The Collector - Sergio Toppi (4.2🌟)

The Collector is a collection of 5 stories about a man known as the Collector. We don't know his name, or his origins, only that he travels the world looking for unique, precious objects which he likes to collect. These objects have "deep personal meaning" to him. They have "lived" and have "actors in histories" only The Collector knows.  In his trips the protagonist meets with peculiar sometimes bizarre characters. All of which add to the mystery, and to the heavy atmosphere of the stories. Heat, difficult landscapes, long distances, danger and enemies are always waiting for him. But he does not mind. He will do anything and offer everything to get what he wants. And he always gets what he wants. (Amazing, isn't it!)

The Collector is a fascinating character. Sometimes he reminds me of a western hero, keeping his cool in dangerous situations. He is persistent and stubborn, never giving up. He's got a righteous spirit: he saves people from death in some stories and has made friends all over the world this way. However, he can also be a complete bastard, harming or killing whoever is between his precious objects and him. And if that wasn't enough, The Collector has also supernatural  (or magical?) powers he uses in extreme situations.  I didn't understand the nature or system of these powers or why The Collector didn't use them every time he was in danger but this didn't make me like less the stories.  I love how Toppi designed this character, not only his personality and the mysterious aura around him but also his physical appearance. Tall and thin, and always wearing the same smart clothes.

Each story included in this book is a quest for one particular object. The "narrative" feels like an adventure, dark and mysterious,  revealing interesting aspects of the land and culture of the lands visited.  In this book we visit USA, Ethiopia, Mongolia, Ireland, Tibet and other (exotic) places. The art is amazing and perfect for these kinds of stories.

1. The Red Rock Peace Pipe - The Collector looks for an old Indian pipe used by several notable Indian chiefs across the years. They say one can see the future through its smoke.
2. The Abyssinian Obelisk - The Collector goes to Ethiopia looking for an Obelisk believed to turn anyone who touched the stone in King of Kings.
3. The Mongol Jewel - the Collector goes to an Indonesian island searching for a valuable jewel hidden in a cave by a thief and murderer. Legend says the jewel is the only tear a mongol warrior shed when his horse died during a battle. Every year in the a anniversary of the battle the silhouette of the horse can be seen through the tear.

4. The Scepter of Muiredach - The Collector is after an old "magic" scepter. Somewhere in Ireland someone sings a song telling the story of the Scepter. The Collector meets the father of the singer and asks for the priceless object to be given to him as he is its rightful guardian. An English man, named Eoin Dunchada, attacks them, takes the Scepter and the leaves the protagonist for dead. Time after, the Collector is following Dunchada's trace to recover what he believes is his.
5. The Necklace of Padmasambhava - our protagonist goes to Tibet searching for a magic necklace made with pieces of bones of a powerful Lama. Anyone who possesses the Necklace acquires the powers of the Lama.


My edition is in English (translated from Italian by Edward Gauvin) published by Archaia in 2014. It has 252 pages, but this is something I had to search online as the book does not have page numbers!!

Wonders of the Universe - Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen (4.5🌟)

Wonders of the Universe is a book about the Universe, providing scientific explanations about its birth and life so far to accurate predictions of its death. This is cosmology and physics but don't panic, it is very accessible for a non-scientific reader like me.

This book is very well written explaining difficult concepts in an unbelievable easy language. I can appreciate its pedagogical aspect as it felt like a series of lectures very well put together. The division of Chapters and sub-sections, the analogies: describing natural phenomena on earth to explain a concept or the qualities of a celestial object, the vignettes, the photographs, and the diagrams all perfect. I can now better understand Concepts such as the Big Bang, Quarks, Atoms, the 4 forces of the universe (Strong and Weak nuclear Force, Gravitational Force, and Electromagnetic Force), Time, Entropy and the death of the universe. Also loved to read about the Nature of Astronomical Objects such as the Stars, Galaxies and Black Holes.

One thing that struck me was the realisation that we, human beings and all life on earth, were part of the Big Bang. It sounds obvious, but I have never thought about that before. All the matter that exists in the universe was created in fractions of a second after the Big Bang. (Cox himself worked at the Large Hadron Colladier in Sern trying to recreate the big bang. They managed to prove the existence of the Higgs Boson. I don't understand the Higgs Boson that much only that it has a role in providing matter to energy particles. And this is how the universe expanded with particles acquiring mass at the beginning of time.) Then the universe started to expand. After millions if not billions of years the stars were created. The strong nuclear force making protons, electrons and neutrons and the gravitational force putting all those atoms together forming starts. They were made of hydrogen and helium and when they died or collided between them they could fusion newer elements as their temperatures rose to unimaginable temperatures. Carbon and oxygen were created in/by the starts and with that the foundations for life. Look at your body, at your house, at the sky, everything you see was part of (a) star(s) billions of years before.

The Big Bang explained:

One

Two

Three

Four

I will not try to explain more than the above as don’t see the point. Professor Cox and Andrew Cohen are so good at it! And although I can now understand a bit more the above concepts, concepts I have read about in Science Fiction so many times, I am still not able to articulate them in a coherent way. I should read more non-fiction about the Universe! This is a book every person interested in astronomy, physics, and even Science Fiction (like me) should read.

My book was published in 2011 by Harper Collins. It has 256 pages.

Salvation of a Saint - Keigo Higashino (4.3🌟)

Salvation of a Saint is a thriller, crime novel originally written in Japanese in 2008 and translated into English in 2012 by Alexander O. Smith. It is fast paced, original, mind blowing and great fun.

As in The Devotion of Suspect X we meet the same detective Kusanagi who is investigating the mysterious dead of Yoshitaka Mashiba, a wealthy business man. Mashiba is found dead by his lover at his department after drinking a cup of poisoned coffee. The wife had been away visiting her parents in another city and Kusanagi suspects the mistress. However, his assistant, Detective Kaoru Utsumi, suspects the wife. She has not proof to support her suspicion though, but she trusts her instincts. She also believes Kusanagi is falling for the widow. After a couple of days into the investigation and unable to find any clue as to how the poison got into the coffee, Utsumi calls Professor Manabu Yukawa (detective Galileo). (We had previously met Yukawa in The Devotion of Suspect X.) Yukawa agrees to help the police only because he is struck by Kusanagi’s situation. However the more Detective Galileo thinks about the problem the more he is convinced this is an impossible murder.

Opinion: I completely agree with the quote in the front cover of the book “You’ll want to finish it in a single night”. I couldn’t finish it in one night, because no time, but I did finish it in three nights. This is not a “whodunit” but a “howdunnit” kind of novel. That is, we are told about the murder and strong suspect at the beginning of the book. The story is about finding out how the crime was committed. The narrative is simple, easy to ready. The events flow full of details without overwhelming the reader. I loved how Higashino designed (or structured) the crime and how he gave us details in bits each satisfying gradually our need to know how the crime was committed. The ending was GREAT! In terms of characters, I liked Utsumi’s sharp mind and initiative and of course Detective Galileo’s deductive capabilities not to mention the way he played with the detectives giving them only half truths and keeping them waiting for more. The widow and the mistress were also were constructed, revealing fragility and mysterious auras. We change our minds all the time suspecting one or the other. Overall this is a good light detective novel but with an intricate puzzle to entertain the reader.

My edition 330 pages and was published by Minotaur books in 2012.

Shangri-la - Mathieu Bablet (4.2🌟)

Shangri-la is a science fiction graphic novel originally published in France in 2016 and translated into Spanish in 2017. To me it is mainly social and political critic in outer space dealing with issues such as mass media and crowd manipulation, ethics of genetics and creation of life, racism and discrimination. The scientific aspects of the work are also interesting to say the least. This is not hard science fiction, but the author takes the time to explain relevant topics effortlessly.

The events take place in a space station orbiting earth centuries after humanity made its home planet uninhabitable. There is no formal government at the station but a corporation called “Tianzhu” dictating norms and providing jobs for everyone who complies with their ideas of a perfect society. We follow Scott and the crew of a small vessel sent by Tianzhu to investigate an accident in a smaller station. They find everyone death and evidence of a small explosion. This is not the first time they find something like this and Scott goes back to Tianzhu to ask them for more resources to take his investigations further. However, Tianzhu are not interested and he is not given any explanation. Scott’s crew mates ask him to join a revolutionary movement to stop Tianzhu manipulating the population. However, he doesn’t understand their arguments and continues to be loyal to the corporation.

Not much time passes, and Scott is kidnapped by a strange man. But then rescued by his friends. While interrogating the man, he reveals plans to colonise Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. Particularly a region called Shangri-la. As earth is still uninhabitable they think Shangri-la is the best option for humanity. However, they don’t want to take the Station’s population there. They want to create a new human race from scratch. By recreating the conditions in the big-bang, or the collision of stars, (requiring huge amounts of energy hydrogen fuses into Helium, and with more energy, Helium fuses into Carbon which form the basic structures of life) they want to become the gods of a new humanity. It is not clear if this group of scientists is part of Tianzhu or not, but the ethical and moral dilemma of their actions force him to open his eyes. He decides to join his friends and fight for change in the station. Being a scientist himself he realises that the recreation of the big-bang in a small space station may be fatal to the rest of the population. He then designs a plan to destroy their laboratory.

Opinion: I really liked this novel. The story is gripping, and the art is a-ma-zing! We are given much more than a nice account in space, but social and political commentary embedded in layers on the story and which I enjoyed and recognised as relevant in our times: manipulation of masses, consumerism, critique of marketing methods, discrimination, slavery among others. We have the political and social dynamics within the space station, racism, discrimination, manipulation of masses. We have the secrets the Tianzhu heads keep from the population. We have a group of scientists playing god and all the ethical and moral assumptions this brings. We have (easy to understand) science explaining the way atoms are created, from Hydrogen, to Helium to Carbon which can lead to the creation of life, and how we can recreate this process with anti-matter and huge amounts of energy.

Although the art is of excellent quality, especially the panels of space and earth, the contrast with the space station, etc, one weakness I found is the design of the faces of the characters.  Not distinguishable between them and with little appeal at first sight but not a big deal after a while.  Also the social criticism, at points, came as too evident, or too much into the foreground, that it was distraction from  the main plot. I like social commentary but I feel it works better if it is subtly interwoven within the fabric of a story.

I have the third Spanish edition published by Dibbuks in 2018. 222 pages in total.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Michael Klastorin (4🌟)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The Ultimate Visual History is a beautiful book about the making of one of my favourite science fiction movies of all time. This was the first movie that blew my mind as a child and when I saw this edition I added it into my wish list right away. I was lucky enough to get it a few months later through Wordery give away 😊 Thanks!

The book follows the story of the creation of the movie chronologically in short chapters all of which are fully illustrated with behind the scenes photographs and pictures of concept art, story boards and scripts. We start with Spielberg’s first ideas and with selling the concepts to major Film Production companies. There are explanations of the negotiations and then his partnering with movie making people such as producers, visual, audio effects people, illustrators, photography directors, etc. We also follow his thought process in choosing the main actors as well as designing the sets, aliens, and particularly the Mothership. I think this last bit was my favourite. Of course the book also refers to problems, things that went wrong, changes of plans, additions, deletions, everything that happens during filming. Not much to say but to recommend it to any fun on the movie or any fan of science fiction in general.

My edition was published by Titan Books in 2017. It has 192 pages.

The Soul of Anime. Collaborative Creativity and Japan's media success story - Ian Condry (4🌟)

The Soul of Anime is a scholarly look into Japan’s anime industry, media and fandom. This is a “serious” book about a fun topic. Published in 2013 it recounts ethnographic accounts, interpretations and conclusions on participant observation and interviews rating since (as far as I could tell) 2004. The aim of the book, I think, is to develop the concept of Collaborative Creativity as the combustible which keeps the industry alive and working in synch with parallel industries and fandom. Condry defines the anime industry as being transmedia, that is it embraces/crosses/feeds other medias such as toys, figurines, video games, manga and at the same time feeding from them. So the study in the book contains references to all these media and their relationship with the anime industry. Collaborative Creativity arises from these relationships to create characters and worlds depicted in anime films but also recreated in toys and video games as well as fan created media (fan art, fanfic, fan videos, etc.) I don’t think I am capable to develop more this concept here but I guess I have given a slight initial approximation.

In addition to insights on Collaborative Creativity I found two aspects of this book extremely interesting. The first one is the ethnographic tales on meeting reputed directors and artists, participation in script, storyboard meetings and even voice recording for an anime film. The second one is the multiple references of interesting anime including some failures. I ended up with a short list of anime I didn’t know about but which I want to watch now: mainly Summer Wars and The Girl who leapt through time by Mamoru Hosoda who Condry actually met.

My edition was published by Duke University Press and it has 242 pages

Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata (4🌟)

Snow Country is a short novel, first published in 1956. It is considered a classic of Japanese literature. Not only it depicts traditions and social conventions of the Japan of the 1950s but immerses the reader in a gentle flow of emotions, subtle yet intense.

Shimamura is amarried man from Tokyo in a relationship with a young geisha, Komako, who is desperate in love with him. Both characters cannot be more different and their relationship is odd at best. He is from the city. She is from a small town. He is much older than her and has a family. She lives an isolated, lonely live as a geisha. One thing they have in common though is they are both looking for something to fill a hole in their lives. And their relationship isn't doing that but they keep trying in their own odd ways.

Opinion: this is the kind of novel that grows in your heart when you have the time to process and reflect on the meanings of metaphors and symbols embedded in the narrative. The story is filled with beautiful descriptions of the landscapes and surroundings, setting up brilliantly the mood between the couple's encounters.  There are some codes (to me) left here and there which the author uses to convey emotions, decisions or memories.  I took note of a few but I'm sure I missed many. For example: 

* moths by the window screens, death and stuck, until they fall to the floor.

* the milky way at night showing the way to the characters (?), 

fire, which destroys or ends lives, and 

* Chijimi (traditional clothes), which Shimamura compares to his relationship with Komako. If well kept Chijimis are ment to last for decades. However Shimamura's attitude towards the geisha is only comparable to the discarding of clothes.
* fire, which destroys and ends loves.

In addition to the above codes, the dialogues between the couple told much more than the words said. Distance and indifference from Shimamura, and love, desperation and loneliness from Komako. Won't say more but you have to read it.

My edition is a Modern Classics by Penguin Books. Published in 2011 and with 121 pages.