon Age 2 would have been improved greatly if instead of being a nobleman, Hawke had ended up opening a private Inquisitive service. Anyway, the parts about investigating Kayean Kronk's mysterious disappearance as well as dealing with the late Denny Tate's partners are the best in the book.

    Unfortunately, the final third of the book is a bit of a let down as it goes from being a detective novel to being more straight action fantasy with battles against unicorns, vampire hunting, and other fights to the death that are less interesting. There's also the fact women aren't terribly well-represented in the book. Rose Tate, one of a pair of beautiful redheaded gnomish sisters, threatens to tell everyone Garrett sexually assaulted her at one point. Which, later on, he gets her back for along with a beating from one of her goons by sending a man to kidnap her then spank her naked in public. Yeah. Yikes.

    I was also somewhat disappointed with the fact we never get much in the way of conversation with Kayean Tate. Despite being someone who is the focus of numerous interesting storylines, she says all of two words in the novel. I feel like conversations with the protagonist would have been a lot more interesting than stabbing vampires through the heart with unicorn horns. Which, compared to my fourteen-year-old-self's fantasy tastes, must sound like blasphemy.

    Overall, Glen Cook is a fantastic author and I really love this peanut butter and jelly sandwich he's made of genres. Unfortunately, I really wish he'd stuck with the PI elements of the book heavier than he did. He sort of wandered off into, admittedly, very well written action scenes. I will probably read the rest of the series but I hope the handling of the feminine sex gets better.

6.5/10

The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips review

    THE FADE OUT: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, illustrated by Elizabeth Breitweiser is not my usual grimdark fair. However, grimdark is the fantastic cousin to film noir and detective fiction. Much like in my LA Noire review (link: https://www.grimdarkmagazine.com/tag/noire/), the subject matter deals with Los Angeles in the 1940s. It is a fantastic time to write stories about because the glamour and sleaze of Hollywood contrasts with the post-World War 2 trauma as well as economic boom.

    The Fade Out is a twelve issue comic book series that I recommend people just purchase the complete collection of rather than the three individual parts. The story works extremely well as a single narrative and quite a lot of jokes as well as clues dropped in the earlier books find payoff later in the story. It is a fantastic read from beginning to end that has some elements that need to be warned about for readers but, otherwise, is one of my favorite reads for 2022. Hell, despite reading it in December, it may be my favorite read of 2022.

    The premise is Charles Parish is a World War 2 veteran who has come back completely dry of ideas as a Hollywood screenwriter. PTSD (or shell shock as it was known then) has robbed him of his creative juices. He has delegated all of his writing, instead, to blacklisted fellow screenwriter Gil Mason. Gil is an alcolohic with a self-destructive streak who told Charles to name him to the House Unamerican Activities (HUAC) board in order to save the latter's career. No one knows this and Charles is considered a pariah by Gil's old friends despite the fact he's the only reason the man still has an income.

    This already interesting premise is supplemented by the fact that Charles goes home with a beautiful starlet one evening, having both gotten inebriated at a party for a rich friend, and wakes up to her horrible murder. Unable to deal with the possibility that he could be implicated in their death, he covers up his presence and heads out the door. The next morning, he finds out her death has been labeled a suicide (despite clearly not having been) and the studio's primary concern being that her picture be finished.

    What follows is equal parts murder mystery and examination of the decadent controlled world of 1940s Hollywood. A place where the mores of society are completely cast aside behind doors but you are subject to total control of the dying studio system. Where the only thing that had threatened the studios in recent years was the power of the federal government and for nonsensical charges. After all, if there's any more capitalist place on Earth with its worship of wealth, fame, and power then I point out Las Vegas is still in its infancy.

   Charles is an interesting protagonist because he's not technically trying to solve the starlet, Val's, murder. For the most part, he's trying to shove the event under the proverbial rug and forget about it but can't bring himself to do it. If Charles has any unbelievable qualities, it's the fact that the female cast seems to trip over themselves in order to sleep with him. Gil's wife, the studio PR head, Val's replacement on the picture, and even a singing cowboy picture dancer are among those who want our Peter Parker-esque antihero.

    Which does get to one element that is noticeable in this book and that is the copious fanservice and nudity. Ed Brubaker takes advantage of the lack of censorship at Image comics and Elizabeth Breitweiser's skill at rendering characters to throw quite a lot of it at the reader. It's noticeable enough to be distracting but nothing that couldn't be shown on HBO were it to be adapted to a miniseries. Speaking of the art, the realism of the work is amazing and I really felt I was watching a film in print form.

    Much of the story also takes time to share horrible stories from real life Hollywood and the utter ridiculousness of it all. Some of the stories are touching like Clark Gable's insistence on volunteering for WW2 and Dashiell Hammett's raising money for blacklisted Hollywood figures. Others are more disturbing like the fact a studio director had honest-to-goddess SECRET PASSAGEWAYS installed into the closets of the dressing rooms of his starlets. Apparently, Betty Davis almost stabbed him one time.

    Indeed, sometimes the characters that Ed Brubaker introduces are toned down versions of their real life counterparts. Phil Brodsky is a Hollywood fixer who beats up the boyfriends of gay Hollywood stars, bribes people to look the other way, and is otherwise repulsive. However, he has nothing on Eddie Mannix the real life personage who possibly murdered George Reeves, star of the Superman television show.
The supporting cast is great for the book as well with a number of extremely interesting characters both good, bad, and somewhere in-between. I don't go with the idea a character is "believable" in my fiction but I feel like all of these characters are authentic with many layers. Even the fixer, Brodsky, has some lines that he won't cross as a studio enforcer.

    The ending, oof, is pretty bleak and perfect for grimdark fans. Just be warned it's a real gut punch. If you liked LA Confidential, The Black Dahlia, LA Noire, or Mulholland Drive then this is the kind of comic book for you. It is dark, well-written, and full of twists. It may be my favorite comic by Ed and he created the Winter Soldier.

9.5/10

Available here

The United Federation of Charles Indie (And Traditional) Book Awards of 2022

Sculpture of HP Lovecraft by Bryan Moore/copyright 2009.

2022 was a pretty good year for me, reading wise. I managed to hit my desired goal of reading over three hundred books. I admit, I cheated with this quite badly by reading a huge ton of comics on Kindle Unlimited and Comixology

Honestly, outside of Roy Thomas, I may now be the world's greatest expert on Red Sonja. However, I still managed to read a lot of books that I had on my reading list before today. Unfortunately, I'm absolutely terrible at narrowing down my lists so I've ended up with no less than four categories of top five books I've read this year. I hope you'll take a moment to read my comments on the ones I've enjoyed the most.

You'll note it's a mix of classics, oldies, indies, and new releases.

Best Detective/Thriller

5. I, the Jury by Mickey Spillane

Mickey Spillane remains one of the controversial big names in Detective fiction. Mostly because he does the hard boiled thing of Chandler and Hammett then amps up the sex as well as violence to the 11. He's more the Punisher than Magnum PI. I, The Jury is the best of his novels and the most entertaining of his cases with Mike still being probably the worst PI ever. Don't worry, he eventually figures out who did it after the rest of the cast is dead.

4. The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

James Ellroy is the master of recreating 1940s LA in a hyper-stylized ugly but entrancing image. It is a racist, misogynist, classicist corrupt city that is, nevertheless, full of beautiful women as well as manly men (as well as how those categories limit people). Centered around the real-life murder of Elizabeth Short, it is actually the story of two cops with one significantly more corrupt than the later. It's a shame the movie version cut out so much of the book because it's a really fascinating tale from beginning to end.

3. The Law by Jim Butcher

I know, it's actually urban fantasy but I have to say The Law is probably my favorite Dresden Files book in years despite its short length. While a lot of fans were happy when Jim Butcher tried to move away from noir detective fiction to high stakes urban fantasy. Here, it's trying to help an ex-prostitute turned school teacher and all the better for it. I wish Jim Butcher would do more stuff like this. It's why I love his anthology books.

2. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

The classic book that helped start it all, The Big Sleep is the best of Raymond Chandler's work. If you've seen the Humphrey Bogart adaptation, you've seen a 75% faithful reproduction but I think the book works better. Well, ignoring there's a lot less sexual chemistry in the book. Phillip Marlowe is almost celibate in the books, disgusted by all the sleazy goings on around him. He's a much nicer private detective in this book than the others in my list and, ironically, more so than in his later novels.

Winner

1. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

The actual detective novel that started the hardboiled genre, I'm a much bigger fan of Sam Spade than I am of Phillip Marlowe. Part of it is the fact that Sam is significantly more mercenary than Phillip. He's certainly after justice for his dead partner but he also wants to make a profit from it as well. I'd say the movie version is actually 99% accurate and the few changes are almost incidental versus The Big Sleep.

Space Opera/Military Sci-Fi

5. Interstellar Gunrunner by James Wolanyk

I really love anti-heroes, I know, how could anyone tell? However, I think Bodhi may be the worst of them all. An arms dealer who liberally sells to both sides during the various civil wars populating the galaxy, he's also someone who tampers with forces beyond human comprehension with the casualness of a used car salesmen hocking lemons. I just found this book and its sequels consistently entertaining. It's also a series with a definitive end.

4.Against All Odds by Jeffrey H. Haskell

I love big heroic space opera stories about guys (or gals) who are on the political outs but rally their crew to pull off some miracle that gets them restored. In this respect, the Grimm's War series is similar to Honor Harrington by David Weber's On Basilisk Station. Jacob Grimm tried to heroically save the day during a mission and a bunch of children were killed as a result (what they were doing there in the first place never answered). However, he's moved to a problem area with slavers and a corrupt local government that is just in need of his touch.

3. Columbus Day by Craig Alanson

The Expeditionary Force series is a drug that I just can't quit. It's the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of wise-cracking protagonists making constant pop culture references while coming up with ridiculous but effective plans. It's a book series that I read pretty much straight through and with fifteen books as well as an audiobook drama, that's impressive.

2. The Last Hunter by JN Chaney and Terry Mixon

I really enjoyed this book because it was remarkably low-stakes compared to the normal space opera I read. That changes in subsequent volumes but I loved how the story is essentially about military embezzlement. Jack Romanoff has been assigned to the last Hunter dreadnought, ships in service a century ago, that receive massive budgets every year to maintain. Except, someone has been siphoning off this one for decades. Wouldn't you know that now would be a very good time to have a mile-long starship?

Winner

1. The Terran Privateer by Glynn Stewart

Glynn Stewart is another comfort food space opera for me. In this case, the Terran Privateer is about a young plucky heroine who is determined to liberate Earth from a conquering space empire. Except, well, the space empire isn't that bad and the alternatives were far worse. It's an interesting political thought experiment I very much enjoyed.

Fantasy

5. The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison

I was a huge fan of The Goblin Emperor and very eager to see what else she might come up with in the same steampunk fantasy world. What I got was a fascinating noir detective story set in a fantasy world with a medium that just so happens to be gay. I really enjoyed the opera singer murders and all of the crooked blackmail as well as necromancy around it.

4. The Vilification of Aqua Marine by Megan Mackie

I read several great superhero novels this year but loved all of them. The Vilification of Aqua Marine is the story of a young woman who is the daughter of a Catwoman-esque villain who has a really, really crappy power of water manipulation (as in a cup's worth). After discovering that she can use it to kill people and nearly doing so, she decides to retire as she'd rather be nothing than a supervillain. Unfortunately, her dancing arch-nemesis who seems to want to date her and mother refuse to leave matters be. Lots and lots of fun.

3. Miskatonic Universe: Elder Gods 101 by Matt Davenport and Mike Davenport

I'm a huge fan of Matthew Davenport's cheeky fun Andrew Doran novels. Basically, Indiana Jones versus Cthulhu cultists teamed up with Nazis. However, I think I prefer this book tremendously more. A group of college students at Miskatonic University are gathered together to prevent the apocalypse through the power of their plucky heroism! It's a lot like Super Powereds by Drew Hayes but with a bunch of mythos jokes. Urban fantasy rather than horror and all the better for it.

2. The Cape is a Lie: The Ballad of Kevin by MK Gibson

MK Gibson is someone I'm terribly biased toward as a fellow indie author. Confession, I love his books and he loves mine to the point he gave me a cameo appearance in Agents of Mortal (before I was arrested for Cthulhu worship). However, I think The Cape is a Lie is a great superhero novel parody. A social media influencer figures out that a lot of superhero fights are faked and wants to know how deep it goes.

Winner

1. Azure Bonds by Kate Novac and Jeff Grubbs

The Forgotten Realms are not quite as famous as it's most famous resident in Drizzt Do'Urden but it has plenty of other heroes. My favorite of these is Alias, a beautiful redheaded swordswoman and her dinosaur man, companion, Dragonbait. It is a hilarious off-kilter fantasy story and I really enjoyed it from beginning to end.

Cyberpunk

5. Auxiliary: London 2039 by Jon Richter

A detective novel in the age of public surveillance and an AI that manages everything for the police. I really enjoyed this one because it got surprisingly dark and the author is primarily a detective novelist and thriller who just so happens to have written a cyberpunk novel. It's also interesting to see a Chandler-esque story from across the pond. The ending is easily the best part and genuinely shocking.

4. The Big Sheep by Robert Kroese

A delightful cyberpunk parody of detective fiction. In the future of LA where a good chunk of the city has been walled off and left to its own devices, two private detectives are hired by a genetics corporation to recover a missing genetically engineered sheep. They're also hired to protect the star of a popular TV show who thinks she's going crazy with missing time as well as people spotting her in multiple places. Yes, the foreshadowing is thick here but that doesn't mean that it isn't a fantastic ride. I loved the crypt-curency themed sequel, The Last Iota, too.

3. The Blueprint by Wesley Cross

What if Tom Clancy wrote cyberpunk? Combining a technothriller with a cyberpunk novel is an interesting premise as this shows the downfall of a modern democratic state into becoming a megacorp dominated cyberpunk one. It's interesting because our heroes really do want to save democracy, Jack Ryan, style but in the end only end up creating their own megacorp. That's not a spoiler but the premise. Some of it is silly but I really liked this one.

2. Tronic by Rosie Record

California is walled off from the rest of the country and while I question the logistics of that, I absolutely love Fiona Tronick as a character. A spy for the police while keeping all of the punk attitude in public, she is torn by her own hypocrisy and the fact she hates the system but is caught up in it. This is some gritty well-designed cyberpunk and I absolutely loved it.

Winner

1. Nephilim: A Behind Blue Eyes Origin Story by Anna Mocikat

I'm a huge fan of Anna Mocikat's indie cyberpunk series, Behind Blue Eyes, and was interested when she decided to start releasing novellas detailing elements of the series past. Having read the collected version all at once, I actually think it works really well as a horrifying dystopian novel. A young girl has her family killed and is forced into a training school for cyborgs ala Black Widow's Red Room. 

It deals with a lot of horrifying adult topics of violence, indoctrination, and burgeoning sexuality but in a mature well-written way. Definite content warnings, though. We follow her to adulthood, knowing she's going to become another cog in the fascist corporate machine.

Final Thoughts

I absolutely loved this year in reading and it certainly inspired me to do a lot of new writing for my own books. I always try and do a decent mix of the well-known with up and coming writers. Thanks to everyone who read my list, the authors who contributed, and the other readers making their own lists this year.

The Maltese Falcon by Dashielle Hammett review

    THE MALTESE FALCON is about as influential to the creation of the detective genre as we know it as MURDER IN RUE MORGUE and A STUDY IN SCARLET. Dashielle Hammett actually wrote the book as a counterpoint to Sherlock Holmes, at least according to him, as he drew on his actual experience as a private detective working for the Pinkertons. 

    I can't find the exact quote but basically Dashielle Hammett noted that private detectives were more or less the opposite of Holmes and Dupin in methodology. While the latter two are socially awkward intellectuals who have incredible observational skills, the "real" private detective is a social creature who gathers the majority of his information via interactions with people as well as tripping them up. Which means Watson would probably be far better than Holmes.

    Almost everyone knows the story of the book by cultural osmosis. Sam Spade is a private detective in San Fransisco when his partner, Archer, is murdered after a beautiful woman asks them to investigate a dangerous man. Said dangerous man turns up dead an hour later and Sam is the primary suspect. This introduces a quest for a centuries old Templar-constructed artifact called the Maltese Falcon, worth millions even in 1920s money.

    Sam Spade is one of the great characters of fiction and he's a mean, greedy, and ruthless individual who figures out the general plot of the "mystery" early on. One of the best elements of the book is he's almost immediately wise to the femme fatale  Brigid O'Shaughnessy. She acts the part of the panicked innocent but Sam never once buys her act as he explains to her in their second scene together. It's a testament to the writing that a lot of readers forget this even as Sam is constantly pointing out he's not fooled.

    Instead, Sam Spade runs the complicated game of musical chairs between Joe Cairo, Casper Gutman, Brigid, the police, and himself in order to both get him off for the murder of his partner as well as make as much money as possible. Sam is a fantastic manipulator as he doesn't have the titular Maltese Falcon but everyone is convinced he does. I like how this detective story includes murder but it's humorous that solving it is a secondary concern versus profit.

    The fact we can never assume Sam will chose money, Ms. O'Shaughnessy's affections, the right thing, or getting himself out of a murder rap is enough to make the story fantastic to read. It's also why I prefer him to Phillip Marlowe as that man seems to insert himself into events not only when it doesn't profit him but when it's none of his damned business. Either way, I absolutely love the complicated twists and turns.

    It should be noted that this is one of the movies where the adaptation is more or less note perfect. The only things missing are a few minor characters and a rather horrible scene where Sam Spade strip searches Brigid for a missing thousand dollars. Watching the Bogart film more or less renders the book unnecessary and vice versa as whole swaths of dialogue are replicated perfectly. I wish more films did this. 

10/10

The Annotated Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

    THE BIG SLEEP remains one of the greatest detective novels of all time and while I prefer Dashielle Hammett over Raymond Chandler, it's only by degrees. It's also interesting to note the flaws of the narrative that is a Frankenstein's monster of combined short-stories of Raymond Chandler's previous short stories that give the book a somewhat disjointed episodic feel that only slightly hurts it. Basically, the Big Sleep is a bunch of stories from his previous work in Pulp Detective magazines like BLACK MASK that he created a loose narrative combining and then making them all star Phillip Marlowe.

    The premise is an old millionaire hires Phillip to get back some dirty pictures of his possibly mentally ill daughter, Carmen, that we're not sure are the reason for a blackmail attempt until our protagonist finds her standing over the dead body of said blackmailer while stark naked. From there, the bodies start piling up and Phillip becomes determined to solve the missing person's case of a bootlegger married into the millionaire's family. This despite the fact he wasn't hired to look into the missing person's case and most of the murders are instantly solved.

    There's some plot holes like the fact that the chauffeur's murder is never really solved (personally, I believe he drove into the reservoir due to a head injury) and the fact that Geiger being murdered by Carmen makes more sense than the chauffeur doing it. However, it's really about style over substance and there's plenty of substance. Marlowe is the original wise-cracking detective and constantly giving backtalk to the people around him, which is a style often repeated but never duplicated.

    It's also interesting to compare/contrast this to the movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. There's absolutely no romance between Mrs. Regan and Phillip Marlowe in the book and he's not even that attracted to her, which makes an interesting change. Obviously, the movie also wanted to make Bacall's character less morally compromised than the book--which makes it clear the Sternwoods are awful people.

    Phillip Marlowe is far more erudite, charming, and witty than Sam Spade. Also, better educated as he plays chess in his spare time and has a college education. However, he's also a flat out nicer person and not motivated by the money. Which is oddly why, between the two, I prefer Sam Spade. I feel like a bit more mercenary motivation would make a more compelling protagonist. He's also above the influence with sex and other temptations. I have to admit I prefer my protagonists a bit more flawed. He seems determined to solve the mystery, mostly, because everyone keeps trying to keep him from doing so.

    The other characters are memorable and interesting as well with a large cast of characters that are still all able to be kept straight in my head. The Sternwood Sisters, the General, Eddie Mars, Canino, and so on. Raymond Chandler puts some interesting spins on the concept of the "honorable gangster" with Eddie Mars proving to be anything but yet capable of putting on a good front. There's a reason an entire genre of fiction came from both this book as well as The Maltese Falcon.

    The annotated version of the book isn't quite as impressive as I think people believe as a lot of the annotations are unnecessary. I mean, a lot of the slang explained is self-explanatory or still commonly used. We also don't need the author explaining, "Yes, Raymond Chandler was kind of homophobic." Some speculations like how much the book goes on about the beauty of men were also reaching. Oddly, the best notes are the ones that point out where Raymond is stealing from himself.

    Overall, a must-read for every detective fan but you should get the original.  

9/10

LA Noire (2017) review

    LA Noire by Rockstar Games and Team Bondi is one of those classic games that has managed to stand the test of time despite the fact it was not a massive success in its initial release. It was created under extremely taxing circumstances, using the latest in motion capture technology, and managed to find an audience but not an incredibly huge one. People came into it expecting another Grand Theft Auto and got something much closer to a linear adventure game.

    The premise is WW2 veteran, Cole Phelps, has taken a job as part of the police in the post-war economic boom town that is Los Angeles. Cole has some bad memories of his time in the Pacific Front, no kidding, but is generally thought of as a war hero. However, he's eager to put his past behind him and forge a new life by solving crimes as well as working his way up the incredibly corrupt LAPD. Unfortunately, Cole is as honest as the sun is shiny.

    The positives of the game are difficult to put into words because they're really-really positive. The facial capture technology provides the game as close to photo realistic as was possible for the time and the characters mostly hold up even eleven years later (Note: this is a review of the remastered version). The recreation of Los Angeles is spectacular and the game really has the benefit of giving you a look into a cityscape that no longer exists.

    The real humdinger of the game, though, is the writing and this is probably one of the best written games of all time. Alongside Red Dead Redemption 2, this is a truly great story and would make a great movie or book if it wasn't already an incredible video game. The individual cases are incredibly well-realized with stories ranging from a skeevy film maker blackmailing his actresses for sex, the infamous "Black Dhalia" case expanded into an entire story arc, and more mundane cases like a Jewish man murdering a man who abused him one too many times. The larger narrative is also pretty good, invoking both Chinatown as well as LA Confidential. If you haven't seen either of those then Who Framed Roger Rabbit's freeway plan.

    The gameplay is primarily based around, shockingly enough, actual police work. Cole goes to crime scenes, examines them, gathers evidence, and then interrogates suspects. Sometimes he gets into shoot-outs and action scenes but surprisingly rarely. This is honestly closer to Phoenix Wright instead of Grand Theft Auto. The goal is to figure out who did it, where, and with what as in Clue. Very often, it will involve watching the facial animations of suspects to see them overact some tick that gives away they're lying. 

    The quality of the acting deserves its own salutation because it really is impressive to look upon. There's some real quality actors here like John Noble among others. The characters tend to be archetypes but never so much that I didn't believe they were real characters either. Which is another thing you don't often see in these sorts of video games, if not video games in general.

    Now for the flaws of the game. The first one is the fact that it's actually very inconsistently designed. There's no reason for the game to be an open world title because there's nothing to do in the open world and nothing would have been lost if they'd just begun every case directly after the last one. A better developer might have also incorporated more open world activities or made the "random crimes" spread throughout the map ones you can find via map marker.

    The game is also full of fantastic cases but also seems like it's skipped over some important character beats as well. One emotional subplot is a main character having an affair in a time when that was illegal and could get you fired from your job. However, we never get to know the main character's wife or the person they're having the affair with so it comes out of nowhere. Just a little bit more would have gone a long way in terms of character development. The game is fantastic when it's doing cases but drops the ball in a few areas.

    There's also a switch in protagonists when, bluntly, one of the protagonists is substantially better written than the other. An entire fascinating story about morphine smuggling, real life crime boss Mickey Cohen, and the Post-War financial situation for veterans is only available to learn about via video cutscenes. It would have been much better to actually play out the scenes. Of course, given the game took seven years to make, talking about the things they could have included is probably a mistake.

    Gameplay wise, LA Noire is underwhelming because the investigations are entertaining enough but could have been supplemented with more action scenes as well as things like car chases as well as more exploration. There's also annoying little details like the inability to easily skip cutscenes (you have to look up how to do so online). The game is definitely for mature gamers with racism, sex, murder, and a dark gritty take on Post-War Los Angeles. This is a very period accurate view of the world as well as a very cynical one. Which, of course, is right up my alley.

    LA Noire was remastered in 2017 and a VR version of the game was released. Virtual Reality is not my thing but worth considering for those who are into the whole thing. Right now, it is about twenty dollars and I think it's a real bang for your buck kind of deal. I strongly recommend the game even with all of its flaws.

9/10 

Available here

Dick Tracy (1990) review

    Dick Tracy is one of those movies that I end up returning to every few years. It's a film that has never received a vast following and rarely tops anyone's favorites but I think of it as a film that everyone should watch. It is the very definition of a cult classic and it is a film that has aged remarkably well due to its unique visual style. Sadly, the behind-the-scenes politics and behavior of Warren Beatty means we probably won't see any more Dick Tracy content until he died but at least it was due to him loving the character "that" much.

    The premise is the inspiration for virtually all other police procedurals as well as at least part of Batman's world. Dick Tracy is a square-jawed police detective in an unnamed city (Homeville in the comic strip) that is overrun by grotesque gangsters. The comic strip has been running since 1931 and this is set somewhere during Prohibition, though it incorporates several World War 2 characters in the mix. It's a shame this movie never got a sequel because I'd love to see Tracy murder some Nazis.

The color pattern is eye-popping.

    The movie version of Tracy (Warren Beatty) doesn't deal with illegal liquor or foreign spies, though, but gambling. Big Boy Caprice (Al Pacino) eliminates his chief rival in the city's underworld, Lips Malice, in order to take over his club as well as girl, Breathless Mahoney (Madonna). Big Boy intends to unite the city's underworld underneath him and unleash an unparalleled crime wave. Tracy thinks he can take down Big Boy if he gets either a young kid (Charlie Korsmo) or Mahoney to testify against Big Boy. Things get complicated when a literally faceless new enemy, the Blank, arrives and starts playing Tracy versus Big Boy.

    Dick Tracy is not a particularly complicated movie but it's surprisingly rich in detail. You get the impression this is a setting that has a fairly vast and deep history to it. Rather than just using one or two Tracy villains, virtually his entire Rogues Gallery appears in various scenes. It's like if Tim Burton's Batman had crowd scenes with the Legion of Doom. There's Pruneface, Flat Top, Itchy, and many other grotesques that usually only get one or two scenes but are memorable to fans while also hinting at a much richer universe. Unfortunately, most of them get knocked off without fanfare.

    Most modern viewers are not going to have any idea who any of these characters are, though, despite how memorable their appearances are. Villains in Dick Tracy, the men at least, wear their sins on their faces so all of them are deformed with fantastic prosthetics. It was a conscious stylistic choice along with the fact the world is painted in primary colors of greens, reds, yellows, and blues in order to look more like a comic strip. It certainly adds a unique look to the film and helps it stick in your mind.

Dick Tracy is a man of action not words.

    Indeed, the look of the film is hard to put into words because it doesn't look like anything else in film. Tim Burton's Batman was released the year before and is about the only movie I think that can compare for world-building. Matte paintings, models, and costuming all combine to make it jump alive. The use of practical effects means that this movie is every bit as gorgeous looking today as when it originally released. The action scenes aren't particularly great but there's truly memorable Tommy Gun fight at the end that sticks with me decades later.

    Dick Tracy's musical score also deserves to be talked about because it may be the only time in history that there were too many masters at work for a single film. The Dick Tracy score consists of work by Danny Elfman (Batman, Harry Potter), Madonna, and Stephen Sondheim (everything ever done by Meatloaf). There's some truly fantastic songs on this movie with the upbeat jazz tune, "Back in Business" being a particular favorite of mine. Good luck getting the complete soundtrack anywhere but Youtube, though, because no one apparently got along behind the scenes.

Al Pacino is barely recognizable.

    Despite the many good qualities about Dick Tracy, the film has some serious flaws. Some of it dates back to the original material and others are issues unique to the film. Tonally, a lot of the scenes are off-kilter. Al Pacino is incredibly entertaining as Big Boy Caprice, providing a lot of the movie's energy but definitely went for a much more cartoonish take than Beatty or Madonna's understated performance. Beatty at 52 still looks like a man in his early thirties because God gave him some spectacular genes but isn't really suited for an action hero's role. The Kid and Tess Trueheart (Glenn Headly) are written so terribly that you can't imagine why Tracy wouldn't run screaming into Madonna's arms.

She'll leave you breathless.

     Speaking of Madonna, she is absolutely fabulous in this. I've never been a really huge fan of the Material Girl, let alone her acting, but I unironically state this is her best role aside from Evita. Also, Breathless is fantastically sexy with the film incredibly aware of this. Beatty and Madonna both have enormous chemistry, understandable given their RL relationship at the time, and it makes their scenes onscreen sizzle. The fact we're not meant to root for Breathless and Tracy kind of hurts the movie overall, even if it makes the ending stronger.

     Warren Beatty was the last of the Golden Age of Hollywood movie stars alongside Robert Redford and he apparently called in every single favor he had for the cast. In addition to Al Pacino and Madonna, the movie has Dustin Hoffman, Mandy Patinkin, Paul Sorvino, and Dick fricking Van Dyke spread throughout the cast. Apparently, Dustin Hoffman actually took the role as a joke because his character is utterly incomprehensible for 99% of his acting.

    Oddly, I think this movie being rated PG was a great mistake as it's definitely PG-13 and if they had the slightest trace of blood would have been a decent R-rated movie despite its binary good vs. evil. People are routinely gunned down, one guy gets drowned in cement, the sexual double entendres are off the chart, and the body count probably matches several Bond movies. The Dick Tracy comic strips were equally violent but it's kind of surprising to see Madonna in see-through negligee in the same sort of movie rating as Star Wars.

    In conclusion, this is a fascinating movie and wonderful experience but it does have some serious issues. I feel like there could have been a lot more from this franchise if it had been allowed to have a sequel or reboot. Unfortunately, Warren Beatty has effectively sat on the rights for thirty years and still owns them to this day. He absolutely loves the character and his experience playing him but doesn't want anyone else to play with "his" toys.

8/10

Altered Carbon (2018) review

    Altered Carbon is one of my all-time favorite cyberpunk novels and is probably one of the few which I rank up with Neuromancer, Snow Crash, and Blade Runner. It's a sci-fi noir with blackmail, sex, murder, and an antihero protagonist who verges on being completely psychotic but never quite crosses the line into villain (at least until the second or third book). So, I was incredibly exited about the announcement of a series being made by Netflix. Netflix, like HBO, is one of the few networks I know who could do a proper R-rated genre story.

    I was also excited about the cast members of Joel Kinnaman (Robocop, Suicide Squad) and James Purefoy (Rome, The Following, Solomon Kane) being among the cast. Dichen Lachmen (Agents of SHIELD), Michael Eklund (Wynonna Earp) Hayley Law (Riverdale), and Will Yun Lee (Sleeping Dogs) also add a huge benefit to the show's star power even though those are mostly things only geeks like me would like. I didn't know Martha Higareda before this show but her role as Detective Ortega makes me want to see her in anything else she does.

Nice bits from the book.

    The premise of the books and the show is the future has successfully conquered death. Sort of. There's no guarantee it's "you" who is reincarnated but your memories and personalities can be stored on discs called Stacks.  If you die without your Stack being destroyed then you can be put in a new body and some rich people have their consciousness backed up every 48 hours. Takeshi Kovacs is an anarchist-inclined criminal and former supersoldier who, after being "killed", finds himself awakened two centuries later by the absurdly rich Laurens Bancroft who puts him to solving the ultimate case: who "killed" him and make it look like a suicide.

    So, was it good? Yeah, sort of. No, let me be fair, it's really-really good. However, it's a good which isn't as good as the novel because it goes off the rails toward the end due to the fact they want to streamline the story as well as improve it in places. This isn't always a bad thing as I consider Blade Runner to be far better than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Here, however, all of the changes basically seem to be designed to make the story more personal when it didn't really need to be personal at all. Its changes can be likened to changing the Maltese Falcon to having Gutman turn out to be Sam Spade's long lost brother and making sure the villains get locked up at the end. You can do it well but it's a bit contrived, to say the least. It isn't a spoiler that fans of the books will find Takeshi Kovacs much-much closer to the events of the setting than he is in the books and this is annoying single time it happens.

Martha Higareda is gorgeous and tough at once.

    For example, in the show continuity, Takeshi is an Envoy in the service of the Quellist Revolution. Quellcrist Falconer is his lover and his sister is Reileen Kawahara, who is also a member of the revolution. Quellcrist Falconcer is the inventor of sleeving technology and believes it's innately evil so that people should only have one life. If you're a fan of the book, you'll know where all of this is deeply wrong and throws a lot of later canon deeply out of whack. Particularly of note, in the third book, Takeshi is searching for the stack of his one true love and she's permanently killed in the opening seconds of the show.

    Generally, though, this is very much in the spirit of the books and is all about the class struggle and misuse of technology by the super rich. In the future, most of humanity lives in squallor and while Methuselah (those who are centuries old) engage in their most depraved fantasies. Deprived of any fear of death or judgement by the apparent immortality which Stacks provide, they have all seemingly become evil psychopaths. That's a bit blunter than the books where Laurens Bancroft is a dirty old lecher but not the monstrous deviant he is in the show but hammers on the themes of the book--which is money is a trap that all of society has fallen into.

Miriam is a bit disappointing.

    The show has a lot of excellent world-building, sets, and character development that unfolds in mostly believable ways. I bought the Takeshi Kovacs/Kristine Ortega romance better in the show than I did in the book. Indeed, so much that I want to see more of it despite how against the books themes it would be. There's a bunch of great action sequences spread throughout the story and they're both vicious as well as bloody. You really come to buy Takeshi as the most badass man alive while never completely entering the world of Arnold and Stallone.

    There's a couple of weak links in the show like Kristin Lehman who has the unenviable task of trying to portray the World's Most Beautiful and Desirable WomanTM. That's a heavy task in itself but is also coupled with the fact she's supposed to be a genius and incredibly dangerous but never rises above petty in her scenes. There's also a few unnecessary subplots which seemed designed to make us care about characters right before they're killed. The series also seems very skeptical of Sleeving technology, which is weird since the books aren't even though it is very off-kilter technology (and amounts to mental cloning writ large).

He needs to get to work on Sleeping Dogs 2, stat.

    There's copious amounts of nudity in this series, mostly but not exclusively female, and it is sometimes extremely appealing while other times not. It's a noir story with the exploitation of women as one of the themes so it's appropriate. Still, I would have preferred more use of it during the "sexy" scenes with Miriam, Kovacs, and Ortega than just thrown out randomly left and right.

    In conclusion, I very much enjoyed Altered Carbon the series but it didn't hold itself together for all ten episodes. The show is entertaining but tried too much to make it entwined with Takeshi's personal life and past when it was perfectly serviceable as a murder mystery he's roped into. In any case, I recommend it to all cyberpunk fans but note it's not perfect.

8/10