Doctor Who: Sin Eaters (4/5)
A graphic novel collecting Ninth Doctor issues, all of which take place sometime between Empty Child and Boom Town. Ergo, the crew has Nine, Rose, Jack, and Tara...someone (yeah, she doesn't feature much).
Concerning plot, there's not much to say, as the graphic novel really covers the end of one arc (the titular sin eaters - beings made from someone's Id, which resutls in body horror as Nine has to deal with a hulk-esque duplicate), and the start of another, when a slitheen wants to extract the Doctor's memories of the Time War to sell to the highest bidder. None of these plots are particularly original, but certainly work. That, and as a comic, it's able to make the most of its format by giving some well drawn locations.
The Good Son (5/5)
So, to be clear, despite what the ranking would suggest, this isn't a masterpiece of WWI literature (I mean, it's classified under JF). Still, I'm giving it a rare 5/5, as there's absolutely nothing I could suggest to improve it. It certainly treads over familiar ground in the genre, but apart from that? Yeah.
The main claim to fame is that the story is told almost entirely through miniatures, with bits of text that drive the story forward. Nor is it told chronologically, as it centres on a French trooper, Pierre, as he waits to be executed for desertion. Christmas, 1914 has come and gone, he slipped away for a few days, but that's enough to warrant execution. After all the promises that the war would be over by Christmas, and with said war not over, morale is plummetting, hence why Pierre needs to be made an example of. Thus, he uses his last night talking with his friend and a lieutenant, writes a final letter to his mother. Interspaced with all of this are various events - enlistment, initial patriotism, carnage of the battlefield, meeting German soldiers and realizing they're just ordinary people, comradeship, winter settling in, etc. Like I said, the book isn't doing anything new, but what it does, it does very well. That, and the miniatures, despite being, well, miniatures, actually lend a great sense of humanity to the piece. In part because of how they're arranged in various scenes, in part because of the writing. For instance, the line (paraphrased), "they called it the Great War, but it was little soldiers who won it."
So, yeah. Pretty well done.
A graphic novel collecting Ninth Doctor issues, all of which take place sometime between Empty Child and Boom Town. Ergo, the crew has Nine, Rose, Jack, and Tara...someone (yeah, she doesn't feature much).
Concerning plot, there's not much to say, as the graphic novel really covers the end of one arc (the titular sin eaters - beings made from someone's Id, which resutls in body horror as Nine has to deal with a hulk-esque duplicate), and the start of another, when a slitheen wants to extract the Doctor's memories of the Time War to sell to the highest bidder. None of these plots are particularly original, but certainly work. That, and as a comic, it's able to make the most of its format by giving some well drawn locations.
The Good Son (5/5)
So, to be clear, despite what the ranking would suggest, this isn't a masterpiece of WWI literature (I mean, it's classified under JF). Still, I'm giving it a rare 5/5, as there's absolutely nothing I could suggest to improve it. It certainly treads over familiar ground in the genre, but apart from that? Yeah.
The main claim to fame is that the story is told almost entirely through miniatures, with bits of text that drive the story forward. Nor is it told chronologically, as it centres on a French trooper, Pierre, as he waits to be executed for desertion. Christmas, 1914 has come and gone, he slipped away for a few days, but that's enough to warrant execution. After all the promises that the war would be over by Christmas, and with said war not over, morale is plummetting, hence why Pierre needs to be made an example of. Thus, he uses his last night talking with his friend and a lieutenant, writes a final letter to his mother. Interspaced with all of this are various events - enlistment, initial patriotism, carnage of the battlefield, meeting German soldiers and realizing they're just ordinary people, comradeship, winter settling in, etc. Like I said, the book isn't doing anything new, but what it does, it does very well. That, and the miniatures, despite being, well, miniatures, actually lend a great sense of humanity to the piece. In part because of how they're arranged in various scenes, in part because of the writing. For instance, the line (paraphrased), "they called it the Great War, but it was little soldiers who won it."
So, yeah. Pretty well done.
