Paul Cornell (1)Recensioni

The faeries invade at last, and the remaining witches—aided by a Ukrainian immigrant who can’t see magic at all—have to fight back.

One of the Lychford witches is suffering from dementia, but has to hang on long enough to stop another assault on the town. If anything, it’s a little too easy in its portrait of dementia, where magic can help the sufferer at key points.½

his novella is interesting because it explicitly raises the question: is Brexit the same thing as the tropes of keeping monsters out with magic? The answer, by the way, is “no,” but it’s useful to have the question raised, as one of the witches deals with the fact that being born in a place isn’t enough to be considered part of it if you have the wrong skin color.½

econd novella about the witches of Lychford—a child ghost appears to the vicar, but can’t communicate. She and the other witches are caught up in a scheme to break the boundaries that keep horrors from other worlds out of ours.

This Hugo Award finalist takes several real historical witches or magicians who were alive during World War II and posits what they might have done if they were to use their magic to take down Adolf Hitler; it's written by my longtime favorite Paul Cornell and illustrated by a new-to-me artist, Valeria Burzo. (It's in six chapters, so I had thought it was a collection of six issues, but it seems to be an original graphic novel.)

Ever since I read Captain Britain and MI13, I have known that Cornell is a good comics writer, and this is among his better work. The concept is super fun, and the historical notes at the back bring a lot of enjoyment to the story, as you work out what really happened and what he embellished. All the protagonists pop off the page, and the story has a number of good twists and turns and audacious moments and big payoffs. I particularly liked what Cornell did with Aleister Crowley's "wickedest man in the world" shtick (though for some reason he consistently misquotes it), Doreen Valiente's struggle to believe in her own magic, and Rollo Ahmed's perpetual outsider status. This is a neat group of characters in reality, and it's neat to see them come together in fiction in a way they did not in reality.

It's an easy read but an interesting one too, and I liked Burzo's artwork a lot; combined with Jordie Bellaire's colors, it's simple but effective in communicating both character and action.

An utterly absorbing confection! For longtime readers only, as this book is essentially one giant party bringing together characters and concepts from all previous 49 books (as well as much of the TV series). But what a party. Delightful, moving, witty, outrageous, sweet, inventive, and just downright charming.

My rating of this book is both subjective and specific, but I think it's a magical and vital piece of Doctor Who history. This is a miscellany of items from fanzines, mostly from the '80s and '90s with occasional nods to the '70s. Although it is described as being edited by Paul Cornell, in fact he provides substantial introductions and guidance throughout.

When this book was first published in 1997, it seems there were negative reviews from some quarters. These were put down to Cornell's allegedly preferential treatment of whom he included, of presenting certain views of fandom, and just a general feeling that a book like this didn't present fans at their most erudite or intellectual. The thing is, twenty-five years later, this is exactly what I'm looking for. There are a few other books where writers have taken their own fanzine pieces and republished them with the aim of self-glorification. There are a couple of collections of fanzine writings that seek to present exactly that intellectual edge. (To be clear, most of these zines are long dead and punishingly unavailable online.) But Cornell was providing a snapshot of a key moment in the program's history, and it's as if he could imagine me in 2022 lapping this up.

The show's "wilderness years" (1990 - 2004) are exactly the period of my interest, a time after the already publicly-dismissed program was cancelled (well, "rested") and before it returned to mainstream attention. Fans committed themselves, in those heady days when the internet was a novel way of communicating and shoddy copies of old episodes on VHS were the most effective ways of watching past media, to preserving, protecting, revising, challenging, sharing, debating, dismantling, recreating, and extolling the twenty-six seasons of this program. Not only was this a major factor in why the series ultimately returned, and to such popular acclaim, but it directly influenced the careers of dozens of these fans who went on to work as professional writers, actors, directors, producers, creatives, talent agents, and so on - many of them using those talents directly on Doctor Who. For someone of my generation seeking to better understand how these years unfolded, Cornell's book fits snugly around my desires.

Some of it is silly now, and some of it only makes sense if you have a synoptic understanding of those twenty-six years. But if so, this is the historical document for you.

The Witches of World War II treats "The Magical Battle of Britain" in graphic novel format, collecting six issues of a comic book of the same title. In this case, the author Paul Cornell has made Doreen Dominy (later Valiente) the central protagonist as the leader of an intelligence cell that includes Aleister Crowley, Gerald Gardner, Dion Fortune (whose actual name Violet Firth is never mentioned), and Rollo Ahmed. Cornell admits that he has taken significant liberties with the history involved, as extreme as having Crowley die as a martyr for England in Nazi Germany.

The book is furnished with an afterword from historian Ronald Hutton, who is a noted and reliable researcher of twentieth-century British occultism. Professor Hutton points out many of the likely errors and evident impossibilities in the story, along with some of the actual events and likely facts that were used as scaffolding. He does so in a friendly spirit with an allowance for inaccuracy among the surviving sources.

Allowing for creative license and storytelling efficiency, I was still bothered by the story showing antagonism between Crowley and Fortune (Cornell admits to knowing better himself), collapsing Rudolf Hess and Heinrich Himmler into a single character, and repeatedly calling Crowley "the most evil man in the world," rather than his actual yellow press title of "The Wickedest Man in the World." If the book had been using the story to court larger ideas the way that Douglas Rushkoff did in his graphic novel Aleister & Adolf, I might have been more willing to cut it some slack. But mostly it seemed to amount to a superheroine origin story for Doreen Valiente.

The illustration work by Valeria Burzo is in a very traditional comics style, effective for the characterizations and action. Colorist Jordie Bellaire kept to customary flat colors, but did some nice non-black line work in visions, dreams, memories, and reflections.

I have read other reviewers who found The Witches of World War II "boring." It held my attention pretty well, but I'm a soft touch for the subject matter. For a better comic on the subject, I would recommend the aforementioned Rushkoff book, and for a far more sprawling and sophisticated fiction that uses the capture of Hess as a touchstone event, Jake Arnott's The House of Rumour.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/a-long-day-in-lychford-by-paul-cornell/

Third in the series of Lychford books by Paul Cornell, this is a rare case of a fantasy novel addressing Brexit. The magical women of Lychford are dealing with the internal consequences of the referendum, prejudice against foreigners and people of colour, and at the same time an eruption of danger from the much older inhabitants of their space. I see a lot of Lychford fans were not wowed by it, but I found it a thoughtful reflection on difficult political circumstances.

Fun Batman pastiche romp within England making them more than the window dressing characters revived by Morrison.

In my opinion slightly rushed story-line. There is no tension here because it is more than obvious that Black Widow will defeat all of her enemies.

Where this volume delivers is personal history of Black Widow - how she became super-spy and assassin. Everything else seems to be just a background story to keep the page-count at regular level. I think that they could have done much better - for example imagine story in the likes of Wolverine Origins or X-Weapon, that would be awesome :) - but I guess that Black Widow was always on the margins and not class-A Marvel hero.

Nevertheless interesting story (character background) and therefore 3.5 stars (3 stars in goodreads since I cannot find half-star rating :))

Recommended for fans of Marvel's hero stories and Black Widow in particular.

Five sentient digital beings form the crew of a small survey ship that has been sent out by the Company to explore and report its findings back to the Company. They encounter a mysterious black sphere that they know they must report. However, something seems to be happening to their perceptions of time and reality.

This got on my radar due to its sentient digital beings. It initially comes across like a very quirky read - as digital beings, the crew members can present themselves pretty much however they'd like, so one of them is a foul-mouthed balloon, another is a ball of hands, and yet another one is a swarm of wasps. As readers learn about them, their situation, and their relationship to the Company, it becomes apparent that there's some self-editing going on, revealing darker undercurrents.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending. It felt like is was aiming for "happy" but presented from the viewpoint of the character with the least to be happy about.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Originally posted at www.csdaley.com

One of the things I have most loved in recent years is the absolute explosion of books getting published that experiment with mixing genre. London Falling at its heart is a police procedural. A good old fashion cop story where our heroes painstakingly work through the clues left behind to catch a serial killer. It is a giant part of the story. It's just that the serial killer may or may not be a supernatural being sacrificing children to fuel her hatred for the London leaders who wronged her.

The book is full of everything I love in a paranormal, urban fantasy, police procedural. We have ghosts, talking severed heads, and one fairly useless cat. It was like reading a John Constantine Hellblazer comic in novel form. The book was full of creepy. It was also full of flawed police officers doing their best to understand a world that has suddenly gone wrong. Throwing out what they know and trusting in their instincts to get them through the horror of what they don't know. I absolutely loved them and when the book ended I knew I would be back for more.

Cornell takes his time in this story and it works very well. The mystery unfolds a little at a time. We get to experience the weirdness right along with the heroes. Take our best guesses and watch where Cornell decides to lead us. The tension builds all the way through the story with the pace gradually increasing until the break neck and explosive finish. The world building was top notch. Giving us a London we both knew and didn't all in one go. If you're a fan of urban fantasy and police procedural than don't miss this one. I mean you can't go wrong with talking severed heads.

Got to about 25% but am letting it go.

I'm listening on audio and I'm frustrated by the author's style of switching to a different person and place within the same chapter. One sentence the old witch is in the parking lot with a man and the next sentence her son is inside a building and has a hand put on his shoulder. What?! I was still out in the parking lot and I didn't even know her son was there or that she had a son. Also, the narrator is reading them with the same voice. Left me confused too many times.

I could stop the audio and "read" the book but at 25% I got enough of the story to see the content better and it's too cozy and outside my interest. Let me just say the characters are at a town hall meeting talking about not building a supermarket on some "barrier against the evil".

Super fun book. I really like these characters and am looking forward to more of their stories.

I really enjoyed this novella, particularly the characters and how the interacted with each other. I would read the hell out of a series based on them and their stories.

I feel like I'm channelling my mum here but, I'm not angry, just really, really disappointed.

I love these characters and I feel they got taken advantage of here. The whole Gaiman thing just felt stilted and name droppy and contrived. It effed up the whole flow of the story for me.

Witches of Lychford is about the local old lady who everybody thinks is a kook, and she is joined by the town vicar and the owner of the local new age shop in fighting off the invasion of a big box store into their little town, led by a demon. It was really good -- and really short, under 100 pages. FUN read, even though I wasn't a big fan of Cornell's London Falling.

Detective Inspector James Quill is about to complete the drugs bust of his career when his prize suspect Rob Toshack is murdered in custody. But nothing about Toshack’s murder is normal. Now, the team must find a suspect who can bend space and time and alter memory itself, a suspect who will murder again. And they begin to realize that London is not the city they thought it was, but instead, that it is the home to sinister magic. They have two choices: panic, or use their new abilities they barely understand. Together, they begin hunting a terrifying supernatural force the only way they know how: using police methods, equipment and tactics, but while learning the rules of this new game, and quickly. London Falling seems to be a story about what happens when police fall into the weird and have no real guidance about what they’ve gotten themselves into. There’s a lot of flailing about with little payoff. I DO appreciate how… well, honestly, this book is really dark. Really dark. But the aimless flailing really bothered me, and I ended up trudging through the end of it.

I’d never heard of this author or this book, but I happened upon it at the library and the synopsis sounded amazing.

It’s very hard to describe, explain, and understand so I’m going to let the official synopsis do the heavy lifting here

This initial issue does a fairly good job of setting up the characters and conflict, revealing just enough of Jacey’s backstory to foreshadow where the story is headed next. There are still a lot of unknowns, but for now all of the story’s cryptic dialogue and playfully oblique artwork is effective in enticing the reader to turn the page. There’s an underlying tension and a good amount of suspense built up by the end ready to carry over into the next issue.

The second issue continues the story of Jacey and David’s quest to find her missing brother. However, any momentum the comic had begins to wane, as most of this issue is focused on the flashback story line. It feels like thirty pages of set up, instead of events that move the plot forward. The story appears to be building towards a series of revelations, but the slow burn approach is losing its appeal.

Here the story finally begins to grind back into action. New layers of plot and character development are revealed, but they lack a satisfying resolution. We also get more backstory on David, and while it adds a much needed dynamic to his character, it comes off as convoluted and thus uninteresting. But at least at this point in the series we have a new target for this tragic duo and a new plan of action.

I got twelve pages of new-to-me content in the previous Daleks collection... here just eight, and all the reprints here already had extras. Good value for money!?

Emperor of the Daleks! / ...Up Above the Gods...
Previously reviewed as part of Emperor of the Daleks here.

Bringer of Darkness
Previously reviewed as part of Land of the Blind here.

Daleks versus the Martians
Fun fact: I have only seen the first Peter Cushing film as a Rifftrax installment, and I have never seen the second at all. This is a prequel to the second, I guess, setting up the Dalek invasion of Earth. Lee Sullivan draws good Daleks, of course, but otherwise there was nothing for me to be found here.

Fire and Brimstone
Previously reviewed as part of End Game here.

Children of the Revolution
Previously reviewed as part of Oblivion here.

Stray Observations:

• Early reports were that this volume would include Return of the Elders (a follow-up to the old Dalek strips from TV Century 21, reprinted as a standalone DWM special in 2020), which was published as a back-up in DWM #249-54. This did not come to pass. Alas, as it would have brought this volume's newly reprinted content up to a whole fourteen pages!

Doctor Who Magazine and Marvel UK: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

This is actually a review for [b:Superman: Return of Doomsday|11057594|Superman Return of Doomsday|Paul Cornell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1333579947l/11057594._SY75_.jpg|21944808] and this book, as the hardcover collection I read contained the issues from both books.

The story was a bit repetitive but it had some good SuperFam moments, and a few sweet Lois & Clark moments at the end.

What whiplash though going from Kenneth Rocafort's gorgeous art to Axel Gimenez's "breasts are always perfectly round" style.