What aunt_zelda Thinks: Irredeemable
Dec. 2nd, 2010 06:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aunt_zelda ...
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How do I even begin? "This is amazing?" "Go get your hands on a copy of this?" "Oh my god, my brains are being melted and frozen at the same time?" "I need a hug?"
WOW ...
So, today I got home and saw a ginormous box at the mailbox. Those two "$25 + gets you free shipping" orders I made last week arrived. First I did a little dance, then opened it up, and then did a bigger dance. I refuse to think about how much money was spent. I've worked DAMN HARD this fall, and tackled some tricky things and dealt with stress and all kinds of crap, so I deserve a treat. (Besides, one of the items was a Christmas gift for my mother, so I shouldn't feel too guilty.)
The items were two collections of Buffy Season 8 comics (woot! Even though I've been spoiled for some stuff ... grr) The Shepherd's Tale (YEEEEEEEE!!!), the aforementioned X-Mas gift for my mother (a baking book), and ... Irredeemable.
I don't quite remember when I heard about this (possibly from Linkara? Tvtropes? Amazon suggestions? *shrugs*) but it's been on my amazon list for a little while. It's the kind of thing I knew I wanted to check out, but wasn't something I'd buy just anytime. (It's hard to explain that. Like, certain things are just expensive enough and 'obscure' enough to give me pause before clicking 'buy' ... not that this is obscure by any means, I mean there's a difference between seeing the next HP movie and checking out a movie you might like or not like that you've only seen the trailer for. This doesn't make any sense, does it?) So last week I bought it. The premise alone was intriguing: hero goes bad ... and then the story starts! Plus the author is famous, the artwork is something I can look at without my eyes bleeding, and it's got a tvtropes page.
At first I just thought I was going to read a couple pages and then go do something. I couldn't put the thing down. About mid-way through the thing I realized I'd been standing in the dining room for ten minutes. So I sat down and finished reading. It is THAT engaging. The fast pace contributes to the 'yeek, I can't put it down!' feeling, but it's not just that. This is a truly fascinating concept. It's dark (oh lord, is it dark. The Infant Immortality trope is brutally subverted within the first ... *counts* ... FOUR PAGES! Before the book even began the main character wiped a whole city off the map.) it's brutal, and it sucks you in and spits you out quickly, leaving you wanting more. You'd think that Irredeemable wouldn't have time to be more than that, but it does. It's clever. It shows us how four distinct groups of people would react to heroes gone bad: superheroes, supervillains, 'normal' people (i.e. his ex-girlfriend), and diplomats (oh lord, that bit with the U.N. was utterly fantastic ... wow. Just ... wow.) It sets the stage for future interactions, mostly concerning the superheroes, but giving us a window into the rest of the world, not just secluding us with musclebound strangers and their unfamiliar codenames. This roots the story and makes the brutality of the Plutonian's actions hit so hard.
I'm pretty surprised that I'm managing to be so coherent, Irredeemable really shocked me. Not in the sense of 'whaaaa?!' or 'yeeeek!' or '*squick*' but in the sense that I didn't really know what to expect from this book, and getting such a phenomenal story packed in so tightly (and yet not feeling rushed or crammed in at all) was a really nice surprise.
I highly recommend this book. I could copy/paste the thesaurus synonyms of 'amazing' but that wouldn't do Irredeemable justice.
....
...
How do I even begin? "This is amazing?" "Go get your hands on a copy of this?" "Oh my god, my brains are being melted and frozen at the same time?" "I need a hug?"
WOW ...
So, today I got home and saw a ginormous box at the mailbox. Those two "$25 + gets you free shipping" orders I made last week arrived. First I did a little dance, then opened it up, and then did a bigger dance. I refuse to think about how much money was spent. I've worked DAMN HARD this fall, and tackled some tricky things and dealt with stress and all kinds of crap, so I deserve a treat. (Besides, one of the items was a Christmas gift for my mother, so I shouldn't feel too guilty.)
The items were two collections of Buffy Season 8 comics (woot! Even though I've been spoiled for some stuff ... grr) The Shepherd's Tale (YEEEEEEEE!!!), the aforementioned X-Mas gift for my mother (a baking book), and ... Irredeemable.
I don't quite remember when I heard about this (possibly from Linkara? Tvtropes? Amazon suggestions? *shrugs*) but it's been on my amazon list for a little while. It's the kind of thing I knew I wanted to check out, but wasn't something I'd buy just anytime. (It's hard to explain that. Like, certain things are just expensive enough and 'obscure' enough to give me pause before clicking 'buy' ... not that this is obscure by any means, I mean there's a difference between seeing the next HP movie and checking out a movie you might like or not like that you've only seen the trailer for. This doesn't make any sense, does it?) So last week I bought it. The premise alone was intriguing: hero goes bad ... and then the story starts! Plus the author is famous, the artwork is something I can look at without my eyes bleeding, and it's got a tvtropes page.
At first I just thought I was going to read a couple pages and then go do something. I couldn't put the thing down. About mid-way through the thing I realized I'd been standing in the dining room for ten minutes. So I sat down and finished reading. It is THAT engaging. The fast pace contributes to the 'yeek, I can't put it down!' feeling, but it's not just that. This is a truly fascinating concept. It's dark (oh lord, is it dark. The Infant Immortality trope is brutally subverted within the first ... *counts* ... FOUR PAGES! Before the book even began the main character wiped a whole city off the map.) it's brutal, and it sucks you in and spits you out quickly, leaving you wanting more. You'd think that Irredeemable wouldn't have time to be more than that, but it does. It's clever. It shows us how four distinct groups of people would react to heroes gone bad: superheroes, supervillains, 'normal' people (i.e. his ex-girlfriend), and diplomats (oh lord, that bit with the U.N. was utterly fantastic ... wow. Just ... wow.) It sets the stage for future interactions, mostly concerning the superheroes, but giving us a window into the rest of the world, not just secluding us with musclebound strangers and their unfamiliar codenames. This roots the story and makes the brutality of the Plutonian's actions hit so hard.
I'm pretty surprised that I'm managing to be so coherent, Irredeemable really shocked me. Not in the sense of 'whaaaa?!' or 'yeeeek!' or '*squick*' but in the sense that I didn't really know what to expect from this book, and getting such a phenomenal story packed in so tightly (and yet not feeling rushed or crammed in at all) was a really nice surprise.
I highly recommend this book. I could copy/paste the thesaurus synonyms of 'amazing' but that wouldn't do Irredeemable justice.
