Reviews:Warren Ellis Mega-Review

From AJS.COM

Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Review by Aaron Sherman - AJS Reviews

This is my Warren Ellis Mega-Review, a sort of review site unto itself, aimed at covering all of the Warren Ellis works (primarily graphic novels) that I've read to date. For a capsule overview of the author, see my introduction on the AJS Reviews front-page. More will be added over time.

Transmetropolitan

Overall: Quality speculative fiction: 9 of 10 for the series and 10 of 10 for the first two collections

Transmetropolitan is the near-future, dystopic tale of a big-city reporter named Spider Jerusalem who bears no small resemblance to Hunter S. Thompson, the (in)famous gonzo journalist whose book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, was later turned into the 1998 film with Johnny Depp. Picture that character, armed with an arsenal of futuristic drugs and a questionably non-lethal gun called a "bowel disrupter." Now, you're beginning to get a sense of the setup. Add in liberal doses of political and cultural cynicism and a city right out of one of Philip K. Dick's more playful nightmares and you've got Transmetropolitan. What shocks me about this story is that so many different sorts of readers can enjoy it. It has a twisted science fiction tale to keep any genre fan happy. It has enough violence and sex to make your average male, college-age teen keep reading. And the absurd idea of turning Hunter S. Thompson into a sort of Robin Hood with a word processor is the source of unending humor for the more widely read fan.

Overall the series suffers slightly from its length, and by the 6th or 7th book I found myself not quite caring so much about the journalistic crusades of Mr. Jerusalem. That won't dissuade me from highly recommending the first two books, though, to any reader who isn't immediately put off by a graphic novel format, violence or several dozen forms of deviant behavior, often in combination and frequently in new and vaguely terrifying forms (the personality/sex cult based on genetic modification, for example, was particularly unexpected).

Global Frequency

Overall: Anthology SF with some great and some only very good stories: 8 of 10
This review also appears in its own article: Review: Global Frequency

Global Frequency's setup is fairly simple: the Cold War left dozens of horrible things in the world that no government can afford to admit to, and thus there's no one to clean up after them. Our hero, Miranda Zero, has formed an extended network of the brightest minds in the world to take on these world-ending terrors. For the most part, we're left to accept that Miranda has seemingly unlimited resources for the creation of her own private communications devices, field equipment, and at least one permanent staff member, but this is not the least believable setup I've seen to date. From there, it's pretty much the sort of modern-day science fiction anthology that you would expect. All of the stories have a pretty interesting core idea. Some are executed better than others.

Highlights of the series include the unconventional hacker, Aleph, who acts as Miranda's operator in a global switchboard that can draw on the resources of 1001 of the world's top scientists, former spies and conspiracy theorists. She's a foil for Miranda's steely presence, and the only thing that I wish the series had done more of is exploring her character. Beyond that, it's all about the stories. From alien memes to super-soldiers, it's all solid Twilight Zone material that would be equally at home in comic or big-screen form.

If you enjoy science fiction short stories, then I heartily recommend the first collected reprint of this series.

Side Review: Global Frequency the TV series

Miranda Zero (Michelle Forbes, right) and Aleph (Aimee Garcia, left) from the Global Frequency pilot

The TV series based on the comic was never aired. WB did not pick up the series after the pilot was filmed. In an odd twist, attempts to save the show apparently backfired when someone on the inside leaked the pilot to the world of peer-to-peer file sharing. In his BAD SIGNAL newsletter/mailing-list, Ellis said, "bittorrenting of 'GLOBAL FREQUENCY' has rendered it as dead as dead can get as a TV series. It seems that people in high places did not take kindly to the leak." Can you imagine being the exec who decided not to release a series to DVD because its pilot was too popular? I don't think there's a short enough bus in the world to take that action!

Still, I think the pilot deserves at least a small review.

Mark Burnett (creator of Survivor) tried to bring this series to the screen in 2005. Michelle Forbes starred as Miranda Zero and was joined by newly created characters Sean Flynn (Josh Hopkins) and Dr. Katrina Finch (Jenni Baird). A somewhat toned-down version of Aleph was played by Aimee Garcia.

Overall, the pilot was excellent. It managed to be even more convincing than the comic as to why these people throw their lot in with Miranda, spending a good chunk of dialog on a particularly rousing, "you know that what you do will matter," speech from the mousy but brave doctor of particle physics and what-not-all-else. The story was directly taken from the first issue of the comic. It was both beautifully filmed and realistically portrayed. The man with the bomb in his head wasn't re-dressed to look like James Bond, and they didn't give him any shockingly bad dialog that I would expect of a TV show.

I think my only complaints were with the rather toned down version of Aleph (she's still great, just not as great), and a rather cheesy Matrix-like scene with Miranda breaking into an NSA prison. I'm not sure why that scene had to be there, but I guess that's what you get when the creator of Survivor makes a Warren Ellis comic into a TV show.

If you aren't too concerned with downloading a show that the studio says it will never bother to distribute, then I recommend this pilot almost as strongly as the original comic.

Desolation Jones

Overall: Very readable modern fiction: 8 of 10

Some people will like Desolation Jones far more than I do. It's clearly aimed at a niche that I'm not in, but I still love recommending this book on the basis of a few scenes that I think are flat-out, the most brilliant writing I've seen from Ellis. The setup is that L.A. isn't just the world's entertainment capitol, it's also where old spies go to retire. Our anti-hero, Jones, is a former member of U.K. intelligence and the victim of a torturous year of some unspecified test that is known only by its code name: Desolation. He is left a broken and frail-looking shell of a man, but the look is deceiving. He's also prone to hallucination. Some of the story borders on science fiction or fantasy, but it delves no further into the unexplained than James Bond stories.

The story centers on Jones's new career as a private investigator who caters to the ex-spooks who can't go to anyone else (for fear of revealing their secrets), and most of what's great about the first collected story is his interviews with everyone from a nazi-porn collecting ex spy to a cynical porn actress. The porn interview, especially, was just flat-out brilliant. I want to know where he did his research for this. I've spoken to a couple of women who have done BDSM or vanilla porn, but I would never have dreamed up the almost factory-like world that he introduces us to, here. If for no other reason than this one interview, I think everyone should purchase and read the first D.J.

After that, the rest of the story is a fairly typical series of cross-and-double-cross adventures that one would expect, given the setup. Good pulp adventures and a few more amusing interviews. If you like hard-boiled detectives that look like they were literally boiled, this is the story for you.

Fell

Overall: Fell is excellent modern fantasy: 8 of 10

Fell is the story of a cop who transfers out of the big city, and into a run-down satellite town known for its strange goings-on. The story is strongly influenced by the film noir style, and blends that genre with modern fantasy smoothly. The only complaint that I had in reading this was the pacing. The book moves just a bit too slowly for my tastes, but perhaps that's because I've become accustomed to anything with art on every page moving at the speed of an ADHD 7-year-old on crack. One thing to note about Fell: the art is unusual, and while I found it added depth and character to the story, it may not be for everyone.

It's at this point that I think it's appropriate to talk about Ellis's career. My gut feeling is that he should have been a writer for the X-Files. He constantly seems to want to create that sort of almost-anthology setup, and he often does so better than some of the best X-Files episodes ("Circus Freaks" comes to mind).

Crécy

Overall: Crécy is a hard-hitting historical graphic novel unlike anything I've read: 10 of 10

Crécy is a single-issue historical graphic novel which tells the tale of the Battle of Crécy from the point of view of one longbowman from the English army. This battle changed the nature of warfare by establishing the supremacy of the English longbow, a matter which would be further reinforced in the more often remembered Battle of Agincourt under Henry V.

The graphic novel is told in simple, and often vulgar terms by one of the longbowmen, who explains the nature of the battle and why the English were so proficient with the weapon. It's a captivating view into the life of a lowly soldier who did not want to be shipped off to northern France to fight in a battle that could just as easily get him killed as bring glory to his king (or likely both). Not only the surprising power of the longbow, but the astonishing lack of strategic thinking on the part of the French is at the heart of this engrossing, but all-to-short story.

If I had one complaint about the story it would be that art this stunningly intricate should have had a colorist, though I'd rather the black-and-white that I read to a ham-handed attempt to paint-by-number over these delicate inks that almost resemble wood-carvings.