Becky

Don't read Vertigo issued episode descriptions as a way to understand a story. The editors write those things up months ahead of time when they have a basic plot synopsis from the writer in front of them.

I hope it didn't come across like that. Other people on the board have mentioned the trap. I still haven't located it. I've read too many badly-blurbed novels to be taken in by an episode description. My favorite is for Magic's Pawn -- bears no resemblance to the actual plot.

Yes, this story is going quite slowly, but we're supposed to sit back and enjoy the ride. Mina is a novelist, and novels usually build very slowly to the climax.

Think of this as a mystery story, where by part #7 (if Mina does her job properly), you'll think, "Ah! Now I understand everything!"

I do read mystery stories, and good mystery stories feed you answers a bit at a time, as you go through them, or give you enough information to guess at the answer yourself. We've got nothing here but mystery. If this is a mystery story, what are the clues? What should we be paying attention to? I'm starting to think this feels more like a picaresque, where a series of unrelated adventures occur, than a mystery.

A lot of y'all seem to be liking this one better, but I'm getting it, somehow. (Still only read it once, so I reserve the right to change my mind later...) I'm becoming more and more confused, and glancing over the description at the top of the thread didn't help. Trap? Is my comic missing the last page? Weird shit, yes, but trap? If I had the whole story line in my hands I'd probably have peeked ahead to see how it ends... The "third place" is interesting. I sort of thought that when the souls of the dead didn't go to heaven or hell, they just followed John around...

I've been real patient with this storyline, and there's things I like about it. But it's occurred to me that I was never this confused with "Down in the ground where the dead men go" and I read that out of order...

I guess I feel like place where the parts of this puzzle (Chris Cole, Steve Evans, and the moody monks) should start to fit together ought to have come by now.

Becky

Becky we did the whole debate on this particular cover, when it was first released online as a preview. We're still trying to track the classic artwork that inspired 216's cover although I know think it's a James Bond cover.

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Oops -- sorry. I'll go find that thread. (Insert sheepish grin here.)

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the cover so far -- not the part about it being washed-out and not as good as Bradstreet, the part about it being a pieta.

I liked it all right but again, the thing with the knife. Why carry a knife in your sleeve? It's a good way to cut your arm up. Not really convenient. You'd need a wrist sheath, which people would notice when you took your coat off. And usually that would be a small knife, too. Much more plausible -- I don't remember who said it -- to scratch runes into a knife from the diner. (Query: Is it the size of the knife or the magic of it that's important? How does a knife get to be magic?) Or a pocket-knife, because people carry those anyway and I could see John having a pocket-knife that had been magicked at some indeterminate point. You have to hang the sword over the mantle in act I so you can kill the villain with it in act III. Now there's all sorts of structural problems -- why wasn't it in the lockup he burned? If he was carrying it at the time, why didn't he leave it there? Has it been in his sleeve ever since? If he was giving up magic why didn't he get rid of it, too? Other than that it was great, very vulnerable. I'll go along with the crowd and give an 8.

It is. The Kurtz novels are a little more local in their scope (i.e., it's merely Scotland being threatened, not the whole world so much) and the characters are quite different -- Adam and John are definitely from different worlds. It seems to me that the similarity of some of the magical details -- sacrifices, psychichally boosted hypnosis, astral projection, past lives -- means both of you did your research! It's like you used different characters against a similar backdrop and got something different out of it.

I've never read the Katherine Kurtz thing--hearing about the similarity makes me go, ARRRGH. But i'm sure it's pretty different,too...

 

 

 

Has anyone here read the "Adept" novels by Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris? There was definitely some resemblance to Lodge of the Lynx... Old war gods being brought back by a nasty cult with Nazi connections. In this case, it's Taranis the Thunderer, but the idea is similar, the god being powered by a specific sacrifice. There were definitely Sir Adam Sinclair moments in Warlord ('cept John's not what you'd call a gentleman...)

Hi. I'm Becky. Y'all seemed so nice I thought I'd join up...I live in NYC and I'm doing a degree in cognitive neuroscience. I became suddenly and irrevocably addicted to Hellblazer about two weeks ago and I'm glad to come across this site because obsessions are always better when they're shared.

(Obligatory plug) If you're in New York, come see the Rocky Horror Picture Show! We perform Fridays and Saturdays at midnight at the Clearview Chelsea, W. 23rd St between 7th and 8th Aves. I'm the girl Brad.