DC Universe: Trail of Time
by Jeff Mariotte
Published by Warner Books

Reviewed by Eugene Myers for Senses Five Press.

Trail of Time is the final novel in the DC Universe series of original stories. It features ensembles of superhero characters from the expansive DC history. Superman (who previously appeared in the first installment, Last Sons) returns for a new adventure that spans two universes and hundreds of years. Completing the cast are heroes that may be unfamiliar to even the most faithful comic book readers, including the Phantom Stranger, Jason Blood/Etrigan the Demon, Jonah Hex, Bat Lash, and El Diablo. These unlikely allies join forces to combat a trio of magical supervillains–Vandal Savage, the Dark Lord Mordru, and Felix Faust–who are bent on nothing less than world domination, naturally.

This is likely the most ambitious entry in the DC Universe series, a story that could easily demand a multi-title comic book event, akin to the ongoing 52 Weeks. Trail of Time begins in an eerie alternate universe: Earth revolves around a red sun, America is locked under strict military control to guard against foreign terrorists, and there is no Superman. Most of this book’s target readers will realize that red suns rob Superman of his powers, which leaves Clark Kent as simply a mild-mannered reporter, turning out government-approved stories that downplay the people’s lack of freedom in favor of their safety. Readers might also suspect that in a world without a Superman, Lois Lane has a much-shortened life expectancy. After Clark’s wife is killed while investigating a man named Vandal Savage, the Phantom Stranger and Jason Blood tell him of his heroic destiny in another reality and the role he must play to save it.

Still grieving Lois’s death, Clark joins them on a journey through hell to the proper DC Universe, where he merges with Superman (regaining his powers but retaining some memories of the other world’s Clark) and learns what is at stake. Vandal Savage and his cohorts have spawned a parallel universe which threatens to wipe out the original, leaving them in control. The heroes must locate the branching point in history and attempt to stop the magicians before they can put their plan into motion. Meanwhile, in the Old West, Jonah Hex and the others of his time find themselves inexplicably drawn together to fight some unknown force. Trail of Time follows a large number of characters in multiple parallel plotlines, most of which tie together satisfactorily in the final conflict. The novel is filled with time-hopping from one period to another, from a Camelot under siege to ancient China, with demons and magical menaces waiting at each stop. Aside from Kryptonite, Superman has always been susceptible to magic, which puts him in as much jeopardy as his companions.

The plot is heavy on action, but fortunately Mariotte is up to the task of describing it all as vividly as if it were drawn in comic book panels. Mariotte’s dialogue and prose truly shine with the characters from 1872—no surprise given his experience with his “Weird West” comic series, Desperadoes. The story skirts some sobering political and moral issues that would add some depth and resonance to the plot, and there’s little character development beyond a cursory summary of their origins, but the pace is quick and consistent with what you might find in the pages of your favorite superhero comics. Trail of Time is a grand and bold adventure that would be a challenge to present in any other medium, and it easily delivers more of what fans want in their favorite monthlies.

Lisey’s Story
By Stephen King, Published by Scribner

In Lisey’s Story, Stephen King’s latest work, Scott Landon, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, is dead. He is survived by his wife, Lisey (pronounced “Lee-see”). Lisey is trying to reassemble the pieces of her life, and though it has been two years since Scott’s sudden death, for Lisey it feels like yesterday. As she wanders her lonely Maine home, she still hears her husband’s voice echoing through her head. Meanwhile, petulant “Incunks,” as her husband called them, telephone incessantly, seeking access to Scott’s unpublished work. One such Incunk, who calls himself “Zack McCool”, decides to take this goal one step further. After several drunken conversations with a professor at a nearby college, he takes it upon himself to retrieve Scott’s unpublished manuscripts by any means necessary. Zack, if it needs to be said, is a little off his rocker.

But this arc takes up only one half of the story. The bulk of the novel is told in flashback; King fluidly weaves from the present into the past dozens of times. He stops in mid-sentence, changes tense, starts a new paragraph, and continues without pause, without capitalization, as if the story is being told in one long outbreath, one long elegy. We learn of Scott’s and Lisey’s strange courtship, delving steadily into Scott’s past as the novel progresses, learning of odd treasure hunts called “bools,” mind-warping malevolences that the childhood Scott calls “the bad-gunky,” and a dream-like alternate world called “Booya Moon.” After a time, we learn that the talented writer might have received many of his ideas not from his deep imagination but from actual, terrifying experiences. The flashbacks are the most engaging aspect of the novel (besides the highly-satisfying end) because in them we learn of the dark secret Scott has been carrying with him his whole life.

There’s a lot of magic to be found in “Lisey’s Story,” but it’s often buried under long stretches of meandering plot. Monsters don’t lurk around every page as in some of King’s earlier works. Instead, the reader must be patient. Clues are left often, and it is only later that one understands why, for example, Scott cuts his wrists open one night as a “gift” to his wife, or why he has made so many arrangements in his will for Lisey’s catatonic sister, Amanda.

Lisey and Scott frequently speak in their own private slang. They call each other “babyluv” and say “smucking” instead of the F-word. There are about a dozen more such made-up words. Some early critics of the book found this babytalk annoying, and while I found it difficult to wade through at first, I later understood that this language was absolutely necessary for two reasons, to show that Scott Landon is in some sense still a child, haunted by a past no boy should have to face, and to show how much Lisey Landon loves her husband. Scott is a man of words; Lisey, in mourning him, is unable to let a single thing of his go, not even his words.

Having read King’s semi-autobiographical On Writing, I suspect that Lisey’s Story, though not autobiographical itself, took a large part of its setting from King’s life. In both there is an older brother whom a boy loves more than anything, a hand-cranked printing press with messy ink in the basement, In both there is a writer who dwells in Maine, who is a professional and successful horror writer, whose wife has many sisters. The difference is that one is King’s true past and the other is a story. King says in an author’s statement at the end of the novel, “[Lisey] is not my wife, nor are her sisters Lisey’s sisters…” Nevertheless, the analogy is impossible to ignore, and the meta-fictional implications are somewhat creepy. (I.e., is King suggesting that he may have received some of his ideas from childhood experiences? Most likely, no, but the thought is interesting to ponder.)

My only criticism of the novel is its occasional slow pacing. Early on especially, humdrum descriptions of common activities, like frying up some hamburger helper, crowd the pages; tension is slow to build and sometimes frustrating. But once the plot does move, the payoff is well worth it. King says this is his attempt at a more “literary” novel, whatever that may mean to you, but I for one welcome his experimentation in a new area. It may both inspire non genre readers to pick up a horror story, and it might convince some blood and gore fans that there is more than one way to hide a monster under a bed.

More reviews can be found here.

I finished reading Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson, this weekend. I really enjoyed the book. And in my ongoing rating system I have on my personal bio page, I’m going to give it an A+. However, because I’ve spent an average of two days per month for the last five years or so in various writing groups, it’s become my nature to read things with a critical eye. Few books are perfect, and though I thought Spin was excellent, I can’t resist pointing out two minor flaws.

1) The novel juxtaposes two opposing views: the scientific and the Christian. Characters maintaining both views attempt to explain their rapidly changing world through their perspective. It is clear, in my mind, that Wilson favors the rationalist, scientific, point of view. What I couldn’t figure out was (spoiler warning) why Wilson felt humanity needed to be saved? The central premise of the novel is that any sentient culture living in a limited space with limited resources (i.e. a planet) will eventually exhaust its supplies and die. Along comes Vast-Interstellar-Intelligence to save the day. But the VII is so slow-thinking that humanity doesn’t recognize it at first. What Wilson has unintentionally done is ruin his argument (if I read the text correctly). In the novel, a messiah doesn’t come to save humanity, but the VII does. In both cases, humanity is impotent to effect it’s own change. And while altering this premise would vastly change the novel, I found myself more than a little frustrated at Wilson’s suggestion that humanity is at best impotent to cosmic forces.

2) This one is more technical. Throughout the novel Wilson refers to the use of aerostats, high-altitude balloons that are used instead of orbital satellites after the Spin (a black shroud that encloses the Earth) appears. Every time there is an astronomical event in the sky, the aerostats conveniently stop working, leaving humanity temporarily without communication. Wilson should have studied intercontinental communications a bit better. Most communication data travels over fiber-optic cable, not satellite, including the Internet and phone calls, and therefore would be immune to any interference from the stars. A geosynchronous satellite has a two second round-trip time, a latency that’s okay for one-way mass broadcast communications like television, but downright snail-like for Internet and phone calls where latencies in the half-second are considered high. I suppose it was a good device to have when Wilson wanted his characters to be ignorant of the state of the world at large.

These two flaws aside, however, I thought Spin was a remarkable novel in its breadth of scope and its ability to extrapolate a future billions of years hence. I know why it won the Hugo, and it my mind it is very deserving. My trigger-happy crit brain just couldn’t resist the crit.

Senses Five Press will occasionally be posting book reviews and reviews of other media to our site. Eugene Myers recently read DC Universe: Helltown for us and offers his opinion below. This and previous reviews can be found in our new Review Corner.

DC Universe: Helltown
by Dennis O’Neil, published by Warner Books

The third installment of a limited series of novels set in the DC Universe from Warner Books, Helltown is another name for the dangerous and corrupt Hub City. Like many troubled cities in the DC canon, this one has a vigilante protector: The Question. This masked hero is joined by an ensemble of DC characters, including Lady Shiva, Richard Dragon, and, most notably, Batman.

This book will have the greatest appeal to readers familiar with DC Comics. The author, Dennis “Denny” O’Neil, should be recognizable to longtime comic book fans for his work in such titles as Batman Knightfall, Green Lantern/Green Arrow, and The Question. O’Neil, however, is more than qualified for the difficult task of making the story accessible to readers unfamiliar with the DC Universe while also appealing to hardcore fans.

Helltown is the origin story of The Question, a relatively obscure DC hero who has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years with the Justice League Unlimited animated series and the ongoing DC title, 52 Weeks. The novel follows Vic Sage as he arrives in Hub City. He finds employment as a reporter for a local radio station, soon discovers a corrupt government headed by the unsavory Mayor Benedict Fermin, and uncovers a terrible plot that extends far beyond the city limits. Along the way he creates his superhero persona: a faceless man garbed in a trench coat and fedora.

Vic Sage seems like he was lifted from the 1980s; he frequently marvels at 21st century technology, including cellphones and “Googling.” He is a socially and politically conscious hero from another era, updated along with his supporting cast to more modern times. O’Neil takes other liberties with the established DC Comics history, seamlessly blending storylines from various comics into a unique story that stands on its own. Though devoted fans might take some exception to his changes, most people will simply enjoy the ride—and O’Neil’s approach ensures that everyone will find some surprises along the way.

At its heart, Helltown is about morally complex characters in extraordinary situations, and O’Neil grounds them firmly in reality even while convincing us that superheroes exist. The novel is well plotted, with frequently witty dialogue and solid action.

In a word: fun.

September 28, 2006 - Eugene Myers for Senses Five Press

The Cult of Alien Gods: H.P. Lovecraft and Extraterrestrial Pop Culture
by Jason Colavito, Published by Prometheus Books

This dense yet fascinating read proclaims that those theories suggesting humanity commingled with alien races long ago — possibly even being spawned by one — can be directly traced, not to historical reality, but to a series of fictional short stories by the horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, written at the beginning of the 20th century. Author Colavito — a former believer, and a contributor to Skeptic magazine — takes us chronologically through the history of this idea, from Lovecraft’s life to the present day, and he makes a convincing argument that “extraterrestrial genesis,” the theory that humanity was created by aliens, is hogwash. Lovecraft, Colavito argues, was a lifelong atheist and materialist and had no room for these pseudo-scientific theories in real life — but he knew well that they make for excellent fiction. The biographical portrait consumes only a fraction of The Cult of Alien Gods, though, and the rest of the work details long arguments intended to debunk dozens of alien-history theories, including those that claim: the Sphinx at Giza is much older than originally thought; Atlantis was real and home to an ancient, technological race; an ancient African tribe knew Sirius was a double star even before modern astronomers did. Though the links to Lovecraft seem reasonable at first blush, Colavito’s arguments sometimes turn specious, and he’s not immune to the same weakness of which he accuses others: presupposing a conclusion and then accepting only evidence that supports it. Nevertheless, it’s a worthwhile read that seeks to shed light upon a hundred years of speculation and myth, while at the same time paying high praise to one of the last century’s greatest storytellers.

January 9, 2006 - Matthew Kressel (courtesy Earthling Magazine).