Category Archives: Books

Russell Edwards, Naming Jack The Ripper. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It is one of the most baffling mysteries and indisputably one of the most horrific set of crimes in British detective police work to have ever been committed. Every corner of the Earth, from all walks of life, the foul and craven murder spree of Jack the Ripper is known, researched and poured over by amateur detectives, hunters of the truth, the rank and file and the ghoulish alike.

James Patterson, Cross My Heart. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

When it comes to writing Crime Fiction there is probably nobody more prodigious or capable of such a vast wealth of tension in their words than American writer James Patterson. When it comes to undoubtedly his greatest creation, Detective Alex Cross, that output generates enough steam from the ideas being poured out that it would put the weight of pressure that is ready to explode under Yellowstone Park seem like a damp dish rag ready to be put out to dry in the Florida sunshine.

Fables: March Of The Wooden Soldiers. Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

When those who drove you from your home, took your families hostage, killed, murdered, those you love and destroyed everything you have peaceably raised and seen flourish begin to come into the land you have settled in, made new homes and lives but with always a rememberance to the past in your heart, then do you make a stand and draw the biggest line possible; do you say no more or do you run once more?

Doctor Who: The Crawling Terror. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

There is something almost devilish about insects and arachnids that awaken a primeval fear in millions of people around the world. The reader only has to think of the beast Shelob in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy of books to perhaps feel a shiver of disgust, of undiluted terror run smoothly down their spine to know how they feel about spiders, the revulsion at the cockroach, the abhorrence of a plague of wasps and despite marvelling at the ingenuity and might of the humble ant, to see thousands of them milling around you, climbing over you in search of food is enough to send Horror makers grin at the thought of celluloid gold.

Tony O’Neill, Buddha In A Hat. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It could be considered one of the hardest aspects of writing poetry, to deliver a series of poems with an incredible thought, a deftness of the well placed word, whether it rhymes or not, bulging with humour and with the ability to make a reader understand that the poem is asking you to be scathing of a world that seems to have no time for the craft and also demands that you must question the wound that appears. It is a hard task to pull off, many a great, perhaps arguably legendary poet fails at the attempt but for Tony O’ Neill and his recently published collection of poems under the title of Buddha in a Hat, all these demands that a poet places upon their mental agility are met.

Doctor Who: Engines Of War. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

It was perhaps arguably one of the greatest twists in the long history of the much loved television series Doctor Who, the appearance of John Hurt as The Doctor who went to war. The Time War, talked about since the return of the man from Gallifrey, perhaps a throw-away line to get round why the programme had been shamefully off air in its original format, one film aside, since 1989. An off the cuff comment which came to be the dystopian nadir in which tantalised the show’s legion of fans like a hungry wolf being offered a free slap up meal with a herd of caribou and then getting to have the dinner guests for deserts.

Fables: Storybook Love, Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Love, for some a fairy tale, for others it is the start of a nightmare, a time in which everything they do is wrong and in which can lead to anguish, despair and hopelessness and yet in between the immensity of the emotions, something grand stirs, something in which the future can be held tightly.

For immortals love can be complicated, for a creature of the fairy tale, complicated doesn’t even cover it, it is more akin to placing your trust to a pyromaniac and asking them to make sure it doesn’t catch fire.

Age Of Ultron, Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

When Henry Pym built the entity known as Ultron, nobody really could have foresaw what was going to happen down the line in the often convoluted but truly entertaining world of Marvel Comics.

Age Of Ultron is one of the graphic novels in which was always begging to be written, it would sit majestically alongside other crossovers that have thrilled Marvel fans across the ages and would be thought of in the same high esteem as perhaps Days Of Future Past and The Secret Wars…it is just a pity that high expectations doesn’t always play the same game that the reader’s minds wishes beyond hope that they would.

Fables: Animal Farm. Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Who killed Cock Robin? Well in any Revolution there are always going to be casualties, some will say those that die in ensuing civil war are martyrs to the cause, some are murdered by design and others, innocents like Cock Robin, were just caught in the cross fire of the opening skirmishes and jostling for position.

Revolutions in the mind of Bill Willingham though are so much more complex, the land of Fable is not as straightforward nor as nice as many believe it to be. If Fables in Exile set the stall out for what is a remarkably well written series then Fables: Animal Farm is the dark underside that makes the series make sense.

The Flash: Rebirth, Graphic Novel Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Heroes never stay dead, at least not in the world of fiction and certainly not in the world of the graphic novel. Merchandise, fan pressure, the thought of a new riveting story in which to place a much loved character in, all can play their part in bringing back to existence a hero who gave up life willingly in the fight against evil. Even a true villain never stays dead for long. So that should be the case with Barry Allen, arguably the finest incarnation of D.C.’s speedy hero that ran against the wind.