Alan Moore, �Promethea� � multiple titles
- Book 2 (Started May 16 � Finished May 16, 2004; 160 pages)
- Book 3 (Started May 29 � Finished May 29, 2004; 160 pages)
Holy fucking hell.
Perhaps I should take a bit of time to explain the rating system once again. These days, books are incredibly expensive. Walk into a Barnes and Noble and look at a mass-market paperback of Lord of the Flies and you�re looking at an eight-dollar price tag. Or even worse, they�re asking the same price for Of Mice and Men, which is all of 128 pages.
That�s insane. I take the price of the book into account when I put the final rating at the end. If a book is great, but costs WAY too much, it might get a rating of �worth used,� even though I loved it. Sometimes I will state this, but often you, as the reader with too much time on their hands, should assume that when I say something is worth used, that means it�s pretty fucking amazing.
At this point of the year, I have only said two books were worth new: Douglas Adams�, Last Chance to See And Powers: Roleplay by Brian Michael Bendis. Both these books had their new price factored into my rating, as they were both very cheap AND very good.
I don�t know why five months into the year I�ve had so few books I felt deserved the top award, but I have theories. One is that I have too many books by the same authors, and I�m starting to see too many similarities.
I have two more books left to get in the store (which I�ll be able to purchase after I finish four more books that I have at home). After this I think I�m going to concentrate on branching out a little more, and not automatically picking up the next Don DeLillo book when it comes in.
Another theory is that up until May 6, I was dating The (ex)Girlfriend, and during that time, I was enjoying my own life too much to get caught up in somebody else�s. Sappy? Well, fuck you.
That being said, let me state what these two books would rate, especially as they are by Alan Moore, an author who I�ve already reviewed several times previously.
These books, particularly book three, are worth seven million dollars each. And they are worth travelling to the store where you would pay this price by somersaulting naked over porcupines strapped to a naked Rush Limbaugh. Uphill. While wombats stick their claws into your eyes. And having Jewel songs stuck in your head during the entire trek. (Having never heard a Jewel song, I can�t vouch on how bad this would be, but it just seems like it would be fucking awful.)
There were more than a couple of times while reading that I felt confident I knew what would come next. I�ve done this for a lot of things, whether it be books, newspaper stories, or films. With these books, I was never right with my assumptions. And where he went with the plot line was always, ALWAYS, infinitely better. These books follow a story line that can be funnier than Douglas Adams in his prime, then go deeper than any philosopher that my friend Fern might wish to espouse, to something that makes the best thriller look like a comic book by Jack Chick.
And that�s the shitty thing about this. I could try to suggest this to the pink population, and for the most part, they would look at me like I had just suggested we watch all the Star Trek episodes back-to-back. The stigma of being a funny book for kids or the incredibly overweight and under-schooled in social skills still clings to these things, while the masses ask me every five minutes if we have a copy of The Da Vinci Code.
Though in the same vein, I�m glad for this. I like the fact that Oprah isn�t going to order housewives everywhere to read it. I actually like that I�ve read something this good that most people will never see in their lifetime.
I had been waiting for these to come into the store, and they never did. I assume that�s because nobody is willing to give them up. I finally got them only because I happened to get a gift certificate to a comic store for my birthday. There�s no way I�m waiting another year, or even until Christmas in the hopes that I�ll get another certificate.
Where is Rush, anyway? Time to strap up.
