Review Category: Books

When it comes to the Art of book, Disney has been the gold standard in recent years (especially since Pixar arrived on the scene), setting the standard that similar books have been following since. The standout of a great Art of book isn’t just how it shows you the work that went into creating the project, it also shows off the passion too, which is probably why Disney excel at these types of books.

From the preface by John Lasseter to the forward by Ron Clements and Jon Musker, to the pages packed full of photos, concept art and paintings The Art Of Moana is packed full of passion and love for the project and the process of bringing it to the screen.

Mixing the Disney style with Polynesian art and the locations and colours of the Pacific Islands make for some deep and rich images, especially in the location designs and concept paintings. This especially comes across in the ‘Into the Realm of the Fantastic’ chapter, which is packed full of images and character designs that live up to the chapter title.

The book is rounded out with a wonderful double page (entitled ‘A Culture of Collaboration’) that talks briefly about life in the story room and highlights the facts that the story team is always sketching. These pages feature several sketches that the team created, all caricatures and cartoons about the people and process of being a part of the room and the team.

THE ART OF MOANA / AUTHOR: JESSICA JULIUS, MAGGIE MALONE / PUBLISHER: CHRONICLE BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

Haynes Manuals are a UK phenomenon. One of the typical rites of passage for a British teen is that after getting your hands on a (usually poor quality) second-hand car, the next thing you would buy is a Haynes Manual for that model of car. Each book contained detailed instructions “based on a complete stripdown and rebuild.” The idea being that you could probably fix your old banger if needed.

It’s appropriate then, that Haynes has produced a book for the ultimate second-hand vehicle in the Star Wars universe, the Millennium Falcon.  This “Owners Workshop Manual” deals specifically with the modified YT-1300 Corellian Freighter, but does go into some detail about the Corellian Engineering Corporations YT series of freighters. It is not a full stripdown and rebuild however, so if you’re looking to replace the hyperdrive motivator on your old YT-1760, then you’re probably on your own.

The book itself is lovingly arranged affair. The first chapter breaks down the YT series, concentrating mostly on YT-1300. Glossy model shots and schematics are the order of the day. The section on accessories is particularly delightful. There’s something about the idea that the Falcon could be fitted with a shuttle or aquatic pontoons that just seems fun. The rest of the book focuses on the Falcon herself. We also get a good look at the ship’s history; the old girl has certainly been around the block.

We get deck plans, schematics and profiles on pilots – namely Chewie, Lando and Han. Once we’ve gone through the overview, we get into the specifics. If you’ve ever wondered how the hyperdrive works or what all the buttons do on the various consoles, this book will cheerfully walk you through the process. Basic operational and flight instructions are provided. This is a Haynes Manual, so it’s very, very detailed. If you ever find yourself in the Star Wars universe, you’ll be glad you’ve read this. The writing is warm enough to be entertaining, but it’s designed as a manual first; the facts are the key thing here.

For those of you who care, many of the specific details about the Falcon’s chequered past come from the James Luceno novel Millennium Falcon, which was written before Disney reset the canon.  However, given that Luceno is now writing Star Wars novels for the new canon, it’s a moot point.  Which is good because it’s a fun background and very entertaining to read. It’s nice to imagine that the Falcon got up to hi-jinks before Han Solo got his hands on her.

Overall, this is an amazing artefact. Haynes have applied all of their know-how to bring to life one of the most iconic spaceships in science fiction and have delved deep to provide the most accurate and in-world explanations for all the quirks that the Falcon has. It’s a great bit of fun and sure to delight any and all Star Wars fans.

MILLENNIUM FALCON MANUAL: 1977 ONWARDS (MODIFIED YT-1300 CORELLIAN FREIGHTER) (OWNER’S WORKSHOP MANUAL) / AUTHOR: RYDER WINDHAM / ARTIST: CHRIS TREVAS, CHRIS REIFF / PUBLISHER: J H HAYNES & CO LTD / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

14-year-old Maddy Smith lives in the village of Malbry, where unnatural things – like Goblins burrowing into the cellar to drink the ale – are never discussed. Imagination is feared and even dreams are avoided, which is why Malbry folk sleep on uncomfortable boards instead of mattresses and never tell each other bedtime stories. But Maddy, who was born with a rust-coloured ‘ruinmark’ on her hand, knows the truth about magic. Shunned by the villagers, her only true friend is a mysterious Outlander called One-Eye, who teaches Maddy about the old Norse gods and Chaos blood, and insists that her “runemark” (as he calls it) is the sign of a very special destiny. He knows that all the worlds are under threat, and only Maddy can save them. But to do that, she must descend into the underworld to retrieve a relic of the old gods. It is a dangerous and frightening mission Maddy will probably not survive, but it is the only way for Maddy to discover her true powers and avoid the End of Everything…

A well-written book is powerful magic and, like all good magic, is the sum-total of focused creativity and some very cleverly worded spells. Joanne M. Harris opens Runemarks with a sentence that reads like an incantation, and her magic doesn’t release its hold until the very end of the novel. In essence it’s the familiar tale of a young outsider undertaking a fantastical journey to save the universe and, en route, discover who she really is, but Harris develops her characters and spins out the adventure so cleverly that we barely notice this is ground we’ve trodden many, many times before. She keeps the story moving along nicely with her alluring combination of outlawed gods, forbidden magic, and the threat posed by a puritanical regime called the Order, and if you’re already a fan of Norse mythology (although that’s not a prerequisite) you’ll be particularly delighted by some of the characters Maddy encounters – especially an extremely well-realised version of Loki – and the various mythological references scattered throughout the adventure.

Originally published in 2007, this new re-edited hardcover edition is a fantastic way to either reacquaint yourself with the Runemarks universe (yes, there are sequels and they’re just as good) or experience Maddy’s quest for the very first time. Highly recommended.

RUNEMARKS / AUTHOR: JOANNE M. HARRIS / PUBLISHER: GOLLANCZ / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 24TH

The recent cinematic revival of Star Wars has resulted in a new energy for the franchise, with a whole new generation of fans introduced to its galaxy and a dizzying array of tie-in materials to keep them hooked. This latest publication, the Galactic Atlas, aims to get them in the know regarding many of the saga’s planets, moons, and battle stations.

It’s a big (approximately A3-sized) hardcover volume, and is allegedly an in-universe publication; Emil Fortune’s introduction is from the point of view of an alien archivist who has uncovered an artist’s maps depicting major galactic locations. These maps are not strictly geographically accurate, rather they aim to capture the ‘feel’ of these worlds, and so include depictions of many of the events which took place there.

The maps are in fact illustrated by Tim McDonagh, and he’s done a sterling job at it. Each planet is given a double-page spread, and is captured in colourful and absorbing detail, allowing you to lose much more time than planned poring over it. McDonagh is particularly skilled at capturing the weird and wonderful wildlife of this galaxy in his precise but cartoonish style, really bringing each unique planet to life.

Planets covered include those from all seven existing films, plus some locations from the Clone Wars and Rebels television series, with events and characters from other Star Wars canon sources – including the Shattered Empire comics and Lost Stars novel – sometimes brought in. Excitingly, there’s also a spread dedicated to the desert moon of Jedha, a spiritual home of the Jedi, which will make its debut in the upcoming Rogue One; the book is careful not to give too much away, of course, but you can gleam some hints about the places we’ll visit and the characters we’ll meet come the first spin-off film’s release.

Despite this wide-ranging material, don’t go expecting a serious, info-heavy reference book like the ones popular in the pre-Disney EU; this is largely aimed at younger readers or those new to the Star Wars galaxy, but the charming illustrations and high production quality will nonetheless keep the parents and hardened fans hooked, too. The perfect treat for aspiring Skywalkers!

STAR WARS – GALACTIC ATLAS / AUTHOR: EMIL FORTUNE / ARTIST: TIM MCDONAGH / PUBLISHER: EGMONT / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

The baby wakes to a new sunrise. The parents take their ‘Life’ pills and begin the day. Father, looking absolutely identical to the rest of the Soft City workforce, leaves the apartment at the exact same moment as everybody else, drives to work in the exact same car as everybody else, and sits at his desk surrounded by seemingly thousands of his own clones. “We are secure… you have to be secure. If you’re fired, you are finished,” is the Soft City mantra. The Boss of Soft City arrives and surveys his kingdom, watching tanks roll off the assembly lines and his factories pump neurotoxins into the air. Oblivious to everything, the mothers, and babies of Soft City go shopping. At the end of the day, like lookalike and behave-alike drones, the men return home, the babies are put to bed; the parents eat dinner, watch TV and take their ‘sleep’ pill. The baby watches the moon rise above the rooftops of Soft City.

And that’s exactly what happens in Hariton Pushwagner’s curious graphic novel, which was originally drawn between 1969 and 1975 and then, for decades, disappeared without a trace. But it’s not the story (or anti-story) behind Soft City that makes this book so fascinating. Pushwagner’s artwork is childlike but also strangely hypnotic. Watching the inhabitants of Soft City rise mechanically from their beds, travel to work with wide unblinking eyes, sit down zombie-like behind their desks and then return home again after mindlessly following the Boss’s instructions and, no doubt, having unconsciously hastened their own destruction, has a weirdly brainwashing effect on the reader. We don’t participate in the book, we simply let it wash over us. And, while it washes over us, the occasional errant thought bubble that drifts across the page – a Soft City drone dreams of the beach while another drone imagines himself as a fighter pilot, no doubt wishing he could blow all his fellow drones out of the sky – is strangely disaffecting. Even a random blink-and-you’ll-miss-it act of violence on the motorway tucked away in a corner doesn’t jar us as much as it should. And is it any coincidence that the Boss, so completely removed from his hordes of identically somnambulistic employees, receives sinister messages from an invisible controller wherein English and German are combined and a ticker-tape with the skull and crossbones on it orders him to ‘Sieg Spray!’? “Where is the mind when the body is here?” wonders another drone, in a window high above the street, and that seems to be the question Pushwagner wants us to consider, while simultaneously reinforcing the suggestion that the distance between the reader and the inhabitants of Soft City is not so distant after all. It’s almost as if he is trying to implicate us in his character’s complacency.

Soft City is a mind-trip and should come with the warning that once you start thinking about what it means, the more complicated and troubling it becomes. For that reason, it’s also a work of genius.

SOFT CITY / AUTHOR: HARITON PUSHWAGNER, CHRIS WARE / PUBLISHER: THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, INC / RELEASE DATE:  NOVEMBER 17TH

 

Space exploration by governments and commercial enterprises is going through an exciting period. Nearly every day there are plans, proposals and tests for vehicles that will take people into sub-orbital flights, or trips to the Moon or more ambitiously to the planet Mars.

Elon Musk the founder of SpaceX, thinks he can get a manned mission to Mars by 2022 and he dreams of colonising it so that we can become a spacefaring civilisation. Less optimistic experts state that the first mission could get there by 2033, which is the date used in the National Geographic channel’s six-part Mars TV docudrama series.

In this companion book to the series, Leonard David looks at the many technological and physiological obstacles we have to overcome to make such a mission viable. Each of the book’s six chapters relates to an episode of the series, with a brief plot summary accompanying interviews with space scientists and engineers who provide insights into how we can get there and how we can colonise it.

This large format hardback contains stunning images of Mars, the hardware to get us there and the experts and people behind these projects. There is a foreword by executive producer Ron Howard who notes that they strived for authenticity and scientific accuracy when creating the TV series and hopes it, along with this book, will fire people’s imaginations.

Mars continues the tradition of Martain movies, since Rocketship X-M directed by Kurt Neumann in 1950, which have made us wonder how we might explore Mars and whether there is life lurking there. Like viewing Rocketship X-M today, it is equally quaint to see this book begins with a painting of a rocketship being prepared for lift-off from the Martian surface produced by space artist Chesley Bonestell in 1956. Only the future will tell us if the possibilities outlined by Leonard and the TV series will look as quaint and old-fashioned when the first spacecraft eventually touches down on its surface.

Given the fact it has taken so long for Virgin Galactic to produce a viable spaceplane for sub-orbital tourism, and the fact that the European Space Agency’s Schiaparelli Mars lander crashed on the very night of the UK press launch of Mars, 2033 seems a wildly optimistic target for a human Martian expedition. But this is rocket science, and you can never underestimate its ability to achieve the ‘impossible’.

This is a fascinating and beautiful book for any armchair astronaut.

MARS: OUR FUTURE ON THE RED PLANET / AUTHOR: LEONARD DAVID / PUBLISHER: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 17TH

 

James Lovegrove is no stranger to the world of Sherlock Holmes – or success. At the time of writing, this will be the New York Times best-selling author’s fifth foray into the universe of Arthur Conan Doyle’s most popular creation. That said, Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows is more than your average Victorian detective mystery, as the terrors of H. P. Lovecraft’s cosmic universe are integrated to create a tale of crossover tale for the ages that’s bound to please fans of both literary canons.

The story is set in London’s East End, where a mysterious fog has beset the town and is killing people. Sherlock Holmes believes that the fog is connected to a drug lord, but after some investigating, he soon discovers that there might be more cosmic forces at work. Now the legendary detective must face a challenge unlike any other; one that’s fearsome, ancient and not of this world.

As a character, Sherlock Holmes has lent himself well to horror stories throughout the years.  In fact, just earlier this year he appeared in Paul Kane’s incredible Hellraiser crossover Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell, which is another successful merging of worlds. If there’s a mystery to be deduced of any variety – human or otherwise – Holmes and his trusted sidekick Watson are perfect protagonists, and The Shadwell Shadows is another tale worthy of their expertise.

The success of Lovegrove’s novel can be attributed to his understanding of both bodies of source material he’s working with. Even in the face of supernatural forces, Holmes and Watson approach it as another case where a plausible, rational explanation can be found. It retains the spirit of classic Holmes, while the integration of Lovecraft mythos is handled with careful aplomb.

The first instalment of a planned trilogy titled The Cthulhu Casebooks, Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows hits the ground running. Fans of both O’Doyle and Lovecraft will find plenty here to enjoy, and while it is undoubtedly an homage to both writers, it’s still very much the work of an author with a unique voice give a new lease of life to classic creations. Bravo.

THE CTHULHU CASEBOOKS – SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SHADWELL SHADOWS / AUTHOR: JAMES LOVEGROVE / PUBLISHER:  TITAN BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 15TH