Each piece in itself is stunning, but over the course of a book I started to feel that they were a bit samey in their subject matter – not surprisingly, since most come from very similar sources: rules and expansion packs for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. A few covers from recent novels are included, but I think more of those would have made for more variety. The oddest thing for me about looking through this book was that it gave me a feeling of nostalgia for something I never did. I always fancied getting involved with tabletop games, but never did: it always seemed easier to play them on the computer. – SWT

One of the two features that first attracted me to Wordsworth’s Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural series is the breadth of material covered, which includes works from both the crime and horror genres. Their relationship is less obvious in the twenty-first century than it was in the nineteenth – when authors like Poe, Dickens, Collins, and Doyle moved freely between the two – but there are numerous parallels. The other attraction is the price, a mere £2.99 per volume, and even less if ordered online. This latest release focuses explicitly on the area of overlap between crime and horror fiction, providing a sample of writers who have used psychic, spiritual, and sceptic detectives as a method of disclosing the ghost story or weird tale. Mr Valentine’s introduction is expertly pitched, and provides just enough information to place his selection in context without overwhelming the reader with too many facts or spoiling any endings.

Appropriately, the first of the sixteen short stories is “The Warder of the Door” by Robert Eustace and L.T. Meade, which pioneered the subgenre in 1898. William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki the Ghost Finder, one of the most famous occult detectives, follows shortly, in “The Gateway of the Monster”; and then Arthur Machen’s “The Red Hand”, an outing for his sleuth, Mr Dyson. Another interesting choice is Eugene Valmont, Robert Barr’s French detective in London, often identified as a prototype for Agatha Christie’s Poirot. He appears in “The Ghost with the Club Foot” as a debunker rather than dabbler in the occult, which puts the versatility of this particular type of detective story in perspective: not all of a supernatural sleuth’s cases need involve the supernatural. Hodgson made expert use of this principle with Carnacki, whose solutions alternated between the ghostly and the criminal. Like Watson in Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, Carnacki also made reference to untold tales and the collection’s title comes from one of these, the mention of “the Black Veil case” in “The Horse of the Invisible”. The case, written by A.F. Kidd in 1992, is reproduced here.

The compilation moves from fin de siècle to contemporary authors with Colin P. Langeveld (“The Legacy of the Viper”), Ray Russell (“Like Clockwork”), and Rosalie Parker (“Spirit Solutions”). I’m always wary when editors include their own work in an anthology – I can’t help but feel the selection process is less rigorous – but “The Prince of Barlocco” is the best in the volume. Mr Valentine’s creation, The Connoisseur, is a refined and recondite detective whose adventures have thus far regrettably been confined to limited edition publications. The tale is subtle and elusive, and the denouement inextricably linked to the lore associated with Scotland’s Fleet Isles.

If I have a single criticism of what is one of the best Mystery & Supernatural offerings yet, it is that at least one potential contributor has been omitted: Mike Carey’s exorcist, Felix Castor, is probably the most influential of recent supernatural sleuths, first appearing in The Devil You Know in 2006, and currently on his third adventure.

The collection is a rare treat, likely to set the standard for introductory works of its kind as readers revel in the likes of Carnacki, Dyson, and Valmont, rediscovering some of the forgotten greats. – RM

Possibly the most gleefully stupid book I’ve ever read in my life. Full of the utmost idiocy, the book’s entire content simply adds up to this: good things will happen if you hope for them. It’s really just a book on praying adapted for tastes of new age readers. Instead of praying to some god when you’re sad, you should just pray to the universe. Because, you know, the universe cares about you. Forget that on a universal scale you are indistinguishable from the bacteria that live inside your gut: the universe cares about what you want and will help you get it.

The chapter on how this works is very imprecise. Apparently it’s like going down the stairs instead of taking the lift and meeting a delivery man you would otherwise have missed. How that relates to the universe getting you the boyfriend you want is not clear. Who sent you the cosmic boyfriend parcel? Who received your boyfriend order? It’s clear that it’s just a god in disguise.

At least this god has the benefit of not wanting anything in return: no need for following any of those silly rules other religions have, like not working on Saturdays, or not eating pork, or not eating cows, or not coveting your neighbour’s wife. All this great mail order god requires is that you order more, more, more! Who can’t dig a religion like that? Why should religion be a chore? After all, there’s a lot of competition out there – if you’re going to go to all the trouble of believing in one of these fellows, the least they can do is give you everything you want!

Hilariously, towards the end the author can’t even be bothered to finish writing the book, and just prints her notes in bullet form!

The sources are laughable – for example entire pages of those notes are reproduced from three books by someone who wrote a letter to his god asking lots of questions and then found that – oooh! – his pen didn’t stop writing at the end of the letter and wrote all the answers…

Her mention of Uri Geller is also delectably stupid. She begins by saying that she thought his spoon-bending was an optical illusion, then says that her friends corrected her. Aha, I thought, finally a bit of sense in this most daft of books, but no: her friends informed her that he simply persuades the atoms of the spoon to disperse with the power of his mind. Good grief! There’s nothing mystical about spoon-bending. It’s a magic trick: instructions on how to do it were published in an Israeli journal of magic in the 1960s!

You would think that having written a book about one crazy idea, the author would stick to that one thing, rather than chucking in more foolishness, but of course not: cosmic ordering can also help you to contact the dead. She tells us sagely that there is “increasing evidence” for the existence of a spirit world – oddly she neglects to provide any footnotes pointing us in the direction of this evidence. Here’s the real evidence: James Randi has offered a million dollars for anyone demonstrating any supernatural abilities, such as contacting the dead. No one has claimed that money. So we must conclude that anyone who openly claims to be a psychic, medium etc is a fraud. Even if they don’t need the money themselves, there are many deserving charities to which they could donate it. (If there are actual psychics in the world, they must be keeping themselves a secret. That would be quite understandable!)

If you’ve read Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things, you’ll be pleased to see gathered together in one book almost every problem identified in his chapter How Thinking Goes Wrong. In particular, scientific language does not make a science; bold statements do not make claims true; rumours do not equal reality; and, especially, after-the-fact reasoning and coincidence.

This book will appeal to the slow-witted, the extremely gullible, and anyone who wants to be told, you will get everything you want, all you have to do is hope – and buy this ridiculous book.

With the Office of Fair Trading taking long-overdue action against so-called psychics, hopefully it’ll only be a matter of time until books like this are prevented from having “self-help” printed on the back, and are removed to a supernatural shelf, where their pernicious influence will only affect those who actively search them out, rather than preying on vulnerable people looking for help. – SWT

I started reading this ages and ages ago, and got badly stuck on it – in the end I just skipped ahead to the final book in the series, The Gallifrey Chronicles, so I’d be up to date when the new tv series began. Now, however, with a huge and painful gap before the next full series, and my desperation for new Doctor Who boiling over, I took my Doctor Who where I could find it.

Still, this was a painful book to read. The plot is this: an Earth-themed amusement park with lots of mistakes run by homicidal triplets. It all feels very empty and silly.

However, I think it’s just a good writer working with a bad premise, since the characterisation of the companions was very well done, Fitz especially. Bad as the book was, it left me wanting to read the next in the series (Vanishing Point), so I guess there must have been something good about it. – SWT

There appears to be a difference of opinion as to whether “Dracula’s Guest” was intended to be the first chapter of (or prologue to) Dracula, or a standalone short story. The tale is narrated in the first person by an unnamed protagonist who could very well be Jonathan Harker, but there is nothing other than the count himself to link it to the novel. Regardless of Stoker’s intention, the story works extremely well on its own, as an Englishman en route to Castle Dracula relates his adventures on Walpurgis Night in Bavaria. The central image of the protagonist’s encounter with a wolf in the graveyard is one so haunting that it could only have been written by the man who created the most famous vampire ever.

Twelve more stories make an entirely appropriate thirteen in total, expanding the original collection published posthumously in 1914. As with all the best horror writers, not all of Stoker’s tales involve the supernatural, but are no less frightening or tense for it. “The Burial of the Rats” in particular comes to mind. In addition to being a riveting tale of the macabre, there are several comments by the narrator that show such an understanding of human nature as to raise it from the popular to the literary. The first paragraph of “The Coming of Abel Behenna” is another incredible example of an expert hand at work: Stoker revels in his talent for scene-setting by using an orchestra of colour to describe the Cornish coast in vivid, vital detail. Once again, the absence of the supernatural doesn’t detract from the suspense, and the tale features an especially ingenious solution to the traditional love triangle.

Another mark of a master is the crafting of an innocuous or even trivial article as a source of fear, and Stoker does this with a domestic cat in “The Squaw” and a bedroom window in “The Chain of Destiny”. The latter is a touching love story serving as a reminder that the gothic horror for which Stoker became famous is correctly termed “gothic romanticism”, itself a combination of the trappings of the medieval with the romantic concern with emotion and imagination. Stoker is also adept at the “twist in the tale”, and uses it to spine-tingling effect in “The Gypsy’s Prophecy” and “Crooken Sands”.

The great differences between the stories is one of the strengths of the collection, and shows Stoker’s talent for variety: from Count Dracula in “Dracula’s Guest” to the gruesome black comedy of “The Dualitists”, and the savage swashbuckling of “The Red Stockade”. If there is a theme of sorts that links all thirteen tales, it must be their concern with death, and the blood that so often accompanies it – hardly surprising in the work of the man responsible for the popularity of the blood-drinking villain. At times chilling, gruesome, and funny; at others, all three at once; always entertaining, Dracula’s Guest and Other Tales is as timeless as the Crimson Count himself. As if Stoker’s writing wasn’t enough, the book is priced in line with the rest of Wordsworth’s Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural, at an unbelievable £2.99 in bookshops, even cheaper online. – RM

An extremely depressing book – all about pollution, overpopulation, disease and mania – but none the worse for it!  I found it very hard to read Aldiss when I was younger – good to find I’m now grown up enough to enjoy his work. I’ll have to try Ballard again next. – SWT

A brilliant short novel from Brian Aldiss. Very similar in subject matter to a recent episode of Doctor Who (“Midnight”), as a small group of people in a surface train on a hostile alien planet get stranded in the middle of nowhere, and left to face both what’s outside and their own natures. Though the character work is interesting, what will stay with me longest from this book are the portraits of devolved humans – a million years ago a colony ship crashed upon this energy-poor planet, and over that time their descendants have adjusted to fill various niches in the food chain. Imagine a pig with an almost human face – and then imagine eating it! – SWT

A gorgeous book, put together with great care. It only took about five minutes to read, of course, being a short story. The idea – of packaging classic short stories with superb modern artwork – is a good one, but would probably be best aimed at children. This volume does make a nice companion piece to The Wolves in the Walls and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish. My daughter loved it, but then she’s made us sit through Dave McKean’s movie Mirrormask three times so far this week… – SWT

Damian Paladin is something of a cross between Blackhawk and John Constantine, and the six stories in this book detail some of his adventures in 1930s New York and LA.

As a Biggles fan, I was rather disappointed by how little flying there is in the book, but that’s not to say the stories aren’t entertaining regardless. The supernatural elements are handled well, though the surprising developments in the final tale seem to come out of left field. Talking of odd developments, the way that Leigh decides at the end of the first story to set this flyboy and ghost hunter up as a restauranteur also seemed quite peculiar. But that’s incidental to the main thrust of the stories, which are exciting, suspenseful and atmospheric.

The illustrations by Bob Covington are exceptionally good, but unfortunately each seems to be slightly misplaced, with the result that they often give away unexpected developments in the stories. – SWT

As an enthusiast of both Sherlock Holmes and the Cthulhu Mythos I was curious to discover how – to quote the second, longer subtitle – Sherlock Holmes could possibly enter “the nightmare world of H.P. Lovecraft”. If pastiche is the imitation of a style so distinct as to be instantly recognisable, how can a writer imitate two very different styles in a single story? In addition, the rationales behind the two creations are completely at odds: where Holmes uses the science of deduction to reveal the truth, madness and/or an unpleasant death await those whose curiosity takes them too close to the Mythos. The two subgenres are nigh incompatible, as these eighteen short stories show. Fifteen feature Holmes, and most use the familiar Baker Street setting as a beginning, though there has been little effort to recreate a sense of the time or place. Irene Adler (of “A Scandal in Bohemia”) and Colonel Moran (of “The Empty House”) feature in “Tiger! Tiger!”, Dr Watson endures the adventure of “The Weeping Masks” on his own, and the notorious Professor Moriarty is the protagonist of “Nightmare in Wax”.

The collection begins with Neil Gaiman’s award-winning “A Study in Emerald”, obviously intended as a strong starter. Basically a retelling of Holmes and Watson’s first collaboration in an Evil British Empire milieu, it is not one of his best. It’s difficult to single out a least favourite because the competition is so strong, but I’d have to choose Paul Finch’s “The Mystery of the Hanged Man’s Puzzle”. While being no worse than many of the rest, it is far too long, and constitutes nearly a tenth of the entire volume. “The Adventure of the Voorish Sign” by Richard A. Lupoff is perhaps representative of the anthology in that in attempting to combine “The Final Problem” with Lovecraft’s “The Rats in the Walls” – both excellent short stories – it fails to achieve the excitement or atmosphere of either.

There are only two contributions I can honestly recommend. The highlight of the collection is “The Weeping Masks” by James Lowder, a reminiscence of Watson’s experiences during and after the Battle of Maiwand. It is well-written, entertaining, and the Cthulhu element is integral to the story. The climax is an exciting one, and the conclusion presents a neat twist that really did remind me of Lovecraft. “The Drowned Geologist” by Caitlín R. Kiernan takes the form of a letter addressed to Watson by Dr Tobias Logan during the Great Hiatus (the period where Holmes went missing and was believed dead at Moriarty’s hands). The story is a clever mix of Holmes, the Mythos, and the fascinating history of the Yorkshire port of Whitby. Once again the conclusion is fiendishly Lovecraftian, although unfortunately the dating shows a lack of attention to the chronology of either the Holmes stories or Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

As for the rest, the connections to Lovecraft are often tenuous, and in too many cases rely on an offhand reference to the Necronomicon, as if that were enough to evoke Lovecraft’s style. Many of the climaxes brought Ghostbusters to mind as Holmes and Watson battle various aliens, creatures from the pit, daemons, etcetera. One to avoid, with the exception of two stories noted, but perhaps I’ve missed something because it was reprinted by Del Rey Books in February 2008 and appears to be selling well.

There’s no accounting for taste… – RM

Considering how difficult it is for new authors to find publishers in the current climate, it seems not only unkind, but counter-productive to be overly critical with a first novel. The best I can say for The Plague of Dracula, however, is that it is a valiant effort. Mr Seitz has taken on an ambitious project, pitting two cultural icons against each other in a single volume. Unfortunately, a difficult task has been made impossible by attempting to combine the chronology of Dracula, a chunky novel on its own, with a host of unnecessary subplots: the events of three of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short stories, Watson’s unfaithful wife, Holmes’ vampirism, an alternate explanation of the Great Hiatus, an alliance between Dracula and Moriarty, strategic reviews of the battles of Maiwand and Waterloo, and allusions to Jack the Ripper. Yes, really. The result is tour de farce instead of tour de force.

The Plague of Dracula begins in August 1890, but despite the plot unravelling over a year, there is simply too much going on for two hundred and five pages of story. Written as a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, it is presented as an epistolary novel (in imitation of Dracula), where Watson’s reminiscences would have served as a simpler method of introducing such a complex adventure. This would also have avoided the need for the clumsy “editorial interlude” where Dracula’s death, the climax of Bram Stoker’s novel, is described in a disappointingly mundane fashion.

Due to inclusion of so many subplots, the settings move with astounding rapidity, from Bistrita to Castle Dracula (where Holmes performs some crime scene work worthy of a CSI episode), London, Winchester, the West Country, Hampstead Heath, and then the Reichenbach Falls. If this review appears to have degenerated into a series of lists, I hope it gives some indication of the amount of storyline squeezed in. Thankfully the remainder takes place in London, beginning with Watson being consulted by Lestrade on a possible return of the Ripper. An undead Holmes apparently meets his end at the hands of Lord Arthur Godalming in the climax, and the conclusion reveals an original twist on the true nature of vampirism.

Even the most proficient writer, with dozens of novels to his or her name, would have required a volume at least as long as Dracula to manage such an intricate tale. For a first-time novelist, the Herculean task has proved too great. It might have been rescued by publication as a trilogy of novellas, and for this the editor must share some of the blame, as well as for the occasional errors in the text. Like the majority of its predecessors, this particular attempt to match deductive reasoning against Gothic horror fails. It would, however, be interesting to see how Mr Seitz applied himself to a less demanding task, and such a second attempt may well make a very interesting read. – RM

There are four good reasons why this novella shouldn’t work. First, many Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts – surely a significant proportion of the target audience – reject the inclusion of fictional characters that don’t fit in with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s originals. Similarly, many disapprove of the inclusion of the supernatural, as Sir Arthur’s cases always concluded with a rational explanation. Third, the introduction of Count Dracula not only violates both the aforementioned rules of engagement, but also presents the problem of two icons of Victorian popular fiction competing for attention in a single slim volume. Finally, it is a sequel to The Hound of the Baskervilles, which brings a host of its own problems.

But the novella does work – and very well.

It is fast-paced and atmospheric: a short, sharp, rollercoaster ride from Baker Street to Dartmoor and back again; a thriller for all readers rather than just fans of Holmes or Dracula. The Tangled Skein takes its title from a phrase first coined by Holmes in The Hound and is set in November 1888, the day after Sir Henry Baskerville leaves England on his recuperative expedition. Watson reveals that the villain behind Baskerville’s woes – Stapleton – did not die in Grimpen Mire, and is now alive, well, and seeking retribution. While Holmes and Watson defy his attempts at assassination, Inspector Lestrade consults the Great Detective about the brutal murder of a child on Hampstead Heath. Once a witness refers to a “Phantom Lady”, Holmes and Watson are well on their way to the eagerly-awaited confrontation with the sanguinary count as the separate strands of Stapleton and Dracula are expertly merged. Van Helsing makes a dramatic appearance when he saves Holmes from the Phantom Lady, and subsequently educates him in the lore of the undead.

Mr Davies wisely ignores most of the events and characters in Dracula and employs The Hound as a sinister backdrop rather than a case to be revisited. There are some excellent set pieces, several of which appear in pleasingly quick succession. Holmes and Watson’s pursuit of Dracula’s human agent over the moor is particularly gripping. A fitting climax takes place in Grimpen Mire, with an entertaining twist at the end of the action. Like so many of the most popular Holmes stories, the narrative concludes in Baker Street – on this occasion with Van Helsing joining Holmes and Watson for Christmas Eve dinner.

This is the best of the four publications that have set Holmes on Count Dracula’s trail thus far (of which I am aware, at least, the others being Holmes vs Dracula by Loren D. Estleman, The Holmes-Dracula File by Fred Saberhagen and Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula by Stephen Seitz), and is deservedly back in print after some years. A fine example of a successful foray into the murky ground between mystery and horror. – RM

New bands, stuck on a promotional treadmill after the release of their first album, often look back to the way the Beatles would release a couple of albums a year in the 1960s. (I admire the Arctic Monkeys for getting their second album out so quickly, where other bands have been prevented from doing so.) How much more stunning is it to look at the examples of these science fiction writers of the same period, who would often release four or five books a year, a remarkable achievement, even allowing for some of them being reprints of earlier magazine work? In 1967 (according to Science Fiction: the Illustrated Encyclopedia), as well as Thorns (my copy is a later reprint), Silverberg put out The Gate of Worlds, Those Who Watch, To Open the Sky, The Time-Hoppers and Planet of Death. I don’t know if current-day authors, working away at huge trilogies (and receiving much better payment than their predecessors did, to be fair to their masters), chafe at the bit as much as bands do, but it’s interesting to think of what might have resulted from some of them writing twelve different short novels, instead of just the one trilogy. One thing’s for sure, lazy readers like me would have read more of their work.

So, another review of an old book from me – this might be the way of the immediate future, since I’ve vowed to buy no new books as long as I own more than 1,000 unread books! (I have about 160 to go.)

As with Brian Aldiss and J.G. Ballard, I found Robert Silverberg’s books a bit of a struggle as a teenager. I’m not disappointed about that, because if I’d read virtually all their books by the time I was 25, as happened with Asimov, Heinlein, Moorcook, Jack Vance and so on, I would have nothing left to read now: I might even have to read new books! What made the books difficult back then was mainly their seriousness: Moorcock is as experimental as Silverberg, Aldiss or Ballard, often more so, but there are always gags in there. The closest Silverberg’s 1960s and 1970s novels (or at least the ones I’ve read so far) come to being funny is when they evoke a wry half-smile at the awfulness of having to be a human and live among other humans – as symbolised in this book by a surgically-altered human living among us. This book is grim, serious, and reminds you of the worst things about yourself – and, yet, in spite of that, it has a sweet, romantic centre. It hardly needs to be said that, as a book by Robert Silverberg from 1967, at a time when, as far as I can see, you could make a serious argument that he was one of the best novelists working in the English language, this is a brilliant book, but I will say it anyway.  – SWT

These stories follow on from the second film, Aliens. The first two stories, Outbreak and Nightmare Asylum, tell the ongoing adventures of Newt and Hicks, while Ripley turns up for the third main story, Female War. Unfortunately, once Alien3 was released further adventures for Newt and Hicks were obviously out of the question. So Dark Horse decided to “fix” the problem by rereleasing the books and changing the names of the protagonists to Billie and Wilks, who just happened to have had all the same adventures as Newt and Hicks – this volume collects those edited versions. It’s a very clumsy solution, and it creates a feeling of unreality throughout the book, because it’s always at the back of your mind that the characters are not really who they say they are – not least when they meet up with Ripley and she talks about their special bond! I realise that Dark Horse have to go with the wishes of the licensors, but as a reader I can’t help thinking it wasn’t really worth all that trouble just to keep Alien3 in continuity.

The stories themselves are good, giving us what we always expected from the Aliens sequels and only just about got at the end of the fourth – the aliens arriving on Earth. The results are as devastating as might be expected.

One strange thing about the aliens in the comics is that they are demonstrated to commmunicate telepathically, even across interstellar distances. I don’t think that’s something you can see in the movies, but it does give the writers the opportunity to develop plotlines more complex than “man finds bug, bug stomps man”.

Lastly, one caption in the book may be of interest to some critics of AVP2: “We didn’t see the underlying pattern behind their evolutionary process – the way every facet of their existence was geared toward propagation. The queens matured at whatever rate their survival dictated.”

That’s why the aliens in AVP2 don’t hang about inside their hosts – there isn’t time! – SWT

It says a lot about this book that while the artists of each poster page and alternative cover are carefully noted, nowhere is anyone credited as the writer. Five names are listed on the cover, including Alex Ross (only credited for covers inside), Munier Sharrieff and Dreamer Design (neither credited at all inside). Inside each issue is credited to Wilson Tortosa, Rhyse Yorke & Shane Law, with Edwin David also credited for issue one, though there’s no sign what precise role any of them played.

Basically, it’s a bit of a pudding.

To be honest, I only started to read this because it was hanging around the house and I was trying to whip through a few books quickly to get my number of unread books down a bit. But within a few short pages I was forcefully reminded just how much I loved this cartoon when it was first on. I don’t think we ever got Speed Racer in the UK, or Robotech, or Astro Boy, but we got Battle of the Planets, and it was the most exciting thing I’d ever seen. Even now I find the concept of the fiery Phoenix illogically thrilling.

This was an reasonably enjoyable start to a series. Three-issue trade paperbacks are so short as to be rather pointless, but it got things off to a decent start. The figure work isn’t always perfect, but the unnamed writers seem to have a good handle on the characters. No sign of 7-Zark-7 yet, but I hope he’ll turn up eventually. – SWT

Nowhere near as good as volumes one and two, but then those stories mostly date from the end of the comic’s run, and had the added interest of showing us episodes in Buffy’s life that predated the tv series, not to mention dealing with the retrospective presence of Dawn. These stories are okay, but they date from the very beginning of that run and it shows. – SWT

Any book that contains “Whatever Happened to the Man of Steel?” has to get five stars, straight off the bat. It’s one of the greatest comics ever written, and the finest send-off a character could have (it relates the final story of the original Superman, prior to the John Byrne reboot). Since this also includes “For the Man Who Has Everything” and The Killing Joke, this is one of those times when five stars aren’t nearly enough.

The rest of the contents may not reach those high standards, but still, any fan of Alan Moore’s work will count themselves lucky to find them so conveniently gathered together. The Green Lantern and Omega Men short stories are DC-branded Futureshocks. The Green Arrow and Vigilante stories won’t change your life, but better to find that out here rather than after paying over the odds for the back issues! – SWT

I’m reading these out of order as I get them from the library (thank you Birmingham Libraries and your online reservation system – it’s like a completely free version of Amazon), so I came to this having only read volume three, Fact v. Fiction. I’m usually fairly precious about reading things in order – it’s a luxury of having had enough money to buy the things I want. But since making my boring vow to not buy any new books I’ve had to reappraise my way of going about things. It doesn’t work out too badly – joining a series halfway through often makes it twice as interesting. You get the kick of all the interesting things that are happening now, as well as finding out all the interesting things that have happened previously – it’s backstory to the max. That’s certainly what finally got me watching Stargate SG-1 for a few seasons towards the end, whereas before I’d found it interminably dull.

Mentioning SG-1 in a review of Ex Machina is like sticking a doughnut on top of a Viennetta, so I’ll move quickly on.

In this book Mayor Hundred sees the effects that exposure to whatever gave him his powers doesn’t have the same effect on everybody else. Plus, he agrees to officiate over a marriage between two men, a storyline that will, I hope, seem impossibly dated a decade or two from now, when we’re all flying around on jetpacks (just like Mayor Hundred’s) and marrying whoever the heck we please. – SWT

A lot of people noticed that Lost’s dramatic return to its very, very best came after Brian K. Vaughan joined the writing team. Whether the two events were connected as cause and effect is impossible for anyone not working on the programme to know for sure, but the strength and confidence of the serialised storytelling in this book (and in Y: the Last Man and Runaways) certainly suggests as much.

I enjoyed this story of a second-rate superhero turned mayor so much that I almost regretted Vaughan having used the ideas for a comic (and I love comics), because it’s only a matter of time until he’s running his own tv show, and this would have been perfect. – SWT

I came to this book having just read volume three and volume two, in that order. In this one the mayor has to get to the bottom of a blackout, and we see a little bit more of what he did on September 11. I enjoyed this just as much as the previous books, but damn that sketchbook at the back for tricking me into thinking I still had lots of comics to go.

Credit to Tony Harris, though, he deserves the space. His work on Starman was often spectacular, and though his pages here aren’t quite so ornate, they are clear, direct and just as expressive.

A nod too to JD Mettler: his or her work here as colourist is superb. Every page looks glorious. Granted, Wildstorm use much nicer paper than their poor cousins at Vertigo, so everything’s going to look that much brighter and more brilliant, but if the colouring was bad, that would only make it all the more obvious! – SWT

The miniseries that forms the first half of this volume is okay – very much Vertigo-by-numbers.

The opening story of the ongoing series that follows is a bit underwhelming and offers nothing we haven’t seen before in Hellblazer. It compares very poorly indeed with the barnstorming openers of other Vertigo series – e.g. The Invisibles #1, Preacher #1 or Y: the Last Man #1. I enjoyed the final issue, though, which begins the story of a psychic girl detective.

Maybe Mike Carey played it safe in these issues, giving Sandman/Vertigo fans just what they were expecting. Hopefully volume two will see the series developing a character more of its own. – SWT

This book contains two complete Modesty Blaise strips from the London Evening Standard (running from 14 May 1973 to 9 February 1974): “The Wicked Gnomes” and “The Iron God”. They are written by Peter O’Donnell, and the art’s by Romero. I’d only previously met Modesty in the first of her novels, so reading this I somewhat missed the additional insight the novel gave into her character, motivations and strategies. Still, the action, tension and excitement were all intact, and Romero’s interpretation of Modesty Blaise was very nearly as attractive as I had imagined her to be. – SWT

This book collects three stories: “Mister Sun”, “The Mind of Mrs Drake” and “Uncle Happy”. All three are highly enjoyable action thrillers, though for me “The Mind of Mrs Drake” was compromised somewhat by the title character being an actual psychic. (Moments like that always make me think of Magnum meeting a ghost, or of the JAG lawyer who had premonitions.) But there was a lot of it about in the 1960s, and the character is treated seriously. I suppose it’s not much of a departure from Willie Garvin’s tingling ears of trouble. Mister Sun is a drug lord with whom Modesty tangles; the trail takes her to wartime Vietnam. Uncle Happy is a philanthropist who raises Modesty’s suspicions by staring at her current lover in a Vegas bar.

What’s most striking about these stories is how easily they flow from one strip to the next. Looking at each strip in isolation, you can see how a first-time reader could follow them, but there’s none of the stop-start repetition that makes, say, the old Dan Dare comics so painful to read in bulk.

Now if only I could read one of these books without “Modesty Blaise, Modesty plays, Modesty Blaise, Modesty plays!” going round and round in my head… Thank you Sparks! – SWT

This book contains the stories “Uncle Happy”, which ran from 20 April 1965 to 18 September 1965, and “Bad Suki”, which ran from 15 January 1968 to 25 May 1968. “Uncle Happy” appears also in a more recent Titan reprint book, Modesty Blaise: Mister Sun, reviewed above. It’s a good yarn, with memorable villains.

“Bad Suki” is short but sweet, with a twist that anyone who has ever read a story or seen a film will have seen coming a mile off, but is none the worse for it. Plus, there’s a treat in this story: as well as the usual saucy shots of Modesty in her trademark black bra, we actually see her with her hair down, when she goes undercover as a hippy. – SWT

The first two stories here, “Rogue Leader” and “The Rebel Opposition”, are a bit average. It was a bit of a struggle to get through them. The third, though, “The Phantom Affair”, is a huge improvement in every regard – plot, script, art, lettering, the works! All those things combine to leave it looking more like a French album than a mid-nineties Dark Horse comic.

One of the things for which I was most grateful in the third story was that it finally became possible to distinguish between the human members of the team, by both their dialogue and their looks.

If I was reviewing “The Phantom Affair” alone I would have given it four stars out of five, while “Rogue Leader” and “The Rebel Opposition” would have got two.

Finally, a curse on whoever decided to include the Rogue Squadron Handbook at the back of this volume. If it had contained spoilers for this book, that would have been bad enough, but it’s full of spoilers for future volumes too (e.g. an ally from this book is included in the villains section). So watch out for that – or rather don’t watch out for it, keep your eyes averted! – SWT

I’m tempted to say that these were the most diabolically bad comics I’ve ever read, but I’ve a feeling that in a different mood, or maybe just in smaller quantities, I might have thought that they were the best!

In context they make sense: this is a teenage version of the Batman tv show, with all the corny dialogue and goofy villains that that would make you expect. Out of context it’s appalling stuff: the dialogue is excruciating, the villains idiotic, and the whole thing intensely embarrassing.

There’s a change of writers with issue 18, the last in the book. It’s a rather mundane issue, but it’s a relief after the previous 500 pages of hipness and grooviness.

Unless you’re in the mood for a comic written by Austin Powers, I’d give this a miss.

The book does have one redeeming feature: the Santa minidress that “Wonder Chick” wears in issue 13, “A Christmas Happening”. In fact, having said that, Nick Cardy’s art throughout is rather lovely.  – SWT

A stunning book, created and produced with immense skill and care. If, towards the end, I started to get a bit tired of reading about failed and struggling relationships, that’s probably just because I read the book out of order and left those ones till the end. The book only deals with one narrow area of comics – independents created by writer/artists – but since that’s an area that’s often hard to notice behind the glare and pizazz of mainstream comics that’s easy to forgive. – SWT

This is a hard film to review, because I can’t be sure whether I actually saw it. Surely something so strange and out of the ordinary must have been a dream? But then I felt the same way about Donnie Darko, by the same director, and I’ve heard other people talking about that movie, so I think that there’s a good chance that these films really do exist – however unlikely that seems.

Released in the cinema this was a colossal flop. Watching it, it’s easy to see why. It’s weird, confusing and sprawling. The funny thing is, it could easily have been a huge success. The Fifth Element and Total Recall show that you can get away with a lot of weirdness if you include a bit of fighting. And strange as Southland Tales is, with its psychics and porn stars and roller skates, there’s nothing here as weird as Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element!

In this movie The Rock is almost as brave in his performance as Tucker was in The Fifth Element (though not quite as successful), but if he’d been given the opportunity to fight his way through a handful of enemies in every other scene this film might well have sneaked its way into being a hit.

A lot of people have been totally dumbfounded by the tone of Southland Tales, but as you can see from the other reviews in this issue, I read a lot of comics, and so I was well set up to “get” it. So would anyone who’s read a bit of Howard Chaykin: the sex, the media, the rebels, the caricatures and the oppression – it’s all here. If you’ve ever wondered what an American Flagg movie might look like, this is a good place to start.

Some consider the film to be badly cast, but I don’t agree. For starters, anything with Sarah Michelle Gellar in is well cast, as far as I’m concerned. She’s a very underrated actor, and I’m baffled by the fact that she doesn’t get cast in romantic comedies, when she seems perfectly suited to them. You just have to look at how people invested in Buffy’s relationships with Angel and Spike.

Anyway, gushing aside…

As for the rest of the cast, I’ll get at least halfway through any Christopher Lambert film without giving up, so that carried me far enough into this movie to find my feet. Nice also to see some of my SNL favourites in the movie: Cheri Oteri and the brilliant Amy Poehler. Justin Timberlake brings the uncanny focus of the former child star to his performance as a traumatised soldier, and Seann William Scott leaves American Pie far, far behind. On the basis of this he could be well placed in a few years to fill the shoes of Bruce Willis. He wears a shaved head very well.

I haven’t said much about the plot, because I don’t want to give anything away. So I’ll end the review by saying this: everyone says it’s an appalling mess. If you watch the movie with that in mind, you might be surprised by much you enjoy it. – SWT