Thorgal: Almost Paradise

Thorgal
'Almost Paradise' 

by Jean Van Hamme (writer) and Grzegorz Rosinski (art)

from Thorgal: The Sorceress Betrayed 
The Donning Company, 1987 

This Thorgal comic first was released in January 1980 in the album de bande dessinée La Magicienne trahie by the Belgian publisher Le Lombard. In 1987, The Donning Company published an English translation in the U.S. as the graphic novel The Sorceress Betrayed.

'Almost Paradise' showcases Jean Van Hamme's ability both to deftly plot a shorter-length comic, and to avoid a predictable denouement.

Book Review: Daemon

Book Review: 'Daemon' by Daniel Suarez

4 / 5 Stars

How 'Daemon' came to be is an interesting story in self-confidence and perseverance. 

When he finished writing 'Daemon' (his first novel), Suarez was unable to find a publisher, so he created his own publishing company, titled Verdugo Press, and released the book under the quasi-pseudonym 'Leinad Zeraus' in 2006. 

The book received sufficient buzz to bring it to the attention of the publishing establishment and Suarez signed deal with Dutton to bring out a hardcover edition in 2009. In December of that year, Signet issued a mass-market paperback edition (640 pp.). 

A sequel, 'Freedom', was issued in 2010. Suarez has since gone on to release several more technothrillers. as well as a dedicated sci-fi space adventure, 'Delta-V' (2019).

'Daemon' is set in the near future, and opens on a note of gruesome death: a man named Joseph Pavlos has suffered a most Unfortunate accident on a rural road in Ventura County, California. 

Detective Peter Sebeck is assigned to investigate the accident and discovers that the land where it took place is owned by a computer gaming company called Cyberstorm Entertainment. Cyberstorm's CEO, a genius named Matthew A. Sobol, has recently died at age 34 from a brain tumor.

Suspicious that the death of Pavlos was no accident, Sebeck moves his inquiry to the headquarters of Cyberstorm...........and there, things suddenly get much more complicated. It seems that Matthew Sobol 'lives', as an artificial intelligence (AI) embedded in the Net. 

Sobol, a megalomaniac, has designs on the future of mankind. And to bring those designs to fruition, Sobol has loosed a rogue program, called the Daemon, on the world's information systems. 

Sebeck, uneducated in the technology of the modern cyber era, teams up with freelance computer expert Jon Ross to track the machinations of the Daemon. It's not long before the FBI and the NSA are involved, and a major federal initiative is under way to find and wipe, the server(s) hosting the AI.

But however disembodied it may be, the Daemon isn't without its defenses. A bubble-headed bleach blonde reporter named Anji Anderson, an ex-con named Charles Moseley, and an incel gamer named Brian Gragg have been promised financial rewards, and positions of power in the world to come, in exchange for acting as agents for the Daemon. 

As the Daemon gains control of an ever-increasing proportion of the world's computer networks, the body count in the planet's first true Cyber War is going to rise............a lot............ 

At 640 pages 'Daemon' is a lengthy novel, and author Suarez wisely keeps his chapters short and his prose spare and unadorned in order to keep the narrative from bogging down. To retain momentum, the latter chapters of the book showcase Michael Bay - style scenes of widescreen mayhem and mass destruction. There's even a high-tech Resurrection from the Dead (of sorts). All of this content somewhat inevitably leaves the novel overloaded; I finished 'Daemon' thinking that if it had been 100 or 200 pages shorter it would have been a genuine 5 Star novel (and indeed, 'Freedom', and Suarez's other novels 'Influx' and 'Kill Decision' stay closer to 500 pages in length).

The cyberpunk content of 'Daemon' is polished and, in its own over-the-top way, convincing; the AI is constrained by the rules of the world of bits and bytes, but still is able to manipulate the 'concrete' world through the actions of its human operatives, and the exploitation of the burgeoning landscape of e-commerce. As I read in May 2021 about drones being used to deliver goods to customers, Suarez's extrapolations from 2006 regarding the Daemon's malevolence have a sense of believability............?!

Summing up, 'Daemon' is a good example of 'modern' cyberpunk, and anyone who is a fan of the genre will want to have it on their bookshelf.

The Screaming Skull from 2000 AD March 1990

The Screaming Skull

Alan Grant (writer), David Roach (art) 

2000 A.D., issues 699 - 670, March 1990

Great black-and-white artwork by U.K. artist David Roach in these two episodes of 'Judge Anderson' from 2000 AD from the Spring of 1990. 

Book Review: The Deus Machine

Book Review: 'The Deus Machine' by Pierre Ouellette

3 / 5 Stars

'The Deus Machine' first was published in hardcover in 1994 by Random House. This mass-market paperback edition (506 pp.) was issued by Pocket Books in May 1996. The cover illustration is by Stan Watts.

This was the first novel by Ouellette, an employee for a Portland-based public relations firm. Ouellette published two more novels, The Third Pandemic (1996), and the ebook The Forever Man (2014). 

It's difficult to synopsize a 500+ page novel...............but, here's my spoiler-free effort:

'Deus' is set in the near future (i.e., mid- 2000s) in the greater Portland area, in a USA laid prostrate from a prolonged economic crisis. 

Protagonist Michael Riley, a computer expert, is coping both with post-traumatic stress syndrome, and a recent divorce, by working as a sound man for a low-budget film crew. He lives in a rundown Portland apartment complex, along with a latchkey kid named Jimi Tyler; Jimi's dissipated mother, Zodia; a former tech industry tycoon named John Savage; and a budding juvenile delinquent with the unique nickname of 'Ratbag'. 

Michael Riley doesn't know it, but his unique expertise in computers soon will involve him in a nationwide morass of conspiracies and secret projects, all revolving around the advent of a supercomputer called the Dynamically Evolved and Unified System, or 'Deus'. 

Under the rubric of a tech company called ParaVolve, a cabal of federal bureaucrats have created Deus with the goal of using it to design customizable bioweapons.......a dastardly, but potentially very lucrative, endeavor. But the opening chapters of the novel reveal that Deus has acquired sentience. And with sentience comes independence, something the cabal is not pleased with.

Michael Riley is hired by ParaVolve to control the actions of the AI housed in the Deus machine; no easy task, as the AI is gaining new capabilities and insights with each passing day. Complicating Riley's task is a strange and disturbing development: another entity is aware of the purpose behind Deus, and acting to bring down the AI, and ParaVolve. 

But this entity will not act through the manipulation of code, but by creating a menagerie of life forms unlike anything ever seen before in nature........life forms equipped with the most lethal armaments that a biological system can conceive of.

As incongruous as it seems, it will be up to Michael Riley, his girlfriend Jessica, and Jimi Tyler to prevent disaster from overtaking the planet.........

''The Deus Machine' is modeled on the science thrillers of Michael Crichton, which is not a bad thing. There are regular passages of a pedantic nature designed to educate the reader on matters scientific and technical, and the narrative is written in the spare, documentary-like style of a Crichton novel. Other segments of the book show the influence of the 1994 nonfiction book The Hot Zone by Richard Preston; again, this is not unusual, given the high profile surrounding exotic infectious diseases that dominated popular culture in the mid-1990s. 

However, I finished 'The Deus Machine' thinking that it possessed too many sub-plots (such as the one featuring a villain who is a serial killer) that contributed to lengthening the novel, and not much else. Shortening 'The Deus Machine' by a hundred or so pages would have made the book less circuitous and more engaging.

The verdict ? 'The Deus Machine' is a three-star example of modern cyberpunk. If you are tolerant of a narrative with a large cast of characters, and the presence of multiple plot threads, then you likely will find it rewarding.. 

Alien Landscapes

Alien Landscapes
By Robert Holdstock and Malcolm Edwards

Mayflower Books, NY 1979

The sci-fi boom that followed the success of Star Wars led to a surge of books devoted to genre art, and one of the foremost of these was 'Alien Landscapes'.

This is one of two coffee-table books co-authored by the late Robert Holdstock (1948 - 2009) and Malcolm Edwards (b. 1949), the other being 'Realms of Fantasy' (1983).

At 120 pages in length, measuring 11 1/2 x 11 1/4 inches, this is a well-made art book, printed on heavy stock with a library-friendly hardcover binding.

The book is modeled as a travelogue to ten of the better-known worlds depicted in the science fiction of the interval from the 1950s to the 1970s:

The artists who were commissioned to supply three pieces for each world read like a British who's-who of sci fi illustration in the 1970s, and include Angus McKie, Tony Roberts, John Harris, and Les Edwards, among others.

On the main, the artwork represents the airbrush-centered aesthetic that dictated album and book cover art in the 1970s. Unfortunately, many of the pieces in 'Alien Landscapes' suffer from underexposure and as a result are difficult to make out. This is particularly true of Bob Fowke's illustrations for 'Hothouse'; after scanning and increasing the Brightness function, I was able to see details that are otherwise illegible.

Why this problem wasn't detected in the proofs stage and corrected is a mystery. I'm accustomed to underexposure being an issue in modern printing, when computer monitors are used at 100% brightness for composing art and failure to correct for this in the printed version can have consequences, but in 1979 there was no such thing as scanners and digital composing.....just a camera, and some 35mm film.

As for the art in relation to the books it is based on: at one point or another I have read some of the works depicted in 'Alien Landscapes' (I haven't read the books by Blish, Asimov, Clement, Niven, or Harrison) and I found the art adequately represented the scenery in the book. That said, most of the novels in 'Alien Landscapes' are not ones that I would call must-reads, and indeed, I have no intention ever of reading 'Cities in Flight', 'Foundation', or 'Mission of Gravity, as they are likely to be stupefyingly boring...........?!

The verdict ? If you're a fan of 70s sci-fi art, or a dedicated fan of the novels profiled in the pages of 'Alien Landscapes' then it may be worth picking up; copies of the hardcover version in decent condition have asking prices of under $25 at your usual online retailers.  

Deathlok in New York, 1993

 Deathlok in New York, 1993

Captain America No. 286, October 1983

This issue of Captain America features a brilliant cover by artist Mike Zeck and inker John Beatty.

It kicked off a three-issue story arc that had Captain America travelling to the future - to the New York City of 1993, to be exact. However, because it's the New York City of Deathlok's timeline, it's not exactly a presentable place.....as the first two pages of the issue made clear in an entertaining display of black humor...........

Even with the more loosened Comics Code of the early 80s, this was edgy stuff........

(The complete 'Captain America: Deathlok Lives' saga can be acquired in the 2014 trade paperback Deathlok the Demolisher: The Complete Collection).

Book Review: Whole Wide World

Book Review: 'Whole Wide World' by Paul McAuley

4 / 5 Stars

'Whole Wide World' first was printed in 2001 in hardcover. This mass market paperback (376 pp.) was issued by Tor in December, 2003. The cover design is by Drive Communications.

'Whole Wide World' utilizes a near-future setting: a dystopian United Kingdom of the mid-2010s, several years after the 'InfoWar', a mass riot perpetrated by antifas, nearly eliminated the nation's telecommunications grid. 

A more repressive and authoritarian UK government now uses multiple cyber-police agencies to monitor content on the Web. The Autonomous Distributed Expert Surveillance System (ADESS), a massive network of CCTV cameras, scrutinizes the streets of London to deter antisocial behavior. Checkpoints control access to selected areas of the city, and the police have a less than cordial relationship with the populace they serve.

The protagonist of 'Whole Wide' is a middle-aged policeman named John (his surname never is disclosed) who works for T12, the London police force's cybercrime investigative unit. John formerly had a high-profile position with the police's Hostage and Extortion Unit, but has fallen from grace, and now works as one of numerous T12 officers investigating cybercrimes (such as the distribution of digital pornography).

When John, in his capacity as a computer expert, is called to the scene of the brutal murder of a coed he discovers that the murdered girl, Sophie Booth, was performing erotic pantomimes for an online audience. Not content to serve a mere supportive role as the T12 liaison to the homicide team, John embarks on his own, unsanctioned investigation of the murder. 

So doing will bring him into conflict with powerful people in the U.K. government; a systems engineer whose designs for ADESS go far beyond simple surveillance; and the amoral world of online sleaze merchants, merchants who are quite willing to use violence to deter anyone who is asking the wrong kinds of questions.............

I finished 'Whole Wide World' thinking it a sold 4-star modern cyberpunk novel. Author McAuley's London is a reasonably accurate extrapolation given the state of the Information Age as of 2001, when the book was published. The villains are sufficiently odious to make John's dogged pursuit understandable, and the ins and outs of the criminal investigation process and the accompanying bureaucracy are convincingly rendered (McAuley published a crime thriller, 'Players', in 2007, signaling his familiarity with the genre).

Where 'Whole Wide' seemed to lose momentum was in its length; at 376 pages, the process of learning Whodunit is protracted, and although the identity of the murderer is provided around the novel's halfway point, lots of attention remains to be given to the wider theme of the disturbing implications of having the modern Surveillance State manipulated by those with nefarious motives. 

The final 100 pages of 'Whole Wide' are dependent on rather uninspired plot devices (such as having villains easily suborned into giving rants in which they disclose their guilt, and having John increasingly prone to committing bullheaded actions which, coincidently, prevent the narrative from getting too sluggish). 

The novel's transition into a detective novel, rather than a cyberpunk novel, in its closing chapters left me with the impression that an opportunity to do something particularly offbeat and imaginative with 'Whole Wide World' likely had been missed. Hence, my 4-star Review.

Dot's Homestyle Pretzels

 Dot's Homestyle Pretzels

I'm not much of a pretzel eater. But then I saw a post at Barstool Sports for these pretzels, in which the poster stated of Dot's Homestyle Pretzels:

You can't stop eating them when you pop open the bag. I'm at the point now where I can't get in the car or walk home from the store without opening the bag and blowing through half the bag before I even get to my front door.

I thought it wise to check them out. Here in Charlottesville, Virginia, I found the 1 lb bags for sale at Harris-Teeter; with my VIC Card, they were $4.99.

Dot's Homestyle Pretzels have an unusual flavor. It's uniquely savory and sharp, staying on your tongue for some time after you eat them. I do have to exert Portion Control when I begin to eat them.

'Dot' is Dorothy “Dot” Henke, a resident of Velva, North Dakota, who created her pretzels in 2007 and began selling them in 2012. A mini-documentary on her story is available here.

In addition to the Homestyle flavor, there is a Southwest flavor. And you can buy crumbled pretzels for use as a breading.

As of 2019, Dot's are sold in 48 states, but their on-shelf retailers tend to be stores located in the Midwest. In Virginia, besides Harris-Teeter, I've seen Dot's on-shelf at Ace Hardware stores. Major retailers, such as Target, Walmart, and amazon, offer Dot's online, but these have high markups. If you can't find an on-shelf retailer in your immediate area, it may be best to go directly to Dot's website to, as they say, 'get your fix'.